As an unpublished writer, you need to have a complete manuscript before you submit to an editor or an agent, because a lot of people start books and never finish them. (I was one of those people myself until 2003!) They're not going to take on anyone who hasn't proved she can finish a book. And you want to have it as polished as you can make it just because the competition is so tough at all levels.

I'm not agented yet myself, but I've been studying up on the process obsessively of late.

ETA--you'd never submit the whole novel to the agent right off. It's either a query letter or query plus synopsis and partial, depending on that agency's preference. But you want to be sure you have the whole novel, because if they call and ask for the full and you don't have it ready to send out, you're screwed.

Susan, true, I forget that. If you haven't published before, you'd best have it done before querying, because they want to make damned sure you'll finish it.

Good advice, thanks. That's rather what I thought.

Speaking of, someone slap me and tell me to go write and not play on the internet anymore until I've produced at least six pages today. Because I told that editor when I sent my partial that it was a complete manuscript (it is), in the middle of an edit (also true), and that I'd be through with the edit by 12/31 (not gonna be true unless I get off my ass but quickly).

I've got grave doubts now that Lucy will ever be a marketable manuscript. But I can damn well sacrifice most of my playtime for the next three weeks to make sure I don't get myself on the Signet/NAL blacklist as a ditzy writer who doesn't do what she says she'll do, just in case the editor does request the full next month.

Susan, it's a laudable idea, but if she does ask for the entire thing next month? You've got a few week's leeway with it. Asking for a full doesn't mean they expect it by Fed Ex the next day.

Yeah, but I figure I'd need that leeway to give it one last edit. For now I'm just trying to get to the end. Also, the sooner I finish, the sooner I can get back to Anna, which I'm aching to do.

t really disappearing for now

Drabblement: The End (A scene from the end of a novel I didn't finish yet.)

Behind him, her corpse begins to crumble into dust as the last drops of blood vanish into the blade of the spear. His mouth works, silently, as if tasting something bitter. The spear begins to smoke in his hand as he walks towards the door.

In the courtyard, harshly illuminated by the failing shield over the city, he looks up at the angel. Its inhuman song shakes the city's foundations, and the defending wizards start bursting into flame.

"Time for the main course, fucker."

The spear whines eagerly and pulls at his hand like a dog on a leash.

Well, I wrote my six pages, and also started the laundry, ate the dinner DH made, cleaned the bathroom, and took turns wrangling the baby. So as a reward I made a pair of drabbles. Like my previous one on this theme, they're not anywhere near the end of the story, just incidents the characters view as endpoints. And I'm proud to say they're exactly 100 words apiece. Usually I settle for anywhere in the ballpark.

Going Home

For twelve years the regiment has been his only home. He wonders if it’s too late to become any other kind of man than a soldier.

Dan and Maria are the last to say goodbye. He shakes Dan’s hand, and they embrace.

“The Royal Oak in Market Stratton,” he says. “Come find me, when this is over.”

“You’ll be there?”

“They’ll know where I am.”

“Will you look for your Dulcinea?” Maria asks.

“That’d be mad,” he says.

“That didn’t stop you before.”

Dan raises an eyebrow. “Do you know where to find her?”

He knows. But he’s no madman.

Unmasked

“It’s a woman!”

Five years of nightmares come to pass in an instant. Her shirt torn, all eyes upon her. She clutches the tattered remnants across her bosom and thinks fast. When they put her ashore she’ll run away, take a different alias, find another ship. Maybe a privateer, much as she’d hate to leave the navy.

And then Captain Edwards is there, with Will beside him. She hates the compassion in Will’s eyes.

“Sir, she’s a lady.”

“That much is evident, Lieutenant.”

“That’s not quite what I meant, sir. She’s Lady Elizabeth Fielding.”

Damn him. Damn him to hell.

Very nice, Susan. Very evocative of your stories.

JC, you realize now you're going to have to post the whole thing, if you have to do it in a series of 100-word drabbles. I want to know the rest--how he got there, who she was, what happens next...

Ah, Monday, when the leaves turn color, the swallows return to Capistrano, and the new drabble topic shows its pretty face to the world....

(Okay, 1 out of 3 ain't bad.)

Challenge #35 ("The End") is now closed.

Challenge #36 was begging to be a timely topic: Holiday Hell. Oh, yes. You know you want to.