On Writing & Publishing by Robin D. Owens

Personal notes on writing techniques, writing a novel, my writing career and threading your way through publishing a book.

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Location: Denver, United States

RITA Award Winning Author -- that's like the Oscar, folks! Futuristic/Fantasy Romance and Fantasy with Romantic Subplots.

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Thursday, June 17, 2010

Word Count

Ah, the old topic wordcount. Naturally I've figured out how much to do per day to get Heart Search done by mid-October and 3 Heart novellas done by the end of the year.

And it doesn't seem too much. However. This is a DAILY count, which means EVERY DAY. It doesn't take into account anything happening other than writing during the day such as copy edits or page proofs or working on other proposals or anything else.

So far (this week) all is going smoothly. I am happy to be back in the Heart universe (though Heart Search is Laev's story and 15 years later than Genista's). So I'm hoping the trend will continue.

May you enjoy your work and your play today.
Robin

4 Comments:

Blogger Tannun said...

You mentioned in an earlier post, that you got your third agent around the time you sold Heart Thief, why change so often, and I thought agents were hard to get!

You said you entered the books in contests, which contest?

How old were you when you started writing seriously? I noticed you had other jobs. Did you always write, or just think you could write, and decide one day to prove it ;)

2:53 AM  
Blogger FantasyAuthor RobinDOwens said...

A bad agent is worse than no agent at all. My first agent started out good and then turned bad (I think she was an alcoholic). I would make contacts and she wouldn't follow up. I was one of her clients she burned least.

My second agent was part of a high-profile agency, but decided that the career wasn't for her. No one else at the agency believed I was really a client of theirs.

My third agent I got after HeartMate was published and up for a RITA. I'd queried about 10 more in 2001 and only Deidre and I really fit (ok, I was rejected by 9 and didn't think the 10th and I fit since, at the time, she was more interested in the historicals I'd written).

I wrote bits and pieces of novels and stories since I was a child. Did a few short stories for sf mags that didn't sell. Finally a long term relationship that I was dedicating about 75% of my creativity to broke up and I took a creative writing class from my mentor. After that I wrote seriously for about 8-9 years before I sold.

I had a day job until I was laid off as part of budget constraints and I decided to try and live on my writing. I'm living on writing, second mortgage and savings. So if you know any pirates out there, tell 'em I need every penny I get from my work.

Don't they expect to be paid for their work?

Dems da facts from my POV.
Robin

8:47 AM  
Blogger FantasyAuthor RobinDOwens said...

Woops, contests.

I entered a lot of contests. Sometimes I'd win, sometimes I'd final, sometimes I wouldn't even place (pretty much like now). The contest that helped me was the Wisconsin Fabulous Five. There are many, many contests done by RWA chapters with editors/agents as judges.

Robin

8:49 AM  
Anonymous Susan said...

Yay! Three novellas and Laev's story. I can hardly wait.

6:13 AM  

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