Still Here!!!

I know, I know. I'm supposed to be posting at some sort of vaguely regulated intervals. But I'm not. As evidenced by my absence.

What I've been up to:

Working! And loving work.

Weddings... not mine (yeah, right :)

The Writer's Voice Contest! I got four requests from participating agents and was ninja'd by an after-contest lurking agent. *squee*

Getting rejected... one from one of the WV agents (very fast turnaround, and form letter, so they were very obviously totally uninterested) and one by a agent I had queried some time ago. She was very nice, but her rejection left me reaching for chocolate because she said things like 'the story wasn't progressing as quickly as I would like' and 'the characters needed further development' in addition to having issues with a few other things which led me to believe that she just didn't 'get' the story, in part. It wouldn't have bothered me nearly so much, but I'd just finished laboriously plowing through a book that was 'acclaimed' that I found INCREDIBLY boring (nothing happened. I mean NOTHING) and which had completely flat characters, so I inadvertently committed that Cardinal sin of looking at the 'acclaimed' book, and my own ms and thinking WHAT DID THEY DO THAT I HAVEN'T??? IT'S NOT FAIR!!! Yeah, fast forward to a few hours and I got over it. Though I AM eager to hear something from other agents and see if they say anything about story progression and character development. Because that'll tell me whether I need to check myself or not.

Sending out queries!

And finally, WRITING!!! I'm about 3/4 done with the first draft of Rivana of the Twains and it feels SO FREAKING GOOD to be writing again! I'm still not sure if Rivana has what it takes (or the potential to have what it takes) to be marketable, but I love the story and we'll see how it looks after the first transcription edit.

Oh, also, I am now the mother of a pitcher plant, named Bruce, and Venus fly trap named Hannibal... Pictures to follow at a later date.

The Writer's Voice

Query:

Dear Amazing Agent,

Take one shy albino guy named Ansel. Add his two younger brothers, and an injured runaway girl with a hidden past. Shake thoroughly and stand back because things are going to get interesting fast.

Letting the nameless girl with the banged-up ankle sleep in his parents’ book shed for one night *seemed* like a good idea. But Catskin, as Ansel nicknames her, needs more than shelter. She needs someone to help her figure out how rejoin society. Prone to panic attacks and acts of defensive violence, she turns out to be as dangerous as she is fragile. Slowly, the sweetly strange Catskin begins to find a sense of normality and the bond she and Ansel already share blossoms into a mutual attraction.

Then an accident leaves Catskin hovering between life and death. Pressured by doctors, Ansel contacts her estranged parents, reconnecting her with the life she left behind. His actions provoke a shocking confrontation between the wealthy world Catskin was born into, and the starkly average one she now shares with Ansel. When Catskin’s overbearing parents use hospital policy to force their daughter’s return, Ansel takes the drastic measure of kidnapping Cat in order to give her a chance at freedom.

A Contemporary YA inspired by the fairy tale Catskin, GONE MISSING GIRL is complete at 85,000 words.

I have had five poems published in the anthology Poetry Pact 2011 (Volume 1) and several short stories published in the online magazine Underneath the Juniper Tree. In addition, I have had two nonfiction short stories published in the magazine ‘laJoie’. I am a member of SCBWI.

Thank you very much for your time and attention

Happy reading,

Artemis Grey

First 250:

 I have never been that guy. You know, the one surrounded by adventure and covered in awesomesauce. That would be my younger brother, Ethan.

 But Ethan wasn’t in the book shed that night.

 I was.

 It’s not like you get to pick and choose life-altering events the way you do socks from the bargain bin.

 I went out to the shed for a bottle of spine glue.

 Simple, right?

 But when I flipped on the overheads, I found a shrunken zombie lurking just inside the doorway.

 *Insert very macho scream*

 Right about then the broom slid sideways, hitting the light switch and leaving me stranded in the dim twilight of the Alaskan summer.

 Lovely.

 When my brain wasn’t immediately harvested, I took several deep breaths. Convinced myself that I had not, in fact, just seen a zombie in the book shed. Turned the light back on.

 It was still there.

 But it wasn’t a zombie. It was a girl.

 Filthy, tangled, rumpled and undersized, but definitely female. Definitely alive. Her mouth hung partway open now, eyes wide, yet disturbingly empty. Like her entire body was deserted. The void inside her yawned at me. A sort of awful maw that might chew me up, if I got within reach.

 Which, I had no intention of doing.

 Hell, I couldn’t even find my voice to bother asking who she was, where she’d come from or why she was in there.

 Of course, she wasn’t exactly a Chatty Cathy, herself.

Everywhere And Nowhere All At The Same Time...

This will be a short post. Mostly because I'm really just wasting time while my laptop charges (it's an old laptop and sometimes refuses to charge and since it's willing to charge right now while I'm holding it open, I'm obliged to sit here for a little longer and let it keep charging) but also because it's been probably too long since I last posted.

So, what have you been up to, internet world?

As for me, I've been:

Writing on a new WIP, tentatively titled Rivana of the Twains. It's a fantasy (YA, of course) and right now, I'm madly in love with it. Tough to tell at this juncture whether it will be genuinely unique and marketable, but the important thing is it''s rekindling my passions. I'm stealing moments to write just one more sentence, and jotting down little notes on pasty pads while at work. I'd forgotten how freaking good that feels.

Working at the shop. Still loving it. Still learning. Things are great so far. I have, as of yet, avoided breaking any anvils... but give it time... *crosses fingers that I never *actually* manage to break an anvil*

I still have fulls of Gone Missing Girl out so several agents. So glad that they're 'out there' but I'm not hulking over my inbox. It's enough that they're in the works. I've got work and the new WIP to keep me busy. But it means the world just to have stuff with agents.

Getting feedback from a new critique partner... (THANK YOU CHRISTI!!!) which is a little frightening but mostly made of awesome because it means new eyes on my stuff and a new angle on things. Opens up an entire world of possibilities, one which I'm super excited about.

Also, I've watched the Boston Marathon tragedy unfold. Wept over the dead and injured. Selfishly wept a little more over the knowledge that friends who desperately wanted to run, failed to qualify and subsequently weren't there to be endangered. Watched the capture of the second suspect. Laughed at my niece, code name Walelu, and forgot about being sad. Laughed at Mad Max and forgot about being sad. Wrapped my cousin's fiance in toilet paper during Easter games, then got wrapped myself in a toilet paper wedding gown during a bridal shower for the same cousin. Caught the bouquet of a friend, which I did NOT want to catch, but was forced to in order to avoid getting the bouquet implanted in my front teeth :) Saw War Horse, and was less than impressed. Blech all around. Not to slight anyone who loved it.

So, yeah, been busy. Not been around very much on the internet, but been around in general. All right, off to write, and edit and all of that. See you round internet!