50 miles strong

Yep, I ran 50 miles this week. That's 5-0... in one week. There were times that 50 miles would be my monthly total. How do I feel? Awesome! When you run that much you begin to realize that while each step takes you closer to your goal, you are still in the same place when you finish as when you started. Home.

So now what? I'm planning to do See Jane Run's Half Marathon in June. I received some very harsh, but fabulous feedback on my two submissions to the TOM romance writer's contest. I swear it was the best $25 I ever spent. The TOM judges are awesome critiquers!

So it's back to the drawing board for me. I now have to do a total re-write of 4 novels. No more queries, no more contests, no more writing samples, no more critique groups/partners until I get them done. So, my goal is to have all 4 ready for next year's TOM contest. If I happen to get any of them ready before then, then maybe I'll try my luck. We'll see.

Happy Trails!

26.2

In 4:27:10. It rained the whole time - less than a downpour, but more than a drizzle. I didn't care. I ran my marathon. Even better, I placed 5th in my age/gender division (out of 15). I was the first of the non Boston qualifiers in my group (that basically means that I ran 45 min slower than the woman who crossed the finish line before me). Yep! I'm the head of the rejects. Go me! :)

More good news... it's summer! Well, at least it's supposed to be. Mainly I'm catching up from being out of town for 3 days and find I'm buried in a pile of emails and to-do lists. 3 days off was well worth the resulting chaos though. Once I dig myself out from under my pile, I've got to figure out my running and writing plan for the summer.

The best news yet... although I did not win the Touch of Magic romance writer's challenge, I did win the latest Writer's challenge on eharlequin.com for my 1000 word short story. My prize? I get to post and grade the next one. :) So I guess I better get on that.

Maybe I am Crazy...

I started to tank at mile 15 today (need better fueling options for my long runs), but I ran just over 22. Somewhere along the way I got my second, third, and fourth wind. I think I could have actually done a marathon today. Good thing, since it's 2 weeks away! Now I get to start the blessed taper. Even better, one more week of classes, then finals, then ..... SUMMER! Hallelujah!

Forever 21.4

My 20 mile run turned into a 21.4 miler due to detours caused by flooding on the Greenbelt. But, I did it. That is the furthest I have ever run. It hurt, but I survived. I'm starting to feel a bit more optimistic about the probability that I can actually run a marathon. It won't be pretty and it will hurt, but I now believe I can do it. Only 3 more weeks to go.

The funny thing is how people respond to you when you tell them you are going to run a marathon. People that don't know me very well are super supportive and think it's cool. My family thinks I need to get my head checked.... While true, it doesn't stop the fact that I do plan to run this thing. :)

Thank you to the bystanders that cheer for us

I ran my second half marathon (Salt Lake City Half) of the year today with my wonderful colleague and friend Elizabeth. What was so special about this race?
1) it was mostly downhill - always a good thing
2) it was Elizabeth's first half marathon and she did awesome
3) there were friends there for us at the finish line
4) the SLC police did a wonderful job keeping the roads clear for the race
5) the entire route was filled with people on the sidelines cheering, ringing cowbells, passing out water from their houses, handing out brownies, and just generally keeping us going strong. So this is my shout out to all of those folks who took time out of their Saturday morning to be there for a bunch of anonymous strangers. We couldn't have done it without you!

Slippin' and a Slidin'

The good news is that despite the muddy, rainy, windy mess that was Dry Creek Half Marathon this year, I only fell once. And they went back to finishers medals (instead of finishers shirts), which was fine with me - anyone that finishes that race deserves a medal in my book.

Even with the condition, it wasn't my worst time ever - that was Dry Creek 2 years ago and the conditions were as bad if not worse this year, so I'm putting that down in my book as an improved race.

The bad news is that I did not finish book 3 of my romance series this week. It's getting there, but it's not done. I did send out a bunch more queries on PG though and entered Rule #17 into a contest. Wish me luck!

It's raining cats and dogs .. oh wait, that's just hail

Unintentional run #2

Jeff and I decided to take the dogs for a walk this afternoon. The light drizzle when we started quickly turned to rain and then lots of rain and then hail. So we decided to run home (well, run/walk as Jeff isn't a big runner). Anyway, I probably ended up doing close to 17.5 miles today. Good to know I can run on tired, achy legs.

More good news, one of my favorite authors (H.P. Mallory) who self-published her first three books just got an agent and a book deal and is now hosting an awesome contest to celebrate: http://urbanfantasyauthor.blogspot.com/2011/03/win-amazon-or-barnes-and-noble-gift.html

She gives all of us wanna be published writers hope!

And, I discovered coconut water today as a recovery aid (good alternative to gatorade for those of us who don't do sugar and chemicals) - and it tastes great! It's also pretty expensive though ($2/serving at the Co-op), so I am looking on-line for cheaper places to get it.

It's official

I signed up to run the Capital City Marathon in Olympia, WA on Sunday May 15th. I did 16.3 this morning (33 for the whole week, which is a pretty high mileage week for me). It hurt, but I felt like I could have done more - maybe not 10 more, but more. Next weekend is Dry Creek Half Marathon, then it's an 18 the weekend after that, then Salt Lake City Half, then 20.... The miles keep rolling by.

The other piece of good news is that I am officially on Spring Break. My goal for the week is to finish book 3 of my romance series and send out 10 more queries on book 1. Wish me luck!

14 down, 12.2 more to go

I ran 14 miles today. It's the furthest I've run since last Fall. I was tired and my quads were sore, but I felt like I could have done more if I had to. Maybe not 12.2 more, but more nonetheless. It gives me hope.

I wish I could say that the rest of my new year's goals were going as well as my running, but unfortunately, they're not. (You probably guessed that from the fact that it's been awhile since I blogged.) Still no requests for partials on either of my queries and I still haven't finished book 3 or revised my first YA. I have started book 4 and another YA, but progress has halted on those as of late as well. Too much work work, too little writing time. Spring (and almost even better, Spring Break) are coming up quickly. Maybe I can finally make some progress on my non-running (and running) goals during my week 'off.'

My race countdown has begun. Two weeks to Dry Creek Half Marathon, four weeks to Salt Lake City Half Marathon (I lucked out that there happened to be a race the weekend I have to be there for a conference, even though it means I'll miss Robie. :(  ), 8 weeks to Famous Potato or Capital City (whichever marathon I decide to do). Woohoo!

Then it's back to the business of trying to get pregnant.

Wish me luck on all fronts!

When in doubt, start a new book

One of my fellow AQers got 74 rejections before she finally got an Agent interested. With 25 rejections on PG, 8 on Rule #17, and 5 on Emily Foster (my YA that I want to go back and redo before I send it out again), I'm halfway there. So in addition to getting 2 of those rejections today, I also sent out 10 new queries on Rule #17. I figure the faster I rack up the rejections, the closer I am to getting somewhere.

In the meantime I am following the worst advice possible and abandoning (temporarily) my third romance to start my fourth. It's the first real writing I've done in close to a month.

At least I've had better luck running... I'm still on track there.

When is "good enough" good enough?

In the publishing world, it seems like it never is, but maybe that's my perfectionism or latest series of rejections talking. I did get a request for the first 5 pages of PG, but two days later got a standard rejection on that. Sigh.

In the meantime, I've noticed more and more agents asking for a synopsis upfront, so I'm off to write two of those: one for PG and one for Rule #17. It turns out though that a synopsis isn't just a synopsis. There are several different synopses that could be requested: http://agentqueryconnect.com/index.php?/page/index.html/_/query-letters-tips/thepitch/whats-your-book-about-r19#comments. The moral of the story seems to be start big and hack away. Here's to hacking! Or I guess I should stay here's to starting - I'll hack later.

My marathon training plan:
Monday - 4 mi E w/ 6*30 sec @T pace
Tuesday - walk 2.5 mi
Wed - 3 mi E, 1 mi T
Thursday - bike 30 min - knee hurt again, so there goes the bike again for now
Friday - 3 mi E
Saturday - 8 mi @ HMP

The Good, the Bad, and the Technology, Part II

I finally got my clickers working (yay!) - some glitch in the new software or something like that. But when I polled my students about creating a Facebook or Twitter account for the class, they voted it right down. I guess I don't blame them as it would have given them one more thing to do. So there goes my technology in the classroom goal ... for now. Maybe my Fall class will feel differently.

The good news is... no rejection letters this week. The bad news is that's because I haven't sent any queries out in a couple of weeks. I am still perfectly my query for Porcelain Goddess on AQ (love that site: http://agentqueryconnect.com/index.php?/forum/2-query-critiques/). When it's ready, I'm going to send it out to the agent who gave me such great feedback on my Rule #17 query. I also added a prologue to Rule #17 to better explain why my main character is such a bitch. Hopefully that will help it sell...

My marathon training plan (week 4):
M - 3 mi E w/ 4*20 sec @ T pace
Tu - walked 2.5 mi (really tired)
W - 3 mi E w/ 4*40 sec hill repeats
Th - bike - Tempo - 30 min (knee hurt all day after that)
F - 3 mi E
Sa - 6 mi @ HMP

Infertility in Idaho

In the past week, I found out that 3 people I know are pregnant (the last one being yesterday). While I am super excited for them, I couldn't help but ponder the irony this morning that while everyone I know (yes, this is an exaggeration) seems to be pregnant, I spent most of the past week on the couch with heat on my belly to alleviate the worst cramps I've had in years. I know I shouldn't be bummed and I realize that you can't train for a marathon while trying to get pregnant, but you can still be sad about it when you're not. So today is my pity party day. I'll get over it and I'll keep on running and writing (when I'm not doubled over in pain), but for now I'm gonna shed a few tears.

The Good, the Bad, and the Technology

This has not been my week, technology speaking. Not only have I still not gotten Twitter to work in the classroom, but my clickers didn't work all week either. For those of you who have no idea what a clicker is, it's a little remote control-like device that students can use to 'click' in their responses to questions I post on Powerpoint. It's great for large classes because everyone can have a voice. That is, when they work. Turning Point, who makes the clicker software, just came out with a new version and we think that's the problem. So I'm going to take my laptop (which has an older version) to class next week to see if I can get something technologywise to work in my classroom!

I also managed to rack up three more rejections on Rule #17 and 1 more on TTBI. The good news is that I also received valuable feedback on both. Apparently, my main character in Rule #17 is not compassionate enough (which makes since given she could vie for the Olympic bitch of the year award were their one). I'm not about to make her less bitchy as that is just her character (and the inner bitch in all of us), but it looks like I at least to explain why she's the way she is. So I'm going to add a prologue to fix that. The other piece of good advice I received this week was about the title of TTBI. Apparently, having the word 'toilet' in my book title is a big turnoff. It was suggested by some of my fabulous critiquers on AQ (see previous blog) that I change the title to Porcelain Goddess. I love it! So I am now reworking my query to that end.

The really good news is that I just found an author I love who self-publishes on Amazon: H.P. Mallory (hpmallory.com). I bought her first book because it sounded like it might be interesting and to just see what  self-published book was like. They really did a nice job over at Amazon. You could tell it wasn't done by a big publisher (glue obvious on the binding, type a little offset), but it wasn't just some pages in a binder, which is what I expected. Anyway, if I can't get an agent interested in any of my stuff soon, I may try that route. H.P. Mallory is a real talent and if it's good enough for her...

Marathon Training Plan, Week 4:
Monday - 3 mi E w/ 4*20sec Tempo pace
Tuesday - bike 30 min
Wednesday - 3 mi E w/ 3*30-60sec hill repeats
Thursday - 20 min bike
Friday - 3 mi E
Saturday - 6 mi

Sometimes You're the Stoop, Sometimes You're the Pigeon

Okay, so I haven't done quite as well this week with my goals. I got my running goals met for the week (yay!), but that's about it.

I did manage to get 7 rejections from literary agents this week: 5 on Rule #17 and 2 on TTBI, which is apparently not uncommon (and you get toilet paper made out of your rejection letters if you want, which would be appropriate given my first romance is called the toilet bowl incidents: http://www.lulu.com/static/pr/9_26_05.php).  I'm going to send out more today - more fodder for toilet paper if nothing else. :)

I only got my 15 minutes of morning meditation in 4 days this week (including today) and my 5 afternoon minutes twice (but hey, the day's not over yet).

Finally, I tried and failed to get Twitter working in my classroom. Technology loves me! (Sarcasm duly noted.)

Here's to a better week next week!

My marathon training plan, week 2:
Monday - run - 1 mi E, 2 * 20 sec intervals @ half marathon pace(HMP)  in 1 mi (slick so couldn't go faster), 1 mi E
Tuesday -  bike - 35 min Tempo
Wednesday - 3 mi E with 2*45sec hill repeats
Thursday - 45 min walk (yeah, I was really tired and lazy that day)
Friday - 3 mi E
Saturday - 6 mi @ HMP

6 down, 20 more to go

Some days 6 miles feels incredibly short and easy; some days it seems insurmountable. Today was one of those insurmountable days. But running is like life...there are ups and downs, good days and not so good ones, good runs and days like today.

The most important thing is that I achieved my goal and am still making progress toward my New Year's Goals.

1) My Marathon Training plan, Week 1
Monday - 1 mi Easy, 4* 20sec intervals, 1.2 mi Easy
Tuesday - tempo bike - 35 min
Wednesday - 3.1 miles easy
Thursday - tempo bike - 35 min
Friday - 3.33 miles easy
Saturday - 6 miles @ half marathon race pace

2) I successfully meditated every day this week - 15 min am, 5 pm - Yay me!

3) I submitted the latest version of my query letter to 6 new agents for my first romance - the Toilet Bowl Incidents and submitted my second romance (Rule #17) to 7 agents (first time submitting this one). Wish me luck! I also want to give a shout out to AgentQuery connect for helping me solidify/improve my query letters and to webook for making the whole submission process a lot easier. If you ever decided to publish a novel  or anything for that matter, check these sites out:

http://www.webook.com/literary-agents/agentInboxHome.aspx
http://agentqueryconnect.com/

4) Hey - I'm still blogging. :)

Thanks for following and keep on running and writing!

First Race of the Year

There's nothing better (from a runner's perspective) than kicking off the new year with a race. So I took advantage of our local New Year's 5K. I was 30 sec slower than last year's time, but considering the banner year I had last year (note the sarcasm), I was very happy with my time. I even came in 4 minutes faster than I predicted. Can't beat that!

On the plus side, I ran 956.4 miles last year, which beat 2009's total of 914.5 miles. So I may be slower, but I can go longer. Endurance is more important to me as I age anyway.

Next up: Dry Creek Half Marathon. This will be the 4th time I've run it (I think - I'm starting to lose track) and it should be a good training race on my way to the the big 26.2.