Lia Sebastian » FanLit

Update

Lia Sebastian — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 04:04:00 +0000

My latest Avon Fan Lit entry didn’t make the top 10. I was pretty disappointed, but I rebounded quickly. I’ll wait until seeing the requirements for the next chapter before I decide whether to try again.

In the meantime, I’m focusing my energy on revising The Seventh Sense and on plotting my NaNoWriMo story. The Seventh Sense is with two test readers, and I’m planning to submit it to Cobblestone Press by the end of the month. It will be my first paranormal, although the paranormal aspect is a bit unusual. If CP accepts the story, I’ll post a blurb so you can see what it’s about.

I’ve been listening to the latest Evanescence CD. I love that group–their music is amazing.

Write It Again

Lia Sebastian — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 14:02:00 +0000

Amazingly enough, I’ve gathered the courage to enter another round of the Avon Fan Lit chapter. My first entry was for chapter 1, and it ranked 61 out of 513. I opted out of the second round. My new chapter is for the third round, and I think it’s quite a bit stronger than the first one.

Here’s something that puzzles me. When you enter a chapter, there is a place to see the latest rating your chapter has received. Ratings run from 0 to 5, and apparently I give higher scores than other people do. If the writing is good, I give nothing lower than a 3. I’m fairly certain my writing is solid and in some cases (I hope) funny, so it confuses me to see scores of 1, 1.5, and 2.

There’s a place for people to comment, but my comments are largely positive, so I don’t know why some people score it low.

Oh, well. I’m going to try and be less obsessive about checking scores this time around. Wish me luck!

Being Brave

Lia Sebastian — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 02:00:00 +0000

After a lot of internal debate, I decided to enter the Avon Fan Lit contest. I just uploaded my chapter and it’s ready for rating. Putting your work out there is always a bit anxiety-inducing. In this case, it’s more so because of the sheer number of people who can read and rate it. It’s gotten a couple of comments so far, both more positive than negative. We’ll see how this goes.

I was feeling a bit awkward about whether to let people know about it. I’ve never been fond of the “click here and vote for me” approach to things because it feels too much like a popularity contest. But once I finalized my entry, I ended up at a page allowing me to invite 25 friends to read and rate it. This levels the playing field somewhat, so I decided to announce it. I’ve invited about 10 people so far, so if you’re interested in taking a look, send me a message with your e-mail address and I’ll send one of the remaining invitations to you.

The subject line of this blog comes from my niece, who more than once has said, “Be brave.” I think she got it from Scooby-Doo. It was pretty cute when she said it, and it’s good advice too.