Monday, October 19, 2009

GO FOR THE GOLD Challenge



Meet the Ruby-Slippered Sisterhood, the 2009 Golden Heart Finalists.

For anyone who is interested, The Sisterhood is currently posting daily blogs with hints to make your potential Golden Heart(R) entry shine. Check it out. They may have exactly the advice you need.(http://www.rubyslipperedsisterhood.com)

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Go For The Gold

I adore my sisters, both the 2007 Bond Girls and my 2009 RSS sisters, and look forward to expanding my GH family in 2010(if you're going to dream, dream BIG,) but didn't want to recycle the story that has already finaled twice. What to do?

I have a story eating a hole in my brain. It is the prequel to the one I've entered previously. Needless to say, I've been thinking about this story, these characters, for a while. They want their day in the sun, and now's the time to give it to them.

Projected length 100,000 words.

So far, I have five. You read that right. Five. The first line.

The Golden Heart deadline is 2 December 2010. Although registration remains open until 16 November, once I finish this post, I'm on my way to the RWA web site to register (nothing like having something to lose to push you to the limit.)

THE CHALLENGE

Anyone needing (or wanting) to finish, edit, or polish a manuscript for the GH is welcome to come along for the ride. The only caveats: You must register for the GH (That something to lose weighs heavy on committment.) You must try to keep yourself healthy despite the pressure: Stretching, walking, bathroom breaks at least once an hour. (Very hard to function with your blood pooled in your butt, folks. Get it circulating.) And you will post, first, your goals on this blog, then report your progress---whether daily, every other day, twice a week, or weekly is entirely up to you.

The object is to help each other achieve, to know we aren't alone. My 100K is the catalyst. Surely knowing I have so much more to write than many of you will get you doing your ABC's (Apply Butt to Chair) and reaching for the prize.

Good luck ladies.

On your mark.

Get set.

GO!!!!

7 comments:

Gwynlyn said...

Okay, I'm registered. Now to give those 5 words 195,000 siblings.

Gwynlyn said...

Make that 95,000 siblings. (Have six digits on the brain, I think!)

Christine said...

I'm in--I registered to send two GH's and sent off a fairly polished MS two weeks ago.

Now the real work begins. The current WIP is in major revision--lots of questions about it, but I need a partial by the end of the year for a request, sooooo.....

My goals for the week are to get the first 5 chapters laid down, again, layer in more depth. Export them from Scrivener to WORD, print and read through over the weekend.

Continue editing next week. I'm entered in a contemporary series/category. I have 55,000 words. But would like to add about 5,000 more.

Good luck with the word siblings!

Gwynlyn said...

Welcome aboard, Christine.

Excellent goals.

I finished the rough prologue, so on to chapter 1

Gwynlyn said...

Have I mentioned math isn't my strong suit? Only I can subtract 5 from 100,000 and come up with 95,000. So, it's was more like 99,995 before I hammered out the prologue. I'll post the actual numbers later---after I finish chapter one (where we meet the hero!)

Christine said...

And to add to my plate of wonderfulness, I got a request for a full today from an agent I queried... add that to my list of to-do stuff tomorrow.

On Chapter 3.

And your math totally worked for me. I delude myself into thinking I have less to do that way all the time... I am not a math girl.

Good luck!

Gwynlyn said...

Only 1000 words, so far. Openings are so difficult---and this one is a whopper, but should garner some interest. Tomorrow will probably not be much better as I prepare to go away to NJRW this weekend, but once I get back, my nose will be against the grindstone (it's getting too big anyway! ;-))