I’ve just killed off one of my characters. Not in the “It was a dark and stormy night” sort of way, but in a “poof, she’s gone” sort of way. I was never all that in love with her, anyway. In fact, she kind of irritated me – she was a bit of a jellyfish as far as teenage girls go. I mean, she wore Gap khakis and pastel button down shirts and said things like “Anna, you really ought to think about that.” What kind of teenage girl says “ought?” Freakishly unnatural.

It’s kind of a big deal, killing this girl off. She’s been with me and the rest of the girls for two years. But she just wasn’t advancing the story, so she had to go. Delete delete delete… It’s like she never existed. It was kind of liberating in a way. Now I have some new directions to go in (and some major rewriting to do).

I also have 19 days to put together a 2-paragraph synopsis of the book (erm… it’s about a girl, and there’s this other girl, and, uh…), a query letter (Dear Mr./s. Agent: Please pick me. I rite real good. Even my mom loves my stories. Thank you.) and a bio. I think the bio is the worst part. What can I say? I’ve published nothing, submitted nothing, finished nothing, but I read a lot, and I write a lot, and I’m a good vegetarian cook. What’s not to love? (*smile*)

I’m in trouble. I don’t even know where to begin.

“It was a dark and stormy night.”

Damn, I have a lot of work to do!