Personality Type Survey

A visitor's comment gave me the idea of hosting a Myers-Briggs personality type poll; it will be fun to see the distribution of personalities that visit a writing blog. So, feel free to contribute, bottom right column. If you don't know your Myers-Briggs personality type yet, visit this website and peruse the choices. When you start feeling chills up your spine or begin casting clandestine glances over your shoulder to find the hidden cameras, you'll know you found your match.

The website is also a useful resource for characterization.

Quoteworthy Quotes

I always wanted to be somebody…I guess I should have been more specific. –Lilly Tomlin

There's nothing like a lifetime of dabbling among diseased carcasses and lethal bacteria for breeding tranquility of mind. –James Harriot

I don't know anything. –Socrates

Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also. –Marcus Aurelius

The body of Benjamin Franklin, printer, like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out, and stripped of its lettering and gilding, lies here, food for worms. But the work shall not be lost, for it will, as he believed, appear once more in a new and more elegant edition, corrected and improved By the Author. –Ben Franklin's Epitaph

I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve -Bilbo Baggins
 

WIP (Work in Progress)

I got the inspirational kick I needed to start blogging from QueryTracker.net. If you sign in and click on commenter names, it takes you to a profile of that person. I always get excited if there is a blog link. You can learn a lot about the competition that way (conniving grin). Kidding. Actually, I need all the help I can get since I'm relatively new to the fiction writing world. I owe many blogs and the people behind them a big thank you for guiding me in the right direction. So, THANK YOU, fellow bloggers and website keepers, for your generously imparted wisdom.

I got the inspirational kick I needed to start writing YA fiction when I visited my in-laws last summer. My husband and I took over his sister's room and I made the mistake of starting TWILIGHT, which I found on her bookshelf. I didn't see much of my in-laws that visit. I was intrigued by Stephenie Meyer's success story and, like many-a-sucker, thought to myself as I flipped the final page, "heck, I can do that…"

It's ok, I can laugh at myself now. After all, how rewarding would life be if we knew everything from the starting block? It's the journey that counts, right? That's what I keep telling myself—it's the long, dusty, winding, bumpy, carsick-invoking, dead-end laden, backtracking-filled journey that counts. Maybe someday it'll count for something other than mileage.

So, numerous grand ideas and false starts (i.e. eight months) later, I finished my manuscript. And the query letter. (Special thanks to Query Shark…though not too special—they declined featuring my query, *sniff,* though I probably would have been sniffling anyways had they featured it…harsh harsh harsh). I have one full manuscript with an agent right now (my first), and many more rejections ('bout 30) in the ol' inbox. I'm hoping for some helpful comments at best if I ever get the manuscript back.

Which leaves me at a crossroads—a dusty one—of what to focus on next. Write the sequel? Start something new? Gamble with spicy revisions? Rework the query letter? So many options, and no guidepost. Guess I'll just wait it out for the manuscript and hope it comes back with some hints. If that doesn't help, there are always more blogs to peruse for ideas…

Getting Started

I thought it might be interesting to try out this blogging thing. I read other blogs often enough and thoroughly enjoy those experiences, though at times it feels a bit like snooping through the pages of private journals. Maybe that's why it's so fun. Still, reading other's thoughts and ideas is one thing; throwing my own out there for examination and scrutinization is a whole other ballpark.

I'm going to cheat here and let Myers-Briggs introduce me. Creepiest day of my life was reading their description of the INFP personality type. I started looking around for the hidden cameras. Seriously, how could they know me, and apparently all those other people somewhere out there exactly like me, that well? It was like I was an unknowing participant in an observation study—they had me down pat. (Hit it Shrek! [insert music note here] "And then I saw my face" do do da do "now I'm a believer" do do da do…) Ok, stopping.

My favorite part was Myers-Briggs confirming I have a natural propensity for writing. My dad is a writer, and I'm a lot like him, but somewhere along the line I went off the deep end and majored in biology. Then I found myself and got a job as a biology content writer. That was fun. Now I'm writing YA (young adult) novels in my abundant spare time. That's even funner. More fun. Whatever. Maybe in a few years I'll try writing OA (old adult) novels. I'll query it just like that, too. (In Brian Regan voice: "Will you read my old adult novel?...PLEASE?...It's for old people. Like you.") That'll go well.

So I guess that's me in a very small and slightly cracking nutshell. Stay "tuned" for more funness (insert music note here) just around the river bend! (Stop groaning).