Miranda Rae Carter
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What do you hear? What do you see? What do you know?

9/16/2012

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Hi Everyone,

At my RWA-GVC meeting yesterday, Kate Austin, our president, talked about inspiration.

What inspires you?

For me it is, without a doubt, music. This may sound strange, but different chapters of my book required certain types of music. I couldn't write the climax listening to something happy and uplifting; I needed something dark and intense. Not soon enough, and after much frustration with other songs, I recalled this amazing score from the movie "The Other Boleyn Girl" called The Execution, by Paul Cantelon. Something about the symphony, when I downloaded to it from iTunes (also remembering the scene in the movie), gave me all the goosebumps and hairs standing on the back of my neck I needed to write the chase, fight and death scene in my book. Even more chilling, were flashbacks my memory served me of my visit, years ago, to The Tower of London, and the moment I stood where Anne Boleyn was executed.  As I wrote the climax of BTS, listening to that score, it took all of four hours. Up until that point, I'd struggle furiously for two weeks, writing and deleting like crazy, in an attempt to decide exactly what would happen in that scene. I'm terrible for changing, changing, and changing again until I get that "YES!" in my head.

Other scenes and chapters in my book were written to Carter Burwell, Howard Shore, Yiruma, Beethoven, Mozart, and most importantly, Jessita Reyes. Jessita's native american flute accounts for 75% of my writing music; whenever I see scenes in my head that involve the Rion and Malions, I always hear that beautiful flute and the crickets in the background. Moon on the Water was on permanent repeat for quite a few nights, especially while I wrote the first few scenes where Liss is below with Rion after her accident. I like to think of Jessita Reyes' music as my secret weapon for writing. :)

My other inspiration is food. What's writing without a few snacks in hand? My favourite are those Mott's Fruitsation fruit snacks from Costco. OMG. Sometimes there are five or six empty packages on my desk by the end of the night!! And don't let me forget fishy crackers....I know, I'm guilty of eating my kids snack foods, but I love them, and I can't help it... :) And let's face it, there are LOTS of other moms out there who dip into their kid's snack, too!!  

If anyone else out there has some good inspirational motivators out there, share it with me!! I'd love to hear what helps you write until the wee hours of the morning, or what snacks keep you going while your at your desk. I think I may be ready to move on from Motts and try something new for Beyond the Borders.  
 
Take care everyone!

M.  
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A slush pile query

9/16/2012

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Good morning everyone,

This post is to let everyone know that they should never give up hope when it comes to querying publishers and literary agencies.

Last week, I got an email from a literary agent who had received my query. Not this year. LAST YEAR. She apologized profusely for her delay in answering, and much to my surprise, she asked for 100 pages of Beneath the Surface!

This excites me for more than a few reasons:

1. My query made it out of the slush pile from last year and onto an agent's desk-yay!!!
2. I was wrong to assume that no response means an automatic rejection.
3. Maybe, if I'm really lucky, she'll ask to see more!!

In the off chance that this agent doesn't want to read the entire manuscript, that's okay, because my feelings about submitting have completely taken a 180 degree turn. I want to give everyone a sense of hope; no matter how long it's been since a query letter lands in a publisher's or agent's "inbox", never ever assume that they've shredded or deleted it. The email that I received this past week is living proof!!

Keep your fingers crossed for me! Beneath the Surface may still be self-published in the end, but I have a renewed hope that I may, one day, see it on a bookstore shelf.

What dreams may come?

Right now, Liss and Rion and jumping for joy and clapping their hands in my head.

I'll keep you all posted.

M.

:)
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    Miranda Rae Carter

    Welcome to my blog. I hope you'll follow me or check back from time to time. I'll try to write about what's new with me and my novels, but that gets boring sometimes, so it may just be something inspiring or something cool that I heard and want to share with you. Enjoy! :)

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