Manic Monday

Well, the weekend is over, and it's another day on the job. Is it just me or do the weekends seem to go by quicker the older you get? Not that I actually did that much. I had a chapter meeting on Saturday, with a critique session afterwards, then I went to work. Sunday, I went to my exercise class, tried to watch Mr. & Mrs. Smith again to no avail. I just could not get into this movie despite all the chemistry between Brangelina. It just bored me to the point of falling asleep during the first 30 minutes, twice! Then I had to return a sweater to Ann Taylor loft for an exchange. My evening was spent watching the new episode of Desperate Housewives, and the catch-up episode of Grey's Anatomy. Pretty boring.

I did actually do some thinking about my current manuscript, little things that I have to tweak in the next draft before I feel ready to start submitting. I know that I definitely have to beef up the guys in the book, delineate their characters better, also add my heroines parents more as well. Since my manuscript is based on a Shakespeare play, I also need to go back to my original source material before I do my next rewrite.

I read on Diana Peterfreund's blog this morning about where the next break-out stars are going to come from. It's actually a response to Karen Templeton's blog. She made some good points in response to Karen's post. Many of the authors that Karen talked about have only been writing for ten years, not the 10-20 that she talks about.

I can think of at least 2 or 3 authors who have break-out potential. I think that Roxanne St. Claire is one of them. Alesia Holliday has sold like 9 books in the past two years. I think that Eileen Rendahl and Lani Diane Rich have huge break-out potential. I think we have to remember that Linda Lael Miller, Linda Howard, Catherine Coulter, as well as Nora had written for years before they were deemed worthy for hard cover. Even Meg Cabot had written several historicals before she broke out with the Princess Diaries.

With so many more books being published every month, I'm not sure that any writer is going to be able to break-out unless she has something spectacular up her sleeve. The publshing industry changes so rapidly, I think it's useless to speculate.

Instead of worrying about who is going to be the next break-out author, we should just worry about what we're writing. Making our work the best it can be. Thinking about longevity in our careers.