Catching Up

So, a lot has happened since I took my hiatus to focus on getting married and I missed a lot of posts. I'd love to know what's been going on with everyone, but I just don't have the time to comb through the myriads of articles and posts that I've missed. That's where this post comes in. Please leave me a comment telling me if I missed anything major from your blog while I was in hiding (I.E. You were signed with a publishing house or agent etc...)

I'd also love to catch up on everyone to know what your WIP (work in progress) is. Please answer the following for me, if you don't mind.

1. Name of your current or most dedicated WIP.
2. Word count of that WIP
3. Genre it fits into
4. IF you are ok with sharing, please let me know the premise of you novel. Obviously don't give away too much, but just generally speaking.

P.S. This picture has nothing to do with the post, I just saw it and wanted to use it. N-Joy

Wrestling the Critique

Every so often, I like to run my manuscripts by an innocent bystander to see if I can glean any new perspective. Often times, I already know of screaming problems that need to be addressed or issues that I've yet to tackle, but I ask instead for that person to simply point out specific needs, such as not enough detail, too much detail, not enough action, dialogue etc...

So, when I get back my manuscript with some red notes and suggestions, I'm thrilled when I see what I was looking for. Unfortunately sometimes people go above and beyond and do a little extra critique. In the end, I'm glad to hear suggestions, because ultimately, whether I act on them now or later, or even never, it's a fresh pair of eyes and a new perspective.

BUT

Does it bug you when people take it upon themselves to try to be your personal editor and literally shred your work right before your eyes, when all you may have asked for was a perspective of "dialogue smoothness?"

How do you handle critiques?

Details

So, as promised, I told everyone I'd post the dirty details of the wedding. I'd like to preface by stating that the most important thing of the whole event DID happen: I married the love of my life. Now on to the fun part. My wedding felt like the very strands of fate were woven against it. If things could go wrong, they went wrong. This is a small list of some of the things that did not go well....there is more, but some of it I won't mention to protect the innocent LOL. All I can say is, if the old phrase "weddings that go wrong just mean that the marriage will be great," is true, then my marriage is going to be Freaking Fantabulous!

1. Wedding invitations were designed without saying "Marriage or wedding" or anything of the likes.
2. Wedding invitations never got to people. 80ish of them are still MIA at this point. Nobody knows what happened to them.
3. Friend who was going to throw bachelor party found out his dad got into a terrible car accident, broke nearly every bone in his body and was in a coma. Needless to say, he isn't throwing any parties, nor attending the wedding.
4. Best man couldn't get rental car, because his "temporary" license wasn't considered legitimate per the car rental company.
5. Father-in-Law, who was going to rent a 7 seater car for us to pickup family and such, couldn't get his own rental car due to a problem with his own license. His rental car was delayed for 2 days.
6. Mother-in-law became ill on Thursday and was taken to urgent care where she was promptly diagnosed with pneumonia.
7. When the flowers arrived, we forgot the ribbon, flower wires & pins for corsages and boutonniere, went to store to buy more, bought the wrong supplies. Wasn't enough time to get all the appropriate stuff, so we had to rig it with the ghetto stuff.
8. Mother-in-law got worse on Friday had to go to ER and was admitted, looking quite blue in the face due to lack of oxygen.
9. Mother-in-law's laptop was going to play ceremony music, but was left in her hotel room while she was in hospital
I Had to scramble to reload my laptop with ceremony music and inform my wife's cousin that he would be playing it for us (had to show him what to do, the day of the wedding...WHILE people were being seated)
10. Morning of the wedding, during a last minute run to the store for some missing items, I almost T-boned a truck due to the RAIN... yep, it was raining. Did I mention our wedding was supposed to be outside?
11. Both bride and groom forgot to bring the guest book
12. Both bride and groom forgot to bring the video camera, which had been purchased for the purpose of taping the event
13. The hotel's sound system for the wedding had a TON of feedback and was not working, up till 3pm. (the time of the ceremony)
14. Father-in-law arrived to the hotel promptly 10 minutes till the ceremony began, with the boys and her uncle.... Not a single one of them was dressed in their tuxes.
15. Father-in-law realized he left the camera man's camera at home. He had to go home to get it. The ceremony was delayed by about 45 minutes.
16. Due to last minute seating issues from the rain, nobody knew where to sit, or where to stand and our wedding coordinator threw in the towel... she lost all hope and was obviously upset with everything, thereby stressing us out.
17. Both mother's forgot to light the unity candle after being walked to their seats... I had to come down and remind them. :)
18. During the unity candle portion of the ceremony, my wife's wick wouldn't light... Eventually we gave up without it lighting.
19. After our grand entrance to the reception hall, nobody knew what to do because our wedding coordinator didn't fill us in or work with out DJ. She apparently upset our DJ.
20. We found out that all the music provided to the DJ, in advance, was not working.... the DJ had to stay up til 1am the night before to download all the songs, or re-purchase them,
21. The wedding certificate was placed somewhere after it was signed and was moved.... It was lost..
22. My blood sugar dropped by the time my wife and I got to our wedding room. I'm sure you can guess how that ruins the next part of the evening.
23. Next day, the wedding certificate was found, along with the party favors that had been forgotten under a table somewhere
. . .

WHEW!!!

Well..... We survived! We did it. We are married. I must say, it was beautiful, but man was there a LIST, and I do mean LIST in all caps, of snags along the way!!!! I'll definitely post a follow up with details here, but it's late and I'm really stinking tired.

Here's a tickler photo of my beautiful bride and I to keep your attention till next post.