Hi everyone, my name's Katie. Welcome back to my channel. It has been a hot minute since I've been on here But I've just been extremely busy working on my books and trying to get them into contests and being sick and like whatever life is Hittin' us with and so I'm back I really wanted to recap with nano and it's definitely going to get to do that so Roll quick nano wait good quote unquote Feel free if you're not following me on Instagram already I do update there a little bit more not super much more but a little bit I finished project Emma that revision and it's with beta readers as of filming this and I was supposed to Draft a middle grade book, but my only did an outline which I'm considering a win and then my other goal was to finish This summer of risks, which was my nano 2020 novel by the end of May so I did that yay So it's with the CP right now and once I get her feedback and implement it it'll go to another one And I'm just super excited about that one. I got it and project Emma up to around like 65,000 Give her take and which I was hoping for 65 or 70 goals is that like 83 and I have no idea how but I did get another full request on goals and I think a few other agents Are about to get to it or they have skipped it and it's in their maybe pile so like fingers across for these books And coming up I'll do another video, but I'll be working on an adult book next So I will talk more about that and my July Camp nano goals like a little bit later But yeah, just a video in about project Emma if I haven't really yet I re-did it to make my main character a little bit more lifeable and a little bit more For the retelling that it was supposed to be for I took out a lot of factors that were in the other draft and kind of smoothed everything out and I think it's a lot better. I hope it's getting closer to a querying level Not that I'm done querying goals yet, but I just want another book ready I tried to insert it into some mentorship contest. So it was for right mentor and Refit and what was nice is that even though I wasn't asked for more materials I did get feedback from one mentor or editor from each and so one person said I passed on your submission Because other concepts caught my attention more, but there was nothing wrong with this submission The concept sounded fun the decision was subjective So that means my query letter was good my opening pages were good It just wasn't as captivating. I don't even want to say that like It sucks that they didn't find it that way, but I hope that an agent will um the other one was kind of similar You detail your premise really well in your letter. It's engaging and intriguing You get straight into the action while drip feeding enough backstory to get me invested her only Note was to maybe drop in a bit more about how things ended with the love interest So that the final line really hits home and readers are rooting for their relationship from the start and in the first draft There was a lot more Hinting about what happened um and I wanted someone Few people had suggested to like tease it out to make them want to read more So I know it's kind of a subjective opinion and um, I like that you're not fully aware of what happened Because I didn't want that to be the focus of that first chapter even though that's kind of There's two promise of the premises with project Emma and it's the matchmaking aspect and the love interest aspects So um, yeah, we'll see what other readers think and hopefully an agent will find it intriguing enough um I think retellings are in right now a lot of them are coming out and by right now I mean like right now not like two years from now in this book. I get published, but um I'm reading a lot of books I'm trying to find a lot of books that are similar to Minds so I can comp them and Highton waiting is one that I just finished in this one by Becky Albertali Has a musical in it instead of a play, but um, I really wanted to try to get this I hope our writing styles are similar. I really love her writing as well as so if you can solve as and a few others and I'm like oh my my future like my dream Blurbalist is getting so long for authors that I want to blurb with me But um that book and a few others a few a lot others are gonna be in a what I read and slash when I'm reading video coming out soon But I also wanted to talk about the summer of risks which we used to be called half of my heart Um, it's got all Taylor Swift references all throughout pretty much and um it went from a um And big you is happy ending is that it? It's like a could be could not be um to a happy ever actor ending and so I think it played out really well I love that me my critique partner keeps telling me that my writing has grown and it's strong and She's really enjoying this. I only have it took I was gonna say I only have one critique But um they've actually two of my cps have like been working with me on the first half of the book Even just make things make sense and have big enough stakes and like reasons and things and so When I say she's only currently got like one thing for me um she's still reading it But just to like cut out some of the deeper emotional bits in the beginning or the middle where they're like establishing a relationship So um that's that's good. I could just really just delete it Do you all ever get those critiques or they're like they shouldn't do this or maybe don't say this and instead of like Tweaking it you just like delete it instead um I also want to talk. I don't know if y'all care about a video about um thin lines of reasoning thin plot lines um Because I was gonna say with katon waiting there were a few items that like didn't really get explained And they're kind of thin at best and you just as the reader have to roll with it Or you could be a troll reviewer and leave a terrible reviews and I'll get to that in this video as well But um it was stuff like that that was like okay like in in all my books probably There's like a thin line of like I really hope my reader believes this or else the whole system fails So um, I don't know if y'all want a video about thin plot threads or reasonings or um Things that happened I had to change that for project Emma because it was originally like he turned down her um Her ask to go to the dam and so almost like that's not really strong enough for this whole like basis to be based you know this whole thing And so I changed it made it more impactful made it more memorable more more more more And so um, I think that made it better, but that was a reader calling me out and being like I don't really leave this So um, I hope it's stronger now um, I'm really proud of that draft I made Riley more like a whole after my cp match readers were like, I don't know about her um Because she was supposed to be like tyrannical she's supposed to have this whole character arc So I just made her like really bad in the beginning and that was just too much So I think I told her down and hopefully hopefully um But yeah in June I'll be working on product Emma edits and the summer of risk edits after readers that get through those and I'll be working on some cp work So I'm really excited about that as well as all my tvr that I'll show you all in a little bit Yeah, I think that's all my updates on my bookstuff Also let me know how your writing is going and if you've already started thinking about July camp nando like I have I hope that you'll have a great June and happy writing You