Happy Christmas!

Hope you're all spending the day with loved ones! See you in the New Year! :)

Late start to NaNo--kind of . . .

Well, I'll be getting a late start, anyway. I took off the first week of Nov so I'll probably start writing NaNo-style on Monday. I'm not officially doing NaNo, but that's kind of how I write with my deadlines so I'll be writing in crazy-mode along with all of the NaNo participants.

Take the Reins was my first novel and it was a NaNoNovel, which makes me superproud to be part of the NaNo crowd. A lot of people don't like fast drafting and hey, whatever works, but it does for me and I love the spreadsheets and the thrill of getting the words down on the page to meet my (and my editor's!) deadlines.

I'll be working on CHOSEN--the Canterwood super special. It'll keep me from looking at my BlackBerry every 5 seconds to see if I've got a response to an exclusive that I sent to an agent. It's the first and only query then requested sub I've sent since Agent #1, so I'm anxious/excited/curious, etc., to be out in the field again. The type of novel I subbed is VERY different from Canterwood, so that's fun and challenging at the same time.

With Canterwood not on a bi-monthly schedule for the new set of books (after Chosen, anyway it'll leave me time to work on developing proposals for the YA ideas that I have. I still want to write tween books and will continue to do so if I'm lucky enough, but I also want to do YA.

Personally, things have been incredibly busy/stressful with life stuff, but I'm hopeful for a turn around for someone I love very soon. The events of the past few months have definitely put perspective and priorities in place for me and I never want to go back to the person I had been--the 24/7 workaholic. I *love* what I do, but personal issues have shed serious light on what's really important to me and I needed a better balance between work and doing things for/with people I care about.

ANYWAY . . . what's everyone reading? I just started ASH by Malindo Lo. Loving it so far! Share what you're reading!

PS: Team Canterwood, if you're reading this post, the e-mail address for Jess Ashley is for YA only related projects, so keep emailing me at jess_burkhart AT hotmail DOT com. Thanks! :)

BlackBerry Bold hates Hotmail

After well over 5 hours of trying to get my BlackBerry Bold 9700 to synch with Hotmail--I think I'm down to 2 options. Either pay to upgrade Hotmail ($20 a year), which I'd do, OR get a new Gmail account. I tried EVERYTHING and even the folks at Crackberry are at a loss. I did email AT&T and am waiting to hear from them.

BUT

I chose the latter because it'll be a Jessica Ashley email. :) Plus, I've had my old email since 2003 and it's time to change it up.

Waiting for everything to synch up--Gmail said it could take 2 days and we'll see from there.

But, otherwise, I <333 my phone!

Time off

Taking time off for a bit. Back to updates soon!

xoxo

Query #1 is out!

Busy with Canterwood deadline all weekend, BUT did do something exciting on the YA front on Monday. I sent out my first query! Just one to test the waters and now all I can do is wait. But I barely have time to think about the waiting since everything else is so busy--personally and with writing.

Fingers crossed, though, on this query! *wants a four-leaf clover*

And it's agent query time!

(Cross posting from my other blog because Jessica Ashley's really the one querying...)

Wrote my first agent query letter last night since, well, 2006 and it's going to need some tweaking before it's ready to go out. Exciting, though! Got my agent list set and plan to query soon. Crossing my fingers!

Jessica Ashley is Jessica Burkhart :)

Made the official announcement on my other blog that Jessica Burkhart is my pen name. I thought it was definitely time to start connecting my real name to my pseudonym. I'm starting to get farther along in the YA proposal process and will likely start the agent search soon.

Yay for linking names! Finally! :)

Playing with an outline . . .

in my head for the new YA. Did a little research and the topic so far hasn't appeared in YA lit. But it could pop up in Publisher's Lunch tomorrow, so I'm hoping to get an outline down when I've turned in my next tween book.

It's fun to have a shot at switching between tween and YA. Both are so different and I can't see myself doing just one. There's something I love about both age groups. :)

it's not called brainstorming

Had a great in the moment conversation with BFF about co-writing a YA idea that needs serious work, but has what we think is awesome potential. I *love* those moments when you're not even trying to come up with ideas, but you're talking about random things and it just turns into a 20 minute conversation that leave both people feeling excited about the possibilities. This particular idea is something I've been kicking around in the back of my head for a year or more. I feel it in my gut that, with work, this might make something worth proposing to my house. *excited*

First post giddiness

Hi!

I'm an author of an established middle-grade series for a major house, which I write under a pen name. I'm hoping to begin writing books for young adults soon (while still penning middle-grade) under my real name, so it's time to get started with a new blog for YA projects as they begin. I'll likely reveal my pen name in the future, but for now, I'm keeping it quiet until I start writing YA.

Yay for the first post! :)