I’ve had several people ask me this week why I picked YA chick lit for a genre. There’s some pretty practical reasons. Chick lit is very popular right now, even in secular YA lit. While Christian YA lit is not popular, the genre might help it along. I’m also familiar with chick lit, as I favor authors like Kristin Billerbeck, Judy Baer, and even secular authors like Meg Cabot.

The simplest reason? I’m not bad at it. I hesitate to say “I’m good at it”, but I will say I am probably better at it than I would be at science fiction or fantasy, which happen to be my reading favorites. Coming up with ideas and plots is very easy for me, but I lack the technical skill and style which makes those genres popular. That’s something on which I need to work. I’d write short stories, but I’ve always been a terrible short story writer because I think way too big and I always want to know what happened before and after the story.

I have lots of ideas for books to write in the future. Eventually, I’d like to become good enough to hash out some of my scifi and fantasy ideas. I’d also like to write or co-write a nonfiction book on being a TechnoChick. But I know I have to take things slowly and build up strength before I can run the marathon.

The progress on the first book is that I’m about 3/4 of the way through the first draft. Then on to revisioning into the second draft. I’ve been a little confused by the different suggestions I read about whether to finish the book before you submit a proposal to an agent or submit a proposal first. It’s kind of hard to write a few chapters and edit them so they are good enough for submission without writing the rest of the book.

I’d really like to finish the first draft to get an idea of how to better do a revision. I’m not really an organized writer by nature, so although I have a pretty firm outline of the book, I still don’t know if that’s exactly what I’m going to write. I’m not one of those writers who wants to submit a first draft. I’m pretty horrified at the idea of anyone reading it in the current state. I have been following the advice from many writers to just get down the first draft without worrying about editing or word choice. That should come in the second draft phase. I first heard that suggestion from one of the panelists at the YA Lit writer’s panel at Dragon*Con, and I have been trying hard to banish my internal editor in this first phase. River Writers has been helping me with that.

Hopefully soon I will be onto the second draft, which will be something I am more apt to let other people read.

I am a writer of Christian young adult fiction books about a group of girls at a predominately Asian private academy. The working title of the series is Creekwood Chronicles. It is aimed at teen and preteen girls ages 11-17. I have numerous other ideas on the backburner, including a junior Creekwood mystery series, and some nonfiction books about Christian female geekdom.

I also run a ministry to Christian female geeks at http://www.technochicks.org. The mission of TechnoChicks is to provide community, encouragement, resources, and endorsement for women and girls interested in technology, computing,gaming, roleplaying, anime, and other areas of fandom.

My hobbies include reading, computer gaming, web design, singing, playing bass guitar, knitting, crochet, and playing with my 4 cats.

This site is intended to be both my personal and professional weblog. I am changing from Blogger to WordPress as I have been vastly impressed by the features and customization ability integrated into WP. Much more to come!