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- Sep 13, 2010
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- www.joymcculloughcarranza.com
Let's see... I tend to think of my projects by the MC's first name, so...
I do that, too.
Let's see... I tend to think of my projects by the MC's first name, so...
Joy, what is a CP?
Thanks, dj. I wasn't sure if teachers or parents would feel it was inappropriate (or just not part of their syllabus!), but it sounds like that's not necessarily the case. I'll try some local middle school teachers when my first chapters are polished and ready. Appreciate the advice.
You could ask in the beta readers section (maybe a parent wouldn't mind volunteering their kid), but I would suggest having your whole manuscript polished and ready to share. A kid might be pretty choked if you get them to read 2 chapters and they like it but they can't read any more b/c it's not ready.
do ngu dep do ngu nam dep do dung sau sinh quan ao ban buon vest cong so album anh cuoi depI'm not sure if this is the right place to pose this question or not (so if not my apologies!)
In your opinions, what is the appropriate word count on an upper middle-grade fantasy/adventure type of piece?
David, I take it that means the 10-year-old twin betas loved your book. Congrats! I also saw that you won the PitchWars contest - double congrats! I looked for the post where you shared the tweet that garnered all this attention but couldn't find it. I remember something about x-files for kids. Would you mind sharing it again? I'd like to see what a successful 128 character pitch looks like!
Then again, I just saw Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series in the MG section of Barnes & Noble, so if 10 year olds are reading that...
As an elementary school librarian and former middle school teacher, I can count on one hand the number of students who read Philip Pullman in its entirety. Most check it out and return it the following day because it is "too wordy."
I have used grades at my school as beta testers...letting them know the author is a friend of mine who wants honest feedback. They are brutally honest! For several students, the biggest problem they had with the readings of my books were that they could not check them out yet.
So, in case you missed my little episode last night, I now have a new(ish) laptop, but it doesn't have Windows XP validated, I can't get online or have a disc to do it, and my hard drive used to make it work no longer has Microsoft Office or a validated OS.
So just a quick question to all you writery peeps: which is better? Open Office or Libre Office?
Dave
Hey Dave. It sounds like you have more fundamental issues than just which WP to use. How are you planning on resolving the OS issue? Are you just waiting to get it validated?
I have experience with Open Office on a Windows laptop, and it worked perfectly well, however I had a bad experience when I upgraded to MS Office on a Mac and none of the OO files would translate. I had to convert the files to MS Office on my PC, then transfer them to the Mac, but in doing so I lost all the timestamps on the files, so I could no longer see when I created and last edited each version.
This is a very specific experience, and it's not relevant if you're not going to switch to a Mac, but I mention it just in case.
I'm also weary of using anything but MS Word to send files to agents. Even if you save it as a .docx, you have no guarantees that it won't screw up your formatting on the agent's end. Just a thought.
If you can, invest the $99 to get a student version of MS Office (I think that's how much it was when I bought it a few years ago). Anyone can buy a student version, and it has all the functionality we writers needs - I don't notice any differences between it and the professional version. Even if you install a license on an OS, and then upgrade the OS, or even change machines (as long as it's PC -> PC or Mac -> Mac), you can keep that license and reinstall it as necessary.
Good luck, whatever you decide!