*sigh*

Rejected. Again... *sigh* Molly said no to Young Falcon. Oh well.
     God, I know you've got the perfect agent out there for me. PLEASE HELP ME FIND THEM SOON!!!

And Here We Go...

Ok, so....I have a crush on this guy. Shocker, right? ;) We'll call him Polka Dot (just for fun, and because I DON'T WANT ANYONE KNOWING WHO IT IS, ok?) :)

     So yeah. He's all I can think about. But the weird thing is, I don't like him. I admire him, because he's a really strong Christian and he's just darn cool, but....I don't know. It's weird. When I like guys, I don't actually 'like' them, so don't get confused. o.O And the thing with me is, I don't like someone just to be liking a guy; I like a guy because I'm genuinely interested in him as a prospective husband. 

            Yeah, I know.I'm 15. What the heck am I doing thinking about getting married at this age? But hey, IT'S ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS THAT'S EVER GONNA HAPPEN TO ME!! I wanna know what kind of guys I like. 'Cause after all, God says 'Enjoy life with the wife (or husband) whom you love and all the days of your life that He has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life.'- Ecclesiastes 9:9. So......that's what I intend to do. And I mean, I'm not really too young to be thinking about what kind of guy I want to marry; it's good to know what you're looking for. And as long as my husband-to-be is a very strong Christian, that's kind of all that matters to me.

      I just read back over this and realised that I must sound very strange indeed. But it's not like anyone reads my posts, anyway, so..... :)

        SO. To sum all of that up = life as a Christian, teenage Elizabeth Anne McKinney is very, very interesting! :)

One Down

Well, one agent down. Who-knows-how-many to go! Mary decided she didn't care for my book, but I'm actually kinda happy about that, because now I can send a query letter to the agent I really liked - Molly. Yay! God has a funny but awesome way of orchestrating things, doesn't He? 

    So today, Mum and I are working on a new query letter to send to Molly ('cause she wanted some different things than Mary) and we should be sending it fairly soon, I think. Pray for us, guys! :)

Track Meet Aftermath

I. Am. Exhausted. Utterly and completely exhausted. o.O So as you know, I had a track meet yesterday. We got on the buses after 3rd period, drove for 45 minutes, stopped at Subway, and then drove for another 45 minutes to the school.  Once there, A.S., M.D., and I headed off to the discus ring so A.S. and M.D. could warm up. A.S. really doesn't like discus, but Mrs. Berry made her do it anyway. She actually did really good, though; she threw 72 feet! M.D. threw 87 feet and got 6th place overall in varsity girls' discus. 

    Then we headed to our camp under the bleachers and tried to find P.G., which took a really long time, but we eventually found her at pole vault. And she did awesome!! She got 1st place after she cleared 8'6". She very nearly cleared 9 feet, but couldn't quite clear it.We watched M.M. and a few of the other boys run races and then K.T., M.D., and I did shot put, which was a fail of epic proportions - we got last. But the other 15 girls were HUGE - they were big, black girls who were really strong, so we kinda didn't have much chance. But it was fun anyway :)

      So A.S. and I chilled out for a while, watched all the races, tried to do our homework but didn't, cheered for P.G. in hurdles (she got 2nd) and I cheered for A.S.  and M.V. when they did triple jump. 

      After 9, we watched the relays (we came in last in all of them :( )  and cheered on M.O., K.H., W.M., and M.M. as they ran. They did really good, I thought, even though they came in last. The girls did good too :) 

      So it was really awesome. But we got back to P.G.'s at 12:30, then we had to shower and do homework - math - which was kinda impossible, because our brains were fried. o.O  Ahhh, fun stuff :)

      

Meeting on the Track! ;)

Track meet tomorrow!! We get to leave at 3rd period and pile into the buses and drive out to the track. The actual meet starts at like 3, and finals start at 5. We're gonna be getting back to the school at around 11 PM. o.O Fun stuff. So, since I live an hour away, I'm spending the night with my good friends P.G. and N.G. and going to school with them the next morning. How awesome is that??
    Tomorrow's gonna be awesome!!! Can't wait! :D

Erg

Just found an agent I like even better than the one I already sent my query letter to. -.- Grr. And this new agent only takes two weeks to reply! Oh well...I guess I'll wait to see what Mary K.  says before I send anything to Molly, because I didn't know about Molly when I sent it, so if I sent a query to Molly now, that might be bad, because I didn't let Mary K. know it was a multiple submission. I couldn't technically have let her know, but....Well, it's in God's hands; I'll get the agent He thinks is best for me, anyway. So it's all good...just mildly frustrating. o.O

Wow!

On Thursday, I went to my friend H.K.'s 16th birthday party. H.K. is from Korea, and she's only been at my school for aboout 3 weeks, so I was kinda surprised I got invited, but happy, too. Her b-day party was at her guardians' home at 5:30 on Thursday, and I was the first one there, which was a teensy bit awkward, but it was ok. About twenty minutes later, her friend Clare got there, so that made it a little better. About twenty minutes after that, my best friend M.M. got there, which made it A LOT better!! M.M. is such a goofball. She entertained us all while we ate and waited for J.J., A.S., and T.H. to get there, but out of the 3 of them, only J.J. showed up. (A.S. and T.H. ended up not being able to come, for reasons still unknown o.O) After we ate, we watched Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (which is an AMAZING movie, by the way!!) on this big-screen projector that H.K.'s 'dad' had set up. It was really big and awesome!! But M.M. spent most of the movie trying to shove chips in my mouth, which was kinda...weird. o.O
   But it was an awesommmmme birthday party! They even had two cats! Maine Coon cats, which are big and FLUFFY. Ziggy and Zeba were their names. J.J. is obsessed with cats, so she had a blast. :)
   But the really cool thing was, after we left, Mum told me that H.K.'s 'dad', Clint, works as a track coach at my best friend's school! (For all of you who aren't sure who J.R. is, he's an eighth grader who used to go to my school, who was my best friend for a long time, my boyfriend for almost a year, and is no longer going to my school) Now...J.R.'s been having some problems at his new school, and I've been concerned about him. Mum told Clint about J.R. and that we were concerned about him, and Clint says, "I'm on it!" He said that he'll find some time to sit down and talk as a friend to J.R. and maybe help him find his way through all the stuff he's been dealing with. Wow!!! God is so good!! I had been praying very earnestly in the days prior to Thursday for God to send J.R. someone to help him, and bam! God sends someone!! I mean, what are the odds that Clint and his wife have known H.K. from the time she was 10, happened to be able to be her guardians when she came to the U.S., sent her to my school, invited me to the party, and works at J.R.'s school? If that isn't an answered prayer, then I'm a turnip. (I hate turnips, by the way)
   God is truly working in all our lives, friends! He's got it all under control. :)

Editing and Sending

So Mum and I have been editing my prologue again before sending it off to the agent (and after I added 4 pages' worth of new material the other day) and we finished editing it yesterday! But before we sent it, she wanted to read over my query letter again, so that took a good while, because she insisted on reading everything, like, 3 times. But finally, at 10 last night, we sent my query to Mary Kole of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency! Yay! I'm so excited!! I was also glad we got to send it yesterday because a) it was Saint Patrick's Day, so it'll be easy to remember what day we sent it. b) it was Saint Patrick's Day, and I'm Scotch-Irish, so kind of a fun heritage day for me :). c) it was the 17th (my favourite number) of the year 11 (my second favourite number). Just a little bit of fun trivia for you there. :)
   Wow...it doesn't seem like this is all really happening. I mean, I started writing this book 4 years ago when I was twelve and yeah, I dreamed of getting it published, but now that it's really happening....*takes a deep breath*.
   This is a bit how I'm feeling right now:
     Psalm 117
     Praise the LORD, all you nations; extol him, all you peoples. For great is his love toward us, and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever. Praise the LORD!
   God bless you!!

Pray

My good friend M.D.'s grandmother died after falling and hitting her head. Please pray for M.D.'s family and for her grandfather, especially, as they go through this hard time. However, M.D. and her family know that her grandmother is in Heaven with our Lord, so that provides much reassurance to them amidst sorrow. Praise God that she was saved, and praise Him that another of His children has come home.

Workin' On the Prologue...Again

I'm at my grandma's house today, with Brother and his girlfriend. :) Mum's helping me revise and polish up the prologue before we send it at the end of this week. Apparently when I go back and add stuff in a few months after I've written the original stuff, it doesn't make much sense. *sigh* ;) Oh well...That's what mums are for! :)

Japan

My prayers go out to those in Japan, Hawaii, and everywhere else affected by this latest crisis. It breaks my heart to see so much suffering and loss of innocent life, as I'm sure it does yours, but remember this - God is in control. Every life affected, He knows about. Every life lost, His heart breaks for. Every child scarred by this event, He will comfort.  “God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. So we will not fear, even if earthquakes come and the mountains crumble into the sea. Let the oceans roar and foam. Let the mountains tremble as the waters surge!” Psalm 46: 1-3. What an awesome promise from our God! If He loves us enough to send His own son to suffer and die for us, how much more will He guide us and comfort us in times of trouble such as these? Our God is an awesome God - never doubt it, no matter what others say.
    Have a blessed day, and keep those affected by the tsunami in your prayers. Prayer is a very powerful thing.

Crunch Time!

Ok, I have made a decision - I'm giving Mr. P until the end of spring break to reply to my email and/or send me the notes from Young Falcon, 'cause he's had the darn thing since Christmas break and has had PLENTY of time to finish it. So it's time to move on. By the end of spring break - no matter what - I'm sending my book to the agency. (I'M SO EXCITED! AHHHH!!)
    Brother's coming home from college tomorrow!! Yay! He's gonna help me spiffy-up my query letter, along with Mum, and we'll get it all ready to send.
     Also - pray for Adam Lambert. God's put him heavy on my heart this week, so I just wanted to let y'all know to pray for him as well. He needs our prayers, guys! When believers pray, miracles happen!
     Have an amazing, God-filled spring break! :)

Jog-A-Not-Fun

Today at my school, we had a day of running. Every year, my school makes us send out letters to 20 people we know, asking them to sponsor us in the race by sending us money, and if you send 20 letters, you get a free t-shirt and you 'get' to run. But if not, you have to stay in the library and do worksheets allllll day. Fun stuff.  

    So the elementary and junior high run in a circle around the soccer field for 30 minutes at a time (each grade runs for 30 minutes) and you have to run 20 laps in order to either get a party (elementary) or a day off from school (junior high). The high school (a.k.a. me, my friends, and about 100 other people) 'get' to run a 5K (3.1 miles normally, but ours is actually 3.8 miles), which consists of three gigantic laps around the school and you have to complete it in an hour in order to get a day off. You can walk it, but you probably won't finish unless you're a very, very fast walker.

   Sooo we started running at 1 o'clock (not the best time to run, because it gets pretty hot and you're running for an hour) and there's this one guy, M.M., who is on his third lap by the time I'm starting my second. o.O He's REALLY fast!! And his sister, M.M., did the same thing, and she even ran a fourth lap with G.C.! Yeesh, people, quit making the rest of us feel so slow! :) But I really liked running the 5K, because you actually get to run by the woods and the baseball field and it's not just a little circle around the soccer field. And you have an hour instead of only 30 minutes.

    Oh! And when I got to the baseball-field part, I was running (unlike some people) and one of the kids who was on Safety Patrol (who were guiding us on the course) started running with me 'cause he said, 'Everyone else is walking!' and that...made my day.  He ran all the way around the field with me and waved at me on the next lap. Awesome!! God blesses us in unexpected ways, doesn't He? 

    Hour of running today = gooood stuff :)

It Begins

And so it begins - my book is now, officially, copyrighted. All that remains now is for Mr. P to finish reading/taking notes on Young Falcon and for him to send me the notes.
    I'm getting REALLY EXCITED!!! :D

Copyrightin'

Getting my book copyrighted today! Whoot! Apparently Dad thinks I need to get it copyrighted so some weirdo person with no life won't steal my manuscript (I mean, seriously. Who goes around looking for unpublished manuscripts to steal?) But I agree; it'd be best to get it as protected as possible.

  So, we found this online copyright submissions website (the official Library of Congress Copyright Office website) and I'm submitting my book to them today, for a small fee of...$35.  Well, it was gonna be $60 to send it in the mail, so Dad decided to do this one. And apparently it takes approximately 4.5 months to get one's certificate of yes-we've-gotten-your-work-and-its-now-copyrighted when you submit online, and 15 months when you send it in the mail.  But they said you don't have to wait for the certificate to proceed with publication. (Whew!) So it's all good. :) 

  Look out, Andrea Brown Literary Agency! Elizabeth Anne is coming soon!! 

Oi!

OH. MY. GOSH. It's been a full week since I sent my band teacher an email, asking him nicely to send me the notes he's taken on Young Falcon and send them to me so that we could go ahead and send it to my soon-to-be-agent!! And he hasn't even responded. -.- But then...he did have a TAPPS band competition this week...and he's pretty busy...so I'll give him that. But he's had the book since Christmas and it's only 270 pages. He hasn't read it in so long he's forgotten what's happening! *sad wail* Arg. Waiting is so, SO hard! I mean, I've been working for four year on this thing; I wanna get it published already!
 But I'm on God's timetable. *takes a deep, calming breath* Remember that, Elizabeth Anne. God's timetable, not yours.
 Fun stuff, huh? And now my friend K.N. is reading it, because she wants to go to college to be an editor (maybe), so I thought, What the heck? and decided to let her read it whilst I wait on my band teacher.
 I'll let y'all (and YES, that's a real word) know if he replies
 Have a fantastic weekend!!

Wild Onions!

Have you ever had a wild onion? Like, a real wild onion? The ones you find near creeks and that you have to pull up out of the dirt? I had some today, and I now officially declare them amazing works of art! My friend G.C. and I went on a trail run (a term used at my school referring to going down near the creek) during yearbook to take pictures and G.C. pauses on our way to the creek and she says, 'Is that onion grass?' And so we stop and pull up the grass and at the end of the grass blade is a tiny, dirty little onion! We peeled off the dirt-covering and found a pure, white onion beneath and, being freshmen, decide to try them. WILD ONIONS ARE AMAZING!. They've got this weird, spicy zest that you don't really find in store-bought onions and they're also really hot.  So we ate quite a lot of them, and G.C. put a few in her pocket to put on her sandwich for lunch. Once she ate her sandwich, she looked over at me and said, 'This is a most excellent sandwich'. :)
 Wild onions - epic win.
 Thank you, God, for wild onions!!

Sick

Home sick today...achy back, neck, ribs, and...hand? Yes, my hand aches as well :) So! Let me tell you about my extremely stressful weekend, during which I almost lost my entire 3rd book. And to give you some insight as to how devastating this would have been for me, imagine this: I've been working on it since July 19, 2010; it's my favourite book thus far; I have just written a long part I really, REALLY love; and writing IS MY LIFE. So if I'd had to start completely over.....I think I would have just given up writing for a while. That's how depressed I would have been. But God is faithful and my dear little book is still alive! Whew...
So how did I almost lose my book, you ask?
        Well, let me tell you:
         I was at my grandma's house on Sunday, writing away happily on my 3rd book and saving as I go and all that, when suddenly a message pops up on the screen, saying 'there's not enough room on file E:/ to save this document' or something like that! Now usually when this happens, one simply hits save a few more times and it will save. But that wasn't working this time. So I closed it.
         My first mistake.
         I tried to reopen my book this time and it wouldn't open. At all. It said 'Word cannot open this file because a/ there's not enough space; b/ this program doesn't support the file; or c/ this file is corrupt'.
        Now which do you suppose turned out to be the case?
       You guessed it: C.
       AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! *panic*
       So I asked my dad if he knew how to fix it, because I'd had this happen to 1 of my other documents about a year ago and I just had to delete it because nothing I would do could open it. I also wasn't sure if I had a backup anywhere. Anywhere at all.
      My second mistake.
      Now you can further grasp how exactly panicked I was over here, huh?
      And as expected, Dad could do nothing. So we called my brother and tried a few more various things. No luck. Dad ended the project just by saying gravely and solemnly, "I'm  sorry; there's nothing I can do."
       Kinda sounds like one of those hospital shows, right? o.O
      Sooooo.....we left to go home after that and, as you can imagine, I was totally freaking out, trying, trying, trying to remember if I had a backup at our home computer. But I couldn't remember, which only added to my tension. I couldn't focus; I could hardly breathe! 260 pages written over the course of 7 months...possibly gone forever! (Yeesh, I'm getting anxious just writing about it!)
     The hour-long ride home was so much fun. NOT. I tried to fall asleep to make the time go faster, but couldn't. So I prayed and prayed and prayed for some part of the book to still be there.
     As soon as we got home...Dad made me unload everything before checking. AhHHH!! Did he not understand my life was in crisis here??? (Love you, Dad! :) )
     So finally, after allllll day of worry and anxiety, I got to check. And, to my astonishment ('cause I didn't remember saving that much of the book) all but the 5 pages I'd written at my grandma's house were on our computer! Yay! I could breathe again. Thank you, Jesus!
     “And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” – Phil 4:19
     So it's nice to just relax today and know God's got it all under control :) 


Btw - I have no idea why this post is black....No idea at all. o.O