FANGIRL's Biggest Fangirl

Hello, My Wednesday Writerly Friends!  It's time for another episode of "What's Up Wednesday", the blog hop that keeps us writers connected.  To find out more, or to see how you can play along, check out Jaime's Blog.

What I'm Reading:  I am about halfway through with Rainbow Rowell's FANGIRL.  I am probably the only YA writer in the world that hasn't read this one, am I not?  Well I am loving it.  Rowell nails voice.  Period.  Her characters pop off the page when they talk, and I dig that.

What I'm Writing:  More queries for COMMITTED this week, and even a few requests (YAY!)  I am almost done with third-round edits of my MG Sci-Fi story, UNDER THE BLUE, and I am getting ready to pass it on to Betas.  And I have started researching for Nano in November.  I will give you more details on that when I have them.  Haha.

NEW QUESTION:  What Works for Me:  Well, I have written four novels now, and my method has definitely evolved.  In my first attempted I believe I googled "How to Write a Novel" and found beat sheets.  Those might work well for other people, but I had trouble getting from beat to beat.  In my next attempt, I made an outline which I ran out of about 20K into the story... ooops.  Had to improvise after that.  By my third book I at least knew that my average scene length was 1,500 words and that I could comfortably write that in one setting.  So that gave me a better idea of how many scenes I needed.  How long are your scenes usually?  Is there an industry standard?

What Else is Going On:  My two year old is driving me up a wall.  One minute he is ridiculously cute, the next minute I want to beat him within an inch of his life.  Someone please tell me that a disobedient/defiant child can grow into a healthy member of society?!?  I need success stories in the comments.  Like, "My child was horrible, but then he turned four and started to listen to everything I said..."