Amidst the Fog

As authors we've all fallen in love with one of our projects and treated like it was our baby. We take months to write it maybe even years, because it needs to be perfect. Then after a while we get bored with it and never finish. Rather your a new writer or old we've all done it. I'm not afraid to admit it I have. Maybe it wasn't boredom that caused you to set it aside or personal reasons. My favorite blaming spot is my job. Yes, I would love to write all day and never leave my computer, but until that day happens I have to work.

Several years ago I fell hard for a story between two potential characters. I took a month just to write the prologue. Absolutely no reason for doing that. Then after three years I put it away, because not only was it all over the place, so was I. In three years a human being goes through a lot of emotions and changes, I was taking me characters along for the ride. After only eleven chapters they were going nowhere and not very fast.

So I finished a project recently and was beginning to think about what I wanted to work on next when I stumbled across the above picture. It was one that I had posted above my workstation while writing my incomplete novel Amidst the Fog. It made me think about my life for a minute and all the situations that had occurred. Sometimes as a writer I get distracted and I let everything else going on fog it up. I was guilty of walking away from writing for so many years, because I was jaded about my situation. Then if I did try to write all anyone would have seen was the jade. They'd see my fog and as beautiful as it might be that's all they'd see; nothing underneath.

This year I got tired of it...my own crap. The only thing keeping from doing what I loved was myself. Now I do a little of it everyday regardless of what's going on. Quite frankly I feel incomplete without it. Maybe in a day I write one paragraph or I write fifty pages at least I did it.

I pushed my own fog out, but brought back in my incomplete project. I looked at what worked and what didn't. These characters had a great story going it just needed to be finessed. So I've started over with it. I'm already at 200 pages, because I'm focused on them and so are they.

So when you find yourself amidst the fog take a step back and see what's causing your vision to be clouded and than get rid of it. In the end it will be worth it.

Query Letters...What...What?

Getting a novel published can be a curious thing. Once Thomas had completed his project at the beginning of this year we started on the long journey to get on a bookstore's shelves. We researched how the process worked and learned that a good resource for new authors is the book entitled Writer's Market. There are several editions of this particular book for the various types of things you may pen and a couple that contain all the information. They also have a website that is updated daily.
After purchasing it we discovered that one of the first steps is to write a query letter to literary agents. There are very detailed instructions on what to include in this note for example a word count, short author bio and a good book description. The purpose of this letter is to grab the agent's attention enough that they request to see your manuscript or additional pages.
They remind you in this book that the road to becoming a published author is a brutal one full of rejections. Shortly after we mailed the first round the rejection letters started rolling in. They came in all shapes and sizes, but all had two common factors the basic rejection and the encouragement to keep submitting to others. Several people requested pages although with the quality of the project not as many as I assumed. After a month letters came for them as well.
After this last one we took a hard look at our text book style query letter. Those of you who have read the project know how good it is and how much it draws you in. Most haven't read it and are probably wondering what this person who likes vampire literature would even know. For me to read anything I have to connect with its characters they have to attack me and hold my attention. The characters come alive shortly after you open the book. Most readers want to be captured by a story and this book will succeed in doing this to pretty much anyone. So I was the one that wrote the initial query letter and its decent, but the problem is as my husband says, "You're a pretty writer." Its true. Leaving out the grit, I turned Thomas' suspense filled novel into a lovey dovey sounding piece. People don't want mushy mystery novels, but clearly that's what I was trying to sell. So we're going to rework it and I'm making Thomas write it. One of the important pieces of a query letter is so the agent sees what style you write and in this case they didn't.
Every agents has ultimately been right. Just because one doesn't like the project doesn't mean another won't. We didn't give them the chance, but we will now. The new query letters will not only grab there attention, but will leave them only wanting more.