“If I don’t write to empty my mind, I go mad.” – Lord Byron
Regardless of what you may have heard, madness ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great for short periods of time. But in the end, when your head explodes and you start babbling idiotically about protagonists and mythical creatures that don’t exist in earth books, the waitress at the corner coffee shop does tend to look at you a bit oddly. So I write to give my characters and creatures life on a page, rather than worrying that they might get injured in traffic when they escape while we’re on the way to the market.
Finishing the manuscript has been liberating, but I know the work to come is going to be just as challenging. As I mentioned previously, I have a plan. My next step is to find two or three people with really good critiquing skills to read the finished product and to give me their feedback. Several chapters went through my online writers group early on and I received some helpful critiques, but now that it’s complete I want to run it through again. While that is in process, I’ve begun an agent search. I’ve been reading everything I can get my hands on about submitting to an agent and I’ve learned a few things. Mostly I’ve learned there is a great deal of prep work that needs to be done before I actually write the query letter.
I need to write a one paragraph synopsis.
At first glance this appears to be an incredibly simple task. After all, I just completed a 100,000 word Fantasy novel. One paragraph should be a breeze.
I am still laughing at that thought.
One paragraph to sum up a story that took 100,000 words to tell; one paragraph to represent countless hours of my life; one paragraph to convince an agent or editor to read my novel; One paragraph.
This is going to take some serious thought.
Regardless of what you may have heard, madness ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great for short periods of time. But in the end, when your head explodes and you start babbling idiotically about protagonists and mythical creatures that don’t exist in earth books, the waitress at the corner coffee shop does tend to look at you a bit oddly. So I write to give my characters and creatures life on a page, rather than worrying that they might get injured in traffic when they escape while we’re on the way to the market.
Finishing the manuscript has been liberating, but I know the work to come is going to be just as challenging. As I mentioned previously, I have a plan. My next step is to find two or three people with really good critiquing skills to read the finished product and to give me their feedback. Several chapters went through my online writers group early on and I received some helpful critiques, but now that it’s complete I want to run it through again. While that is in process, I’ve begun an agent search. I’ve been reading everything I can get my hands on about submitting to an agent and I’ve learned a few things. Mostly I’ve learned there is a great deal of prep work that needs to be done before I actually write the query letter.
I need to write a one paragraph synopsis.
At first glance this appears to be an incredibly simple task. After all, I just completed a 100,000 word Fantasy novel. One paragraph should be a breeze.
I am still laughing at that thought.
One paragraph to sum up a story that took 100,000 words to tell; one paragraph to represent countless hours of my life; one paragraph to convince an agent or editor to read my novel; One paragraph.
This is going to take some serious thought.
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