In the last few months, though, I’ve started to feel a little discomfort. Writing is highly personal. I’m not saying I act out the risque scenes in my novels at all, but I do fill every sentence with a bit of my soul. And that, for me, is far more personal. Do I really want to deal with people being able to climb inside my head that way? Not people, reader people or other writers–they get it. But, say, those I come in contact with at work or who attend church with me.Read More →

CJ Redwine, whose query workshop I’ve mentioned before, got a great new book deal. Unfortunately for the rest of us, she’s only going to be doing one more query workshop and then she’s calling it quits.  She says she still has room and the last one starts Monday! You missed your chance. I hear she’s creating an eBook with this info. I’ll update you.Read More →

I said earlier in the week I’d post my queries, before and after my workchop with CJ Redwine.  I’m not looking at my notes (from more than a year ago) to see why I did this–I’m just comparing the two because I don’t think that would be fair to those who have paid for and benefitted from the workshop. Below, the very first query I ever sent out. A very public flighty heiress and a TV exec with a past he’d rather keep private work against each other to create a talk show while falling crazy in love.  ON A BET is complete at 82,000Read More →

I don’t know how I ended up in my archives.  Something I read had me coming back to see if I’d written something on the same topic and, well.  Here we are. About a year-and-a-half ago (oh-my-God: have I been here this long?), I wrote about my plans to send out my very first query.  I was nervous, of course.  I expected rejection, but in that way where you know it happens, but if the universe lines up just right, it won’t happen to you. A few months later, I wrote this post about handling rejection and how to use it to figure out whereRead More →

Found the first agent I’m going to send the new and improved, dedicated query to.  FYI: I found a list of agents here. Here’s my first quandry: I planned to submit to a publisher who requested a query, a 10 page synopsis, and 3 chapters.  I buckled down and got my synopsis finished.   This agent wants a query containing a one or two paragraph(!!!) synopsis and the first 3 chapters/50 pages.*  Now, I love when agents will accept pages.  I feel like I’ve skipped the request for a partial and gone for the good stuff.  But how am I supposed to condense 10 pages intoRead More →

Quartet Press is no more. I had high hopes for the publishing group, after reading their blogs, their proposed plans on how to do business, and the hype.  Oh, the hype.  All I can really say now is that they came on the scene with a bang, and left with a whimper. Read what people are saying about it.Read More →

I got my first no from an agent today.  It’s actually more frustrating than soul-crushing.  They didn’t say no to my writing or to my manuscript.  They said no to a one page description of my story. I’m going to work some more on that one page description.  It’s only bad when everyone says no.Read More →