Being Eaten By a Swarm of Bears While Thinking About What If

1 Commentquerying, rants, real life, Revising

I spent three nights in the tent last week. The low temperature was in the teens, and my high sleep score (Thank you, FitBit.) was 82. That is, I slept “better” in the tent than I usually do in the house. (Possibly because the sleeping bag has a few straitjacket tendencies, so there’s less tossing

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That Creeping Dread of Revision

2 CommentsNovels, querying, Revising, writing, ,

I just printed out a manuscript for (yet another) read-through. I don’t know why, but for some reason, this is striking me as being a very big deal. I don’t expect this one to be a big project. After all, it’s already been revised. (Twice.) It’s not even like I haven’t sent it out before.

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Mid-Winter, Mid-Novel, Mid-Revision Blues

querying, Revising, winter, writing

I’m in a funk, right now. Maybe it’s the long nights of winter. Maybe it’s the endless tedium at the day job, or maybe it’s just the latest mid-novel slog. The thing is, I am making progress. I’m writing. I’m revising. I’m even typing those pesky handwritten pages that seem to multiply around me. Morale

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The Festival of Queries: A Writerly Celebration of Death

querying, Revising, writing

I’m finishing up my revision, and that means it’s time to start the weeping an gnashing of teeth Uhm… working on a query letter. So, this is the process by which we take the novel–all 100 thousand words of it–and cram it into a post-it note, or better yet, a postage stamp. That’s an exaggeration,

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Dying Computers, Chainsaw Editing, and Snail Races

querying, Revising, Uncategorized, writing, , ,

As I’m going through my revision, I’m noticing that certain letters are missing. Not all the time, and not always the same letters, but… I’m writing in letters. After a few pages of this, I’m starting to think about new computers (or at lest, new keyboards.) My slightly neurotic alternate theory is that it’s me,

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Looking to the Future, and Preparing to Duck

2 Commentsquerying, writing, ,

There’s a point in querying when you look at the agent’s guidelines, and you look at your manuscript, and you start doing math in your head. If literary agent is on a train leaving Boston at 3:17 and rejects three and a half manuscripts every ten minutes, in what city will she rip open a

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A (Very) Brief Biography

4 Commentsquerying, ,

Somehow, the idea of writing an author bio is getting to me, right now. Could be the fact that I’m a little up in the air on it myself. I mean… I’m not where I want to be with life, and I’m not really getting the short-story credits to stack up. And just thinking about

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Reading, Writing, and Television Documentaries

querying, Revising, writing, ,

I’m finally sitting down to finish reading the Doomsday Book, and it appears that I’ve saved all the most depressing bits for last. **sigh** Well, I guess I shoulda figured it out back at the beginning, when I found a quote from the author that suggested that all time-travel stories are inherently sad, because you’re

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Ha! I’m not the only one who collects rejections.

11 Commentsquerying, , ,

I’m working on the most perfect-est query letter in the world right now, and obviously, I’m hoping for success. I’m spelling things correctly, and even punctuating them. I’m also measuring out the exact right amount of glitter to go on the hand-drawn hopeful-unicorn’s wings. (Most guidelines suggest  3.27 grams. I don’t know why.) In all

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