I had never missed a month in the years I've been posting this blog. Until now. I overlooked January 2012. Shame on me. I've been painting. No excuse at all.
I am quite poor, you know, mostly as a result of traveling too much (internationally relocating too often, to be precise) and following my two other major raisons-d'etre - writing and painting. I am able to augment my meagre income with the occasional sale of humble artworks, but there is absolutely no financial gain from my (less humble) fiction. To date. Which leads me to my little dream of 'what if?', which rarely presents itself, but when it does, I indulge it.
What if I do sell one of my novels...even all of them (four so far)? How would this change my life? Being very equitable in my attitude to money, I'm not expecting to reap huge rewards. Why should A earn so much, compared with B's earning so little, for the same standard of work? So my theoretical advance from a publisher would be suitably undramatic. A few grand, ten or even twenty. Wouldn't that be nice? No expectations of six figures, which I think is a fantasy some cling to.
To be earning something from my writing would have to be the greatest thing in the world, even if it barely covered a mortgage. I rent at present. It makes me miserable. I am only truly happy owning my own home, even if a lot of it is co-owned by a bank.
Selling a book - whatever the print run - would be heaven. And I've started thinking about that scenario again. Jaded and disillusioned as I sometimes get about the industry, there is still this microscopic - no - nano-hint of hope in my brain.
You're probably aware (if you've read my snippets before) that I have an agent. She was quite ill in 2011, but is well into recovery now, and actively trying to seduce editors into looking at her undoubtedly fat list of manuscripts. One of them is mine. I daydream about her dialogue with one of said editors..."You must read this one first," she says. "This one will blow your socks off," she says. "Don't look at another submission until you've read this," she says. Oh, and I just love how warmly she says it, and how the editor's eyes widen with anticipation. This then, she thinks, is the one we've been waiting for, to put this company back in the limelight.
I love my daydreams. For a while, I believe. We writers have to be the most optimistic people on the face of the earth. But you knew that.
It's now one year since I completed my last book. Enough is enough. This painting has to stop. It's a substitute for my real work. I hope I have better news next time.
Showing posts with label More than one novel completed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label More than one novel completed. Show all posts
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Friday, February 12, 2010
Query One - Just One - Manuscript at a Time
Today I'm including a link to a children's agent blog, which impressed me with an interesting post on querying. A kids' book agent? Well, agents are agents, whatever their field, and this post covers an area not often addressed - the urge to query more than one project at a time.
One or two of you are tut-tutting, saying, "There's that Fran being silly again, assuming we have more than one MS to query." But some of you do. You comment about it. And as we query agents with one story, we long to mention that other one, and perhaps an even earlier one - just a hint of them, that's all; just a snippet...a little whisper of a suggestion that we have a couple of other books looking for an agent; let them see that we're prolific, that we're industrious; and this, in turn, should warrant serious consideration.
Sometimes we sneak it in at the end of the letter. "This is my third novel. My first and second (third, fourth and fifth) are currently being revised (unrecognizably reconstructed, mercilessly mutilated, savagely vandalized, irrevocably ruined)," we say, hoping against hope that the agent will swoon in anticipation of yet more of our great works and email back, "Send these immediately!" Most times we don't say anything, but feel a litte inadequate talking about only one novel, as if we've been a bit lazy, when we've spent years working on those others, too, our earlier babies.
So this children's literature blog, KidLit, has a very useful take on the problem. And if finding an agent for your only novel is your torment, thank your lucky stars. You are still delightfully uncynical about the whole business and probably life in general. (It won't last, you know.)
I see Anne Mini is focusing on the correct formatting of the manuscript again at her blog. It's hard to believe it's still necessary to remind people of the preferred style, but there you are, all giddy excitement over your clever words and no thought for the agent's feelings, as she, it's hoped, reads it. This is the one time when you don't want to appear eccentric, inexperienced, or just plain silly. You can do that later during the television interviews.
Of course, her Author! Author! link is permanently in my side bar, but to save you mousing over and looking for it, check Anne Mini's blog here. If you've forgotten how good her posts are, read a couple of others while you're there. This woman really knows what she's talking about, and the site is well indexed and ready for just about anything a writer could need.
Okay, so all of this chit-chat could be perceived as a cover-up for the fact of my NOT working on my current book. It's been ten weeks. I've done a few pages here and there, but no real, out-of-control, steam-heat-generating, can't-concentrate-on-TV, writing. But, I told you, I've had so much on my mind. I am entering a life-altering period again, a stage in my history which will be writ large for a long time to come. Such huge intercontinental house moves are up there with death and divorce when it comes to traumatic experiences, although you usually have little control over the last two.
And so Summer Must End can wait another couple of weeks while I deal with all the stresses that I've chosen for myself. The associated drama and frayed nerves (the cats will cost HOW MUCH to transport?) should help with the writing, at least, when I am ready. We writers will do almost anything to put the excitement back into our writing.
Last, because it's almost Valentine's Day, I've slipped in the link to Patricia Volonakis Davis's blog, which is entitled "Got Love?" Hope you enjoy it.
One or two of you are tut-tutting, saying, "There's that Fran being silly again, assuming we have more than one MS to query." But some of you do. You comment about it. And as we query agents with one story, we long to mention that other one, and perhaps an even earlier one - just a hint of them, that's all; just a snippet...a little whisper of a suggestion that we have a couple of other books looking for an agent; let them see that we're prolific, that we're industrious; and this, in turn, should warrant serious consideration.
Sometimes we sneak it in at the end of the letter. "This is my third novel. My first and second (third, fourth and fifth) are currently being revised (unrecognizably reconstructed, mercilessly mutilated, savagely vandalized, irrevocably ruined)," we say, hoping against hope that the agent will swoon in anticipation of yet more of our great works and email back, "Send these immediately!" Most times we don't say anything, but feel a litte inadequate talking about only one novel, as if we've been a bit lazy, when we've spent years working on those others, too, our earlier babies.
So this children's literature blog, KidLit, has a very useful take on the problem. And if finding an agent for your only novel is your torment, thank your lucky stars. You are still delightfully uncynical about the whole business and probably life in general. (It won't last, you know.)
I see Anne Mini is focusing on the correct formatting of the manuscript again at her blog. It's hard to believe it's still necessary to remind people of the preferred style, but there you are, all giddy excitement over your clever words and no thought for the agent's feelings, as she, it's hoped, reads it. This is the one time when you don't want to appear eccentric, inexperienced, or just plain silly. You can do that later during the television interviews.
Of course, her Author! Author! link is permanently in my side bar, but to save you mousing over and looking for it, check Anne Mini's blog here. If you've forgotten how good her posts are, read a couple of others while you're there. This woman really knows what she's talking about, and the site is well indexed and ready for just about anything a writer could need.
Okay, so all of this chit-chat could be perceived as a cover-up for the fact of my NOT working on my current book. It's been ten weeks. I've done a few pages here and there, but no real, out-of-control, steam-heat-generating, can't-concentrate-on-TV, writing. But, I told you, I've had so much on my mind. I am entering a life-altering period again, a stage in my history which will be writ large for a long time to come. Such huge intercontinental house moves are up there with death and divorce when it comes to traumatic experiences, although you usually have little control over the last two.
And so Summer Must End can wait another couple of weeks while I deal with all the stresses that I've chosen for myself. The associated drama and frayed nerves (the cats will cost HOW MUCH to transport?) should help with the writing, at least, when I am ready. We writers will do almost anything to put the excitement back into our writing.
Last, because it's almost Valentine's Day, I've slipped in the link to Patricia Volonakis Davis's blog, which is entitled "Got Love?" Hope you enjoy it.
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