Tag: Writing

The Anatomy of Rejection

by atozmom, posted in Writing

I touched on this briefly last post.  It’s not that I get my feelings hurt when I receive a reject on my labor of love (my novel).

It’s this:  I want something so bad and I hold so many expectations and hopes that when I do get rejected, it’s not personal or a reflection of me.  It doesn’t hurt my ego or anything.  It’s a deflation of my dreams and expectations and the knowledge that there is still plenty of work to do.  It also is a lesson in patience (not my strong point by any means).  I have to wait longer to see my book in print, to see my dreams materialize, to hold my work in my hands and watch others enjoy what I’ve created.

I want it now is what it comes down to and a rejection signals, “Nope, not now but later.”

I know that my novel is good.  I know in my heart it is God’s work and it is meant to be shared to help others cope in this world.  I know that.  It’s just frustrating when I can’t seem to get that across to others.

No one said this was easy or life was easy.  What fun would that be?

I pray I get an agent soon.  I pray I get a publisher soon.  I pray my husband gets a job soon.  I pray we move to where I want to live and not to some hole-in-the-earth place where a job happens to be.  I pray my kids get accepted to schools where I can feel comfortable sending them to, where I won’t have to homeschool them the rest of their lives, where they can have friends and the whole school experience.  I pray these burdens on my heart are lifted.

I miss my old town.  I miss my old church.  I miss my friends.  My kids miss their friends.  Hell, I even miss my old house.

Do the trials of life ever end?

The Resilience of the Human Psyche

by atozmom, posted in Writing

It’s amazing the resilience of the human psyche, isn’t it?  One moment, you’re down.  The next your back in the game.

I keep getting reject after reject for my queries so what do I do?  I keep editing my query letter, editing my novel, and researching agents and mailing off more queries.  Yeah, I get down when a reject lands in my inbox.  But I’m learning to think, “That agent is just not for me.”

As I research and research literary agents, there are HUNDREDS out there!  I didn’t realize there were that many!  Out of these hundreds, one has to love my work, right?  Or does it just suck?

Sure, there are good agents and bad and one must be careful.  But with research and guidance from God, I’ll find one, I’m sure.

This is my third work so surely I have it down by now, right?

I’d love to hear how you cope with rejects.

Excitement, Once Again, Reigns

by atozmom, posted in Writing

Well, I’ve re-vamped my query letter to make it shorter and much more compelling.  I’ve cut 10,000 word from my novel (the part that I thought didn’t flow very well at all from the very beginning) and now, I believe, my novel is the best I can make it.  Now, whether a professional editor can make it better remains to be seen.  However, I am extremely excited about this development and can’t wait to polish things up and get back on track.

I hope and pray this is it–this is the one after so much hard work put in that will finally garner some attention.  If there is a God in heaven, then this will succeed.

Words of Comfort

by atozmom, posted in Faith

Just when I’m feeling sad and questioning what I’m doing with my life and even if all my work is worthwhile, I open the Bible and God speaks to me.

“Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?”  Isaiah 55:2

The Bible further goes on and says, “Seek the Lord while he may be found” verse 6 and those who “have no money, come” verse 1.

This comforts me as I know my writing satisfies me (and God) even though right now it satisfies no one else.  It’s encouraging to know in these tough times that there is hope and a future as I’m bogged down in the mire of the present.

“Your ways are not my ways,” verse 8.  This is true but sometimes I wish they were my ways.  His ways tend to be too hard.

Dreams

by atozmom, posted in Writing

I usually don’t have vivid dreams, but I woke up this morning with one.  As a writer, all of my novel ideas have been from my dreams (ultimately from God in my opinion) and this one was intriguing.  I immediately wrote it down because the conversation was so alive and breathing.  I don’t see how it will fit into a story but maybe one day.

As I’ve been researching literary agents to submit to, I’m discovering ones I’ve never discovered before.  This is because I’ve wrote a young adult (YA) novel instead of one for adults.  I didn’t realize how many agents out there focus exclusively on kids works.  I find this fact great.  I love helping my kids pick out books at the bookstore and now I know why there are so many fabulous ones on the shelves.  Thanks to all the agents out there who recognize talent and work so feverishly to bring it to the world.

Now if only one of these esteemed literary agents would bring my talent to the world!

Need Some Writing Advice

by atozmom, posted in Writing

So, I’ve spent the last two days holed up in my room finishing the third draft of my novel.  I added a great motivation for one character as a result.

However, I also began to wonder if I shouldn’t change my ending.  If I did, I would cut out the last two chapters (essentially 5000 words), resulting in I think a better cliff hanger.  But my qualms:  5000 words is a lot when my novel is only 65,000.  It would take it down to 60,000 words, which I think is very low.  Does anyone out there have any advice for me on this point?

To recap:  it’s a young adult novel and I’ve read that they are supposed to be between 50,000 and 70,000 words so I’m right in there.  I am just unsure.

Thanks for any advice out there!

Writing

by atozmom, posted in Writing

As I mention in my About page, I’m a writer.  I’ve written a non-fiction book on parenting and pregnancy that I used to sell on my own website.  However, no one was buying it so the cost began to outweigh the financial gains so I took the site down.  Furthermore, my passion moved elsewhere.

Then, at the beginning of this year, I finished my first novel about football.  I tried for months to garner the attention of a literary agent so I scratched that idea and it sits on the back burner.

Currently, I’m writing a young adult novel.  This one is different than the other two.  First, I’m almost done with it.  I feel that my passion for this work is infinitely more than my previous two.  This means I’ve written the book in about a month.  I spend every waking spare moment on it and I feel it only gets better and better.  Second, this is the hardest book for me to write as it deals with issues from my past that I don’t think I have thoroughly dealt with.

Finally, I believe this one is the One God has intended for my life in order to help the most people.  The first one was just to prove I could do it.  The second one was to prove to myself that I could indeed create vivid worlds and live in them.  Thus, this one has the most meaning, the most depth, the most provocative, and the most potential helpful of all three so far.

I am so ready–so ready to see my countless hours come to fruition in the written word–hopefully something that will make meaningful impacts in people’s lives.

I once read where Stephenie Meyer, author of the insanely-successful Twilight series (which I would highly recommend) once said that she wrote these books for herself.  This truly resonated with me as I feel my planned series will be for me as well.  This book (and future ones in the series) is what makes my heart sing.  I can only pray that God guides me as I write so the words I choose impacts the most people.

I’d love to hear from other authors and their journeys through novel-writing land.