When you’re a writer who is also parent to rambunctious school-age children, planning your writing time on a weekend is everything. You see, I fully planned to devote today to writing. I even made all of the appropriate preparations for it yesterday. Without a hint of parental guilt, I signed both of my children up [...]
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2017: A Poem
Hi, all! If you are family (or easy offended) please stop reading here. For everyone else, it's nearly December! If you know me, you know I don't write poetry, but 2017 is a 'special' sort of year, isn't it? Therefore, I have written a poem. Without further ado... 2017: A Poem 2017, you came, shining [...]
Falling Down
It’s Saturday. More specifically, it’s the Saturday after Thanksgiving. I’m supposed to be happy. We are full-fledged into the Christmas season. I should be baking Christmas cookies (and eating half of them) while my husband strings the lights outside and I watch from the warmth of our living room. The kids should be bouncing off [...]
The Weight of Doubt and Exhaustion
It’s been a long time since I blogged. Then again, it’s been a long time since I’ve written anything, truth be told. There’s a complete and utter exhaustion that comes with caring for someone with a long-term illness and until recently, I was really good at pretending it didn’t exist. Enter wall. Accurate footage of [...]
Fresh Paint
Egads, has it really been over three weeks since my last blog post? How does time slip away so quickly? (Also, who actually says egads?) Oh, let me count the ways… We had more hospital time recently. After his initial surgery, my husband ended up with an infection which necessitated a drain. “Drains are great [...]
Misery Loves Company
So I haven’t had much of a chance to write lately between our crazy number of hospital visits in the past two weeks. Complications from husband’s original surgery have led to not much free time. Plus, there’s that pesky PitchWars thing I’ve been tweeting about. In preparation for PitchWars, I have slaughtered my pages over [...]
Querying (Part IV)
Hooray! This is the last installment of my querying series. (Read: I think this is the last installment of my querying series, unless, of course, the person who is critiquing it as I type comes back with drastic changes that need to be made... Never done, people. It's never truly done.) I used to read [...]
Querying (Part III)
By now you've probably got a pretty good idea where I'm going with my queries. (Progressively better with each version, but still not quite "there.") This particular version netted me requests (both partial and full) from several agents. It's better, but it's still lacking. Dear (Agent), Though your website lists that you are currently [...]
Querying (Part II)
After a year and a half of constant rejection, I finally revised my first query into something a little more focused. It’s not quite as rambling as my first and it seems like maybe I knew a little bit more about what was going with my own book on at this point. Dear (Agent), I viewed [...]
Querying (Part I)
Any writer can google how to query, so contrary to the title of this post, I won't be teaching you how to query. There's tons of information out there regarding how to query a literary agent — what to say, what not to say, how to say it, and how to say it well. No lie. Querying is hard. In a [...]
L. Ryan Storms 