My sink is full of dirty dishes, my dishwasher full of clean. The laundry needs to be moved to the dryer and the carpets could certainly use a vacuum. But I am a writer waiting on betas. Which means I must refresh my email exactly 12,483 times a day to see if anyone has left [...]
Tag: books
The Never Expected and Always Unthinkable
If you’ve been following me for a while, odds are good that you know the health crisis we’ve been through over the last year as my husband faced a scary pancreatic cancer diagnosis last spring. The kind of diagnosis you’re not supposed to get at 43. It was awful. It was traumatic. And until this [...]
Life by the Numbers
What is it about humans that makes us so quick to compare every aspect of our lives to others? We obsess over the numbers—sometimes becoming unwitting slaves to what those numbers represent. From the size of our paychecks to the size of our televisions (and other things…), we’re experts at using numbers in virtually every [...]
Writers Level Up
Have you ever stopped to think about how your favorite author got to where they are, how they wrote and published so many books, how your most loved novels ended up on your bookshelf? Probably not. Most people don’t. At least, most people who aren’t writers don’t. But for those of us who write, contemplating [...]
Pitfalls and Mountain Climbing
As a writer, I find there are infinite pitfalls of self-doubt and whole periods of time where all I do is question whether or not my writing skills are worthy. Are they good enough for the books I so badly want to author? Do my words inspire others to jump into the lives of my [...]
2017 Stats
Hey, writers and readers! It’s once again that time when everyone you know in the writing world looks back and reflects proudly on their accomplishments throughout the past year. I’ll admit that when I look at the writing statistics of other writers & authors this year, I immediately relapse into another bout of Imposter Syndrome. [...]
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 [...]
A Brief History of a Perpetual Misfit
I'm hoping to participate in the very selective #PitchWars process this year and potential mentees are encouraged to share a little bit about themselves on their blogs in what is affectionately coined #PimpMyBio. For those of you who know me, most of this information probably isn't new. For those of you who don't, welcome! Fun [...]
L. Ryan Storms 