Let me just begin by saying, “Holy Crap it’s cold out there!” For those of you who haven’t been watching the news, or hail from a more balmy climate, it has been -40 degrees (celcius or farenheit, it just doesn’t matter) or colder for the past several days (that is with windchill, but still). I, for one, haven’t felt overly anxious to do any outdoor activities.
On another note, I learned something about myself this week. It was another of those “well Duh!” moments I mentioned not so long ago. Let me begin with a little background.
I have talked about my ability to procrastinate; I could probably win an award for it if one existed. I’m also a bit of a perfectionist. Those two items don’t seem to be related, or do they?
I am pretty good about setting goals for my writing. I’m even pretty good about meeting my writing goals. Where I seem to fall apart is when I’m getting that same writing to publishers. Whether it’s a full submission or just a query letter, I agonize for days, weeks and sometimes months before I’m finally able to send anything out.
I’ve always said it’s because I want the submission to be as close to perfect as possible, but I realized something the other day. When I’m saying I want it to be perfect, I’m also unsure exactly what those self-same publishers want. Sure, I do the research to find out what their submission requirements are, but that doesn’t really tell me what I want to know.
So how can I possibly send a “perfect” submission when I don’t know what perfect is? That was the AH HA moment. I came to the conclusion (kicking and scratching as I did it) that I was actually just putting off sending anything out. I was too worried about rejection. Well, I gave myself a good talking to and got off my butt. I had to if I ever want to get anything published; if I don’t send it, how will it ever see the inside of a bookstore?
The end result, I’ve now sent out nine queries to various publishers for Mik Murdoch (in the mail yesterday morning, in fact). I’ve got my fingers crossed that at least a couple of them are interested in seeing more. I’ll keep you posted.
Changing topics again (I named the post “Eclectic Mix” for a reason), I’ve finally been bitten by the podcast bug. Yes, I know Sean has been on that particular bandwagon for quite some time, but I hadn’t (until recently) found much that caught my attention. I’ve been listening to “The Writing Show” but not much else.
Then, the other day, I put on several podcasts I hadn’t listened to before. Next thing I knew, I had downloaded something like 100 episodes from six different contributors including a podiobook. After hearing the production quality of many of them, I can definitely see the value of using the podcasting medium to get my stories out too.
My final report for today is regarding my reading. I’ve had a large pile of books on my desk for the past couple months. I’ve finally been able to get reading again and boy does it feel great! Editing all the time was starting to drag me down a little. Now with the fresh books read and put away, I can feel my own muse waking up. I’ll be starting that major rewrite on my Adult fantasy next week. It’s great to be back in the saddle again.
Have a great week!
