Inching along

PublishersMarketplace provided three more likely agent names for me to write to. Queried two by email (they said they like email), and a packet is sitting by the front door with 100 pages, the synopsis and the query letter ready to go out on Monday to the third. This endless research, putting packets together and contacting take up huge amounts of time, time which could be spent writing. Realized I had not put the genre into the querry letter. Ye Gods, how many did I send out without GENRE? Stupid. Stupid. Had mentioned a "dark caper" which my writing group didn't like, dropped that and forgot to add something back. Big no no not to mention the genre. I just thought of another name for this blog very similiar to the one it has, but changing one character. Describes not mentioning the genre. My new discovery is that there are a lot of blogs by people trying to sell a book and/or get published.

Found a mystery novel contest to enter. All past winners are male, and there were few female writers on the sponsers (a small press) web site but what the hell?

This month at Brown University I am taking a short course on the writing of Marcel Proust and Virginia Woolf, a far cry from Emma the technoslut. (My narrator). On the other hand, could there be two more different women than Proust's Odette Crecy and Woolf's Clarissa Dalloway? I just finished reading The Proust Project. Some of the people who wrote the essays just summarized Proust which gave the book a fainty madcap Monty Python air. I am re-reading Mrs. Dalloway.

The snow is general over Boston. We had a white knuckle ride on 95 and 128 through the snow, the slush and the whole yukky Saturday weather mess. Didn't go into town for dinner and a movie. Came home, and I made comfort food, a 50's casserole (my mom's recipe) with chicken, rice, veggies and two cans of condensed cream soup. Cashews on top. Tasted good.

The new calf has not been seen and I can only conclude that she was still born or died shortly after birth. The mother cow seems unconcerned, but am I expecting her to low mournfully by the fence? Yet I feel I am the only one mourning this little tragedy, the 2nd obstretrical cow tragedy in less than a year. These cows are reputed never to have calving problems. Tomorrow I will climb the snowbank (higher still than last week) and feed the cows three bags of kitchen scraps. Good healty vegetable and fruit remnants. Watch for some photots of the cows. They are lovely creatures.