What A Writer Does Besides Write

Sometimes a writer cooks or even bakes.

Otherwise?

Oh yes! Lots of "stuff." Yesterday, I tailored my robot fish story for a submission to Esquire. Then I submitted another story to a journal I found in Poets & Writers. Yet another poem went to a Poets & Writers poetry journal. Sent an email to another journal asking about how they want a submission. I could turn a Toastmaster's Speech into a humorous essay. Might be fun.

Spent a lot of time looking at my "finished" poetry and trying to decide if there's enough to enter for a Chapbook. Yeah, but. Maybe a couple more poems would flesh it out a little. Forgot my Sonora desert poems were so good. For a while, I wrote poetry regularly.

Made a list of the details I noted coming into New Haven for one line I need for the new novel.

Now I am sorting through the huge Thrillerfest listing of literary agents looking for agents to query. I have to make sure I haven't queried them before, as least not for the book I'm pitching now. Trying to read between the lines. Looking at their web sites to see what kind of work they publish. This is a time suck of the first order. I could be getting mosquito bites in the garden. Could be fixing lunch. Now there's an idea.

Need to get back to my novel. Need to do a lot of things, like my neck exercises because I sit at the g.d. computer all day and my neck gets to stiff I can't turn my head. Makes backing up

the car a little dicey.

We seem to have a pet mosquito here in the office. He didn't bite last night when he had a chance, so I won't swat him. Live and let live.

I'll send out 5 more queries for various novels using the agents identified so far. Querying three novels at this point. When I finish In Flight, that will make four. This is a full time job. One hundred twenty queries per book before I throw in the towel. That makes three hundred sixty in all. Oh god, can I see it through?

Discovered how to make my twitters show up on Face book. Not technically dead yet after my retirement from IT.

The photo is the last of the blueberry tart. Make your pie dough in the food processor. It only takes the time to measure the ingredients. I mix a little sugar and seasoning and instant tapioca into the fruit. Any kind of fruit. Almost an instant dessert, as the tart is free form.

Some cooking is really easy. Experience counts. Too bad that doesn't seem to hold in submitting work to agents. Ah me!

Grapeshot

Sucking It Up More Than Usual

So, kids, I'm going to begin querying big time: 10 queries per month for World of Mirrors, same for Promiscuous Mode and likewise for Festival Madness. That's 30 queries a month, which is painful but do-able. I'm also going to submit to a few more publishers.

Moving forward, inching along, and no doubt plenty of rejection. Everyone says the writing is good, and therefore the story must be the stumbling block. Need to plug away at my 20's book, too. Wanted it done by August, but I don't think that's possible, but I could write the major scenes and then string them together.

Nothing could be weirder than Festival Madness where I began writing in the middle. I need a new query for World of Mirrors

The courses I've taken on hooks and synopses have not really been as helpful as I had hoped.

It would be nice to have a few comments now and then. I know there are readers, but without posts, the blog stays in the toilet on the Technorati rankings. Please?

Grapeshot