Time crawls when you're in panic mode, then you change gears and its a month later--OK, two months later. Then I was not so gently reminded by one of my followers of my time/memory lapse.
I've been stewing about query letters, writing a synopsis and entering some contests. Entering a contest is a breeze, it's the requirements that bog me down. Writing a book seems a whole lot easier than preparing a synopsis and/or query for the darn thing.
Fortunately, after much finger gnashing on my keyboard, a couple of friends from my writing chapter helped with the query. Their suggestions and critiques were immensely valuable. My thanks to Michael Jensen and Ali Cross.
Then there was the question I've been trying to answer for many months. How do I publish? The answer finally came to me when I realized how much I guard my privacy. I would self publish through Createspace and Amazon.com. Setting up the account was easy enough until I got to the part where they wanted a book cover. I really didn't have one worth bragging about so I clicked on an option to have Createspace do one for me.
I'm a penny pincher. The price stalled me. I went to bed early grumbling about more money going out.
About midnight C.W. Johnson called me. He has written five books and has a sizeable fan base. He also read and critiqued the final version of "The Singing Stones of Rendor." Dare I say he was ecstatic about it. I've gotten a lot of great feedback from my beta readers which was very encouraging, but he is the one who iced it for me. "Get an agent," he said. He and I argue about a lot of different things just for the fun of it, but I don't question him about writing a book or getting published. He has been at it a lot longer than I have and done most of it the hard way.
To top it all off, I handed the phone to my muse who talked with him even longer than I did. By the time she finished she was all smiles.
So, now I'm using that query to sell the book to agents. Sometimes procrastination pays off.
As of today ten agents have received an email--more agents tomorrow as I trawl through the internet in search of that one agent who will pick it up.
Let the waiting begin.
UPDATE: 27 March 2014
Well that didn't take long. The waiting is over. My first rejection letter (email) just arrived.
