The Highs and Lows of Writing

             

            That title should more appropriately read: The highs and lows of a FLEDGLING writer. While I’m sure every writer experiences them, I believe these wild swings are much more common in those of us who are just beginning our writing career. My past three days are an excellent example.

            On Saturday I was thrilled to be able to mark off New Year’s Resolution number 6, when I attended my first meeting of the writers group I’ve been considering joining for the past several months. I was delighted when no lightning bolts struck me because I’m actually a fraud. (Though I did keep one eye to the sky.) Everyone was kind and welcoming. And I loved it! Best of all: I wasn’t the only first time attendee. In fact, when I mentioned my pen name to the friendly woman sitting next to me, also a newbie, she said that she had read my blog! I wanted to ask her how long she’s been living in Russia, since most of my non-family and friend page views seem to come from Russia.(Spammers!) The group felt like a comfortable fit for me, and I look forward to a long association with them. This would be a HIGH.

            Being a three day weekend, I had time to write! I’m especially excited by the progress I’m making on my YA supernatural. While I haven’t written much about it in this space, I think this may be the one that will one day have a chance of being published. It has a strong, inventive storyline, interesting, complex characters, a very clear voice, and is a joy to write. I also made headway on the latest rewrite of The Vampire Gabriel. I had been struggling with the beginning, and with getting the reader straight into the story, and I think I may have solved part of the problem today. This would be a real HIGH.

            I was so excited by the Gabriel rewrite progress that I began wondering if I should go ahead someday in the not too distant future, and submit it to a few of the publishers that accept non-agented manuscripts. So I allowed myself a few minutes of fantasy, pulled out the book on writing query letters, checked the submission guidelines for one publisher, and had a fast, and miserable crash to the depths of LOW. While I was happy that much of the query letter is already written in my head, or on my Vampire Gabriel blog, I had forgotten about the all important paragraph where you detail your past successes, be they previously published books or articles, contests won, etc. I’m a fledgling writer. I have none of these. How do I query without them? This would be a deep, deep LOW.

            But, I’m nothing if not resilient. And my next chore will be learning how to get around that difficult bit of the query process.

            I’m looking forward to moving on to the next HIGH!