Tag: querying

Riding the Query Coaster

Donna Judy Curtin Leave a comment

How is it almost June? JUNE! 

Now I ask you, fellow writer, considering we are half-way through the year, have you achieved your writing goals?

Photo by Conor Luddy on Unsplash

I haven’t.

At the outset of this year, I set a goal to start querying my Adult Speculative with Romance. The roller coaster that is querying began for me as I was propelled into querying, tricked in truth, into joining the line for a monstrous amusement park ride, the kind of ride that induces nausia, forcing me to lay out on the grass and ponder why on earth I would ever, ever to do that to myself. But somehow we forget and then find ourselves once again entering those line ups, too embarrassed to skip out at the last moment… but maybe we should. Read more

Barbed Wire Benefits

Donna Judy Curtin 1 Comment

A few weeks back, I got a text,

“Coopers hurt. Can you check him out when you get home?”

Cooper had a deep and dangerous puncture, high up inside his back leg. It tracked into his groin and was only a breath away from puncturing his abdomen. It could have been life threatening. Considering our walking track and their playground is our zig-zagging forested trails through our maple sugar bush, I surmised Cooper must have snagged a branch in the wrong spot, at the wrong moment. Read more

The Beginning of the End

Diane Ferguson 4 Comments

Living in Canada means living with weather. When I lived in Toronto, there were ways to ignore it, but when I moved to Grey County, I soon realized there was no denying winter as it piled outside my door. I did learn to embrace it through: snowshoeing, cross-country skiing and eventually hockey. And I also learned there was no better time for a writer than in the depths of winter. And then there was that pandemic. For us introverts, it was a perfect time for writing.

Slowly things are opening up, or maybe I’m slowly opening up. Sometimes, I feel like I’m crawling out of a dark cave, adjusting to the light, checking out the horizon. And it’s not just covid, but my daughters have just come of age, so I’m also waking from the world of intense parenting—at least it felt intense! Obviously, the job doesn’t end here, but the duties are less time-consuming.

Barbara Kyle

A night out with writer friends to see Barbara Kyle and C.S. O’Cinneide, presented by the West Grey Public Library, provided lots of inspiration for future projects!

C.S. O’Cinneide

And I’m also coming out of a long period of editing my novel, getting it ready to submit. And as close to the end as it’s seemed, the finish line keeps getting moved back. Al-most-there-just-a-bit-more-to-do. I’d printed off a copy and read through and made edits before handing it to other friends to read.

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Fear

Diane Ferguson Leave a comment

The theme of fear keeps popping up for me this month.  My spiritual teacher used it for a focus of discussion at the beginning of the month and I’ve been contemplating what my fears are and which ones I need to push through and which ones I need to honour. For instance, the old example of jumping off a cliff into water. I’m okay with not doing that. I don’t chase an adrenaline high. Maybe I’m missing out, but I generally don’t like falling. Perhaps I’m just a creature of comfort, but I also know I have to push outside my comfort zone to grow anything.

I’m also listening to the book, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals that Protect Us from Violence, by Gavin de Becker. He tells us how our bodies know when something’s wrong, it’s whether or not we listen to our own inner warning signals. The signs are always there even though people often say, I had no idea. Becker uses the example of our dogs, how they will react negatively to a person who wants to harm us in some way. The dog is not reacting to the stranger, the dog is reacting to you and the signals your body is giving. Often, in an effort to be polite, or nice, we override our own gut instincts getting us into trouble we could’ve seen coming. Read more

Querying, a Procrastinator’s Past Time

Donna Judy Curtin Leave a comment

I recently learned that although I don’t consider myself to be a procrastinator, when it comes to querying, I am.

There’s always something more to do;

 

  • I need to find a publishing home for the first book before I can think about querying the second.
  • I need to complete the suggested edits to the final draft of the second book before I can reach out to the agent who made those suggestions.
  • (or my favourite) I need to have the final book of this trilogy written so I can promote all three books together.

The problem is – it’s a never ending cycle. If I am going to wait until the third book is polished, it could be another ten years before the first book is ready to query, because that’s about how long it took me to edit the first book. Read more