“When will I get an acceptance letter…dammit?”
Woohoo, you have toiled away at all hours of the day and night…finally the day is here. The great American novel is finished and you can, in good conscience, start shopping around for an agent or a publisher.
First step: You shop around with your standards intact. After all, any house would be lucky to have you…your story is the best.
Second step: Any writer can tell you that after stressing over query after query and doing research on over a hundred houses, your standards change and then you will send anywhere.
Third step: You call up your priest and ask him if he might consider posting your story in the church bulletin. After that comes the questioning and the self doubt. You start to question the value of your of work, or is it my query, or is it my novel…oh God, it could be my synopsis...damn.
The best approach is to ask yourself these questions before you ever send your work out. I am here to tell you, it's okay you just need to relax and not worry.
Second step: Any writer can tell you that after stressing over query after query and doing research on over a hundred houses, your standards change and then you will send anywhere.
Third step: You call up your priest and ask him if he might consider posting your story in the church bulletin. After that comes the questioning and the self doubt. You start to question the value of your of work, or is it my query, or is it my novel…oh God, it could be my synopsis...damn.
The best approach is to ask yourself these questions before you ever send your work out. I am here to tell you, it's okay you just need to relax and not worry.
Yes, take out that circling manuscript, if you are having second thoughts. Here is a piece of advice that you will be hearing from us over and over again. You should always read your work as if it is a stranger's work and read it from a reader's point view and see how it sounds. How does it make you feel? Can you picture where the characters are and what they look like? That’s what it’s about. You need to know what kind of affect it will have on the reader.
Make sure your work is really the best it can be and that you aren’t just eager to have someone tell you if it’s good or bad…don’t do that. Work hard, believe in yourself and in your story, and don't ever give up. One fine day you could get that acceptance letter.
Tune in next week for a walk through the entire publishing process.
Hint: it involves more waiting…
Dawn Binkley
Executive Editor
Hellfire Publishing
Also known as:
Keira Kroft, Romantic Suspense
