Sneaky Minds - IWSG August 2025

 

Welcome to IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of our ninja leader Alex Cavanaugh. Thank you to August co-hosts: Ronel Janse van Vuuren, Natalie Aguirre, Sarah - The Faux Fountain Pen, and Olga Godim! To read other contributors, click For a list and links to all contributors, click here.

I’m not experienced enough to have an opinion on this month’s question about the publishing industry, so today, you get just—me— surprising myself.

I think I mentioned here that after writing four (frustratingly unpublished) novels, so far, nothing has inspired me enough to consider spending years devoted to a fifth.

This wasn’t so scary in April when I retired, because I still had to make edits to my fourth manuscript. In late June, I started querying it.

Oye. Such an exercise in hair pulling. Current count, nine submissions, two rejections, many, many, many more to go and well, each time I'm working on a query it kind of feels like when I worked for a living, except for the lack of constant interruption, and, yeah, well, I’m not getting paid. For sure, querying isn’t creative.

But the human mind is a sneaky thing, and in between queries, mine has been goading me.

“What? You’re not writing anything new? Well, then here. Let’s throw you a storm. Let’s make your fireplace leak and your little boat almost sink. Now, write a poem about it.”

“Um, okay?”

“Boring laps in the pool followed by walks on the beach. That’s good for another poem.

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Yes. And by the way, repainting your bedroom from Sherwood green to Chamois white? There’s definitely a poem in that.”

“You think?”

“Yup.”

“Huh!”

“When you’re done, how about a poem about hummingbirds?”

“Aha. Gotcha. I already wrote that one.”

“Then what are you waiting for? Pull that sucker up on your laptop and give it an overhaul!”

And so it goes. I even wrote a poem inspired by an old poem I found on my hard drive. So while fiction has been non-existent over the last few months, unsolicited poems have muscled their way in. I get lost in them, spending as much time as it takes me to send out a query (and more!) tweaking one single line.

How do you make yourself move forward when writing is a struggle?

Back to Earth - IWSG May 2022

Welcome to IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of the amazing and generous Alex Cavanaugh. Thank you to the May co-hosts: Kim Elliott, Melissa Maygrove, Chemist Ken, Lee Lowery, and Nancy Gideon! To find links to all IWSG contributors, click here.

This month’s question: It's the best of times; it's the worst of times. What are your writer highs? And what are your writer lows?

A few years ago, I signed up for Grub Street’s Muse in the Marketplace. Generally, I’m reluctant to attend conferences because when I arrive, my “I’m-nothing-but-a-fake” demon inflates inside me, but somehow that year I beat down my fear. I even signed up for a critique session which involved sending sample pages to an agent prior to the event.

In spite of high anxiety, the day was a success, the workshops outstanding and in my mind, my agent one-on-one went worlds better than expected. The woman I’d been partnered with seemed engaged. She offered me sound advice and even appeared regretful when our time was up. All I’d wanted that day was to sit with a professional and acquit myself competently, so when she asked me to send her partial of the book I was querying, I didn’t so much walk out of that meeting, I sailed. It was enough of a rush to have enjoyed the conference, but piquing an agent’s interest in my novel? That wasn’t just frosting on the proverbial cake, it was ice cream, homemade fudge sauce and a massive dollop of whipped cream, too. I sent my submission lickety split.

But that’s all she wrote—pun very much intended—because I received no follow up—no request to read more, no “Thanks, but no thanks.” Nothing. Zip.

Now in case you’re wondering, by that point I’d written three books and queried two. I’d received partial requests, full requests, every manner of form rejection and was no stranger to dead air. But that day, I let my guard down. I left the conference over the moon. My husband took me out to dinner that night and I couldn’t stop talking. I was so proud of myself for conquering my fears, and while I wasn’t expecting a book deal out of it, I was convinced the agent was enthusiastic. I thought at least I’d get a helpful letter telling me why she was rejecting my novel. But instead, I got nada. I emailed after a couple of months, crossing my fingers that the lack of communication was an oversight, but received no reply to my email either.

I get it. Agents drown in volume. One  needs to be a great writer with a unique concept with the best query, and it needs to land in front of the right person at the perfect time. I can’t imagine all the queries agents (or their assistants and interns) have to wade through. But darn it. That meeting filled me with hope. These days, the cynic in me figures I was naïve—that requesting a partial was that agent’s personal code for “no interest.” It was easier than saying “no” face-to-face to an eager author wanna-be.

So, there it is, a best and worst tied together. Nothing earth shattering. I keep writing. Periodically I rouse myself to query some more. But this month’s question triggered the memory of that happy day I blasted off like a skyrocket, only to drift to earth a few months later—wondering how I’d managed to fool myself into believing my agent meeting had been a success.