I Am Alive

Nearing the finish line!

Hi my friends,

I can barely keep track of what day it is, but I am typing in changes of the fourth draft now. I should be finished this week, hopefully tomorrow. I am finally starting to feel good about it. It has definitely been a labor of love. I can't tell you how many nights I have been up for most of the night, toiling away, as well as a huge portion of the day, too.

I've had the stress of a divorce thrown in there, too. I look forward to life calming down.

The next step is find 25 agents to query who are my dream agents to see if they want to represent me. I will research to see who likes to represent memoirs, and what kinds of memoirs they are looking for. I will probably describe this one as Hillbilly Elegy meets Running with Scissors, to get Educated. (which are the names of 3 popular money-making memoirs) At times humerous, as well as harrowing, Susan Gabriel writes about surviving a toxic, abusive family of covert narcissists and how writing award-winning novels saved her. Etc. Something like this. It is basically a sales letter. I will spend a lot of time gettingthis query as streamlined and as perfect as I can.

Sometimes you hear back right away, as in a day or two, some I will not hear back from at all. Then I will start again with the next set. No telling how fast or slow this will go. I will attach the whole manuscript to the email I send them, so they can read it if their interest is piqued. They can usually rule it out rather quickly if it isn’t for them. The waiting to hear is the hard part, and the rejections. But this is how it is for everyone.

First, I have several hours of changes to type into my laptop, so I’d best get to it. Just wanted to let you know why it has been quiet here in the cornfield. Then I will probably take the weekend off, and start on researching literary agents Monday morning. 🥳

I hope all is well at your house.

Love you!