Insecure Writer’s Support Group

Before I start with today’s IWSG post, I just want to ask you to check out yesterday’s post, if you haven’t yet. It’s all about making the bloggosphere a bit more awesome, but I need your help.

Now, it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group post. In case you don’t know, every first Wednesday of the month, a group of us writers (led by Ninja Captain Alex Cavanaugh) share our insecurities and encouragement. If you want to sign up or just read more posts, click here.

My insecurity about queries actually vanished last night. Thanks to the amazing Erica Olson, I FINALLY think I understand how a query should be constructed.

Now, my insecurity turns to the synopsis. See, I wrote one, and I used to think it’s pretty good. Except I now have a brilliant query letter that goes with it. So it needs to be better.

MUCH better. Thing is, I don’t know how to make it so. *headdesk*

Still, thanks to you amazing guys who kept giving me tips, advice and links, I am learning. I just hope I have a good synopsis by the end of next week, because I want to start sending those suckers out again.

Anyone else querying/writing synopses? How is it going for you?

Things seem to be coming together

Well… I finished summarizing Doorways, so I guess that the only thing that’s needed is to sit down and do a synopsis. 

Problem is, I’m not dead sure as to what a synopsis entails, so I guess it’s a ton of research waiting for me. 

In the meantime, my painting ended up coming together as I painted. It’s actually very close to finished, now. I’m hoping to finish it by tomorrow. 

But, now we have visitors who’ll be here for a few weeks, so I’m not sure about exactly how much I’ll be able to get done. 

Maybe that’s good, because it means that I’ll actually get some rest. 

Or… it means I’ll be waking up by 5 a.m. to get some stuff done. 

Could go either way. 

Do you also struggle to turn off, even when you know you should? 

You know it’s bad when procrastinating means you write a query instead.

Thanks so much for the comments to yesterday’s post. I decided to stop whining and look at the query again.

Mistake I’d made this time: I put too much importance on it. You see… I’m not excluding any publishing method at this stage. The only reason why I’m querying now is so that I can say I tried it. If it fails, I’m not going to worry about it too much.

It just means I wasn’t meant to go the traditional route. I’ll take another.

In the mean time, I looked at my most recently drafted query. It sucked.

So I decided to take a completely new approach to the query and I think it’s pretty dang good. Just waiting for the dust to settle, then I’ll be editing it again.

In the mean time, I started the monumental task of summarizing Doorways so that I can write the synopsis. I have 70 chapters. So far, I’ve finished 13.

That’s not the only monumental task I have in front of me. It’s not even the most urgent  I have to finish my grandmother’s painting. You know… the one that’s supposed to be her Christmas gift.

I’m filled with jitters about it. It’s all good and well to do one for myself, but this is for my Grandmother’s Christmas present, so I really don’t want to mess it up. But I only have 6 days and so much detail work to do that I’m terrified.

Sigh. Sorry if today’s post is mixed up. I have a few too many things vying for my attention today.

Anyone else as messed up as me this time of the year? What do you need to get done and soon?

As a result of NaNo…

As I mentioned before, I’m taking part in NaNoWriMo this year.

Because I actually want to continue querying through November, I decided to give Doorways one last look-over. The way I see it, if the story is as polished as it will get, won’t have to worry about anything except copy/pasting into the query.

I plan to do the same with my query letter. Another version will be coming out, although I don’t know what it will look like yet. All it know is it better be better than any of the previous ones.

Lots and lots of Query Shark readings will ensue.

Then there’s another monster lurking in the querying waters: the dreaded synopsis. About 80% of my expanded agent list has at least a 1 page synopsis as part of their submission requirements.

Uhm…

I don’t have a CLUE how to write a synopsis.

Any good query and synopsis links for me?