This week has been a good week for writing. I finished up my Zombie Love submission, which included writing a query letter, a synopsis, and a one-sentence pitch. I’ve read a lot about crafting them, but this was the first time I took a serious stab at it. I also reworked the first two chapters of the book, and its cleaned up rather nicely. Zombie Love is a finished novel on the fifth draft, and presentable as is, but another pass through will make the manuscript shine. I should have time to go over everything before Berkley gets to results or requests, but if not, I’m happy with the novel as it stands.
I also worked on my poetry chapbook and submitted it to Button Poetry’s chapbook contest. Results likely won’t be or for months, and I’m not holding my breath, but it was another great experience in my writing journey. The poems were written between 2019 and 2021 about my inner judgy thoughts about strangers or people I know. I narrowed down the poems to the best 30, which had a consistent voice, then needed to figure out how to organize them. It was interesting trying to valence the lengths, the topics, and the humor/ seriousness of tone. In the end, I think i came up with a good flow. I then formatted the chapbook (trying to figure out how to start the page numbers on the fourth page took more than an hour before I gave up and just did it manually). I also went through and edited my poems, which I haven’t really done before – how do you edit a poem anyway? I edited by adding detail, italics, changing line breaks, deleting weak lines, and pumping up descriptions. The poems are stronger than before, and they are certainly fun to read!
I’ve also started to get back to my website and blog. My goal this week is to add a “published works” page with a link to my Amazon author site. I also would like to post a few backdated blog entries that were nearly done and just needed an image. Stretch goal is to get a few schedules tbt poetry posts up.
This week I finished reading The Great Troll War by Jasper Fforde and completed Monsters and Manners by Tilly Wallace. The Great Troll War is the final book in the Last Dragonslayer series, and was highly anticipated by both my daughter and myself – and it totally lived up to our expectations. Monsters and Manners marks the second book in my 24 books recommended by friends challenge. I started Alone by Robert J Crane as the 3rd book in the challenge.
Looking forward to more reading, writing, and blogging this week.