Letters home from the querying trenches by a weary writer, describing the travails of flogging a manuscript.
Essays:
Tools in the Trench
A Brief Rant About Editing
Wabbit Hunting
Commercial Enough?
Too Good to be True?
A Sharp Left
Did the Rabbit Die?
Sanity Saver?
We Create Our Rejections
Writers and the Bird
Inventing Quicksand
A Question of Style
120
Comparable
5 Things
Tappity
CPTSD and the Status Quo
Book Reviews:
Quick and Dirty or Reviews that Reveal
Newest Post
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In the Trenches: Late Response v No Response
When do you call a late response a no response? This brief note is a bit of a follow up to the last post.
I got curious and so went and looked at the stats I am generating off my database for queries. The longest query still open is *drumroll* 331 days old. So that query is just one month shy of a full year.
I’ve assigned it the category of *crickets* in the database. That category is reserved for those agents and agencies that use the *ghost* reply. In other words, the non-reply.
At this point I suspect I will never see a reply from this agent. Disappointing, but moving on. But I think this case is a good example of the inability to resolve issues that I often talk about here in regard to querying and mental health.
Particularly in CPTSD there is this need to cling to the hope that you will receive a response to any request. The need to know we haven’t slipped back into being inconsequential is vital. It is one way we use to define ourselves. And before everyone gives me the “you shouldn’t care what other people think” spiel — Thank you I already know that. But in the case of those of us with CPTSD, this wiring is baked in. This is the way we were shaped and we have no other way to identify ourselves.
Suffice it to say, changing the legacy of CPTSD is a long, long process of not just unlearning, but also of building ourselves as people. All that learning and discovery which shapes children into adults was in our cases deferred. Some folks with CPTSD never understand the confines they work within. Perhaps they are happier, perhaps not.
But once you have seen the box, and you know how stuck you are, being able to accept those parameters is a huge contradictory wad of ambivalence. The box is safe, we think. But we know that the world beyond the borders of the box is dangerous, spiteful, and stacked against us. Braving the world beyond the borders of safe to discover who we were meant to be is a daily, sometimes hourly, struggle.
Photo credit:
Pexels.com/Pixabay
Blog Posts
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In the Trenches: CPTSD and the Status Quo
What do you do? Sit, patiently for the inevitable to descend or do you send the gentle ripple out into the world that will reflect back to you as a crushing blow? It’s like a game of Russian roulette, except every barrel is loaded.
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In the Trenches: The Editing Foxhole #1
Once again unto the breach good friends– Or something like that. It’s time to jump into the editing, again.
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In the Trenches: Editing in The Cutting Room
Where, oh where, have all these words come from? And how much is the postage to send them back?
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In the Trenches: Generality
Up to chapter 22 in the editing of Book 2. I’ll have to keep the tissues close by today. This chapter always makes me tear up.
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In the Trenches: Catching-up
Help! It seems I have fallen arears in the required reading for my genre. Thus, I need a little guidance on what to read. So, let me hear it. What fantasy novel would you recommend from the last decade?
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In the Trenches: Follies
The temptation to link to some YouTube videos of Scots music (ok, and some Irish) is very strong today. But, on to querying.
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In the Trenches: Bad at Typing A New Tappity Tale
In the Trenches: TappityOh bother, I’m just whinging about the necessity to fight my way through technology in order to get my work done.
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In the Trenches: 5 Things to Organize the New Writer
In the Trenches: 5 Things – I am pursuing a way to better define my time. Something simple, yet flexible. So, ask yourself, ‘how is house cleaning like writing?’ Experiment time: I’ve applied a resource for one, to the other.
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In the Trenches: Ogniem i Mieczem
In the Trenches: Ogniem i Mieczem – Using an incomparable film as one of my comparables is rather cheeky.
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In the Trenches: Stalking Comps Elusive, Rare, and Maddening
In the Trenches: Comparable – Scouring the world’s libraries for just that book to not compare yours to.
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In the Trenches: MSWL Crisis
In the Trenches: MSWL Crisis – I ran head first into MSWL day and knee-deep into a crisis of conscience.
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In the Trenches: Less Waiting. More Querying.
In the Trenches: Less Waiting. More Querying. – Good decision, bad decision? I don’t know. But, at least, it is a decision.
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In the Trenches: Monday, Again?
Too much looking at screens over the weekend. I have got to remember, walk away from the screens. That is what weekends are for. But, no.
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In the Trenches: 120 Reasons to Turn off Auto-Closing
In the Trenches: 120 The role of the magic number 120 in querying.
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In the Trenches: Aha!
In the Trenches: Aha!Chill the champagne. I think I have finally cracked the troublesome scene in Chapter 6.
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In the Trenches: Traction?
In the Trenches: Traction?Runnin’ on Ice. Slip, Slip, Sliding Away. Long Time Gone. The playlist for this morning’s motivation.
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In the Trenches: Research Today
In the Trenches: Research TodayRemember, change your spots for no one. And on that note I am off to nap. Too much screen time today.
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In the Trenches: A Question on Writing Style
It seems the only area of my life where I consider style is in my writing. So, is there a market out there for my style?
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In the Trenches: Flow
In the Trenches: FlowJust can’t seem to get the hang of chapter 6 in book 2. It insists on doing its own thing.