Sunday, June 29, 2014

Nine Years to the Day

I signed up to have my query letter evaluated by a professional query letter evaluator.  I signed up in February when I was sure I would have my manuscript not just drafted but polished, not just outlined but synopsised (is that a word?).  In February, July seems very distant.  Anything is possible.  Well somehow the day after tomorrow is July and I have not made the progress I'd hoped for.

The entries are due tomorrow.  So yesterday I went looking for my last query letter, thinking I could just have them review that and still learn from their analysis.  I found the query letter in my email history, faster than looking through an old laptop for it.

So I knew it had been a while since I gave up on book #1, stopped writing fiction, and stopped trying to sell that first child/novel. A while.  Like at least five years, maybe six.  Well, it turns out the last time I sent this query letter was June 28, 2005.  That is exactly nine years ago.  Nine years passed without my writing a new work.  Nine years without searching for an agent or attending a writers conference.  It is scary, what a little discouragement can do.  It rings true to the quote I often hear that successful writers are just those who don't give up.

 
But to the day, June 28th.  That catches my imagination up and I wonder, what changes will happen in my writing life between now and June 28, 2023.  That is only nine years from now.  I sure hope that it is more than zilch, zero, nada.  I hope that if this book #2 doesn't flesh out, that story #3 will pop out without pause.  And the fourth, and the fifth, until I am old (er) and gray (er) and even if all 17 have not found a publishing home, that I will look back and see that I did not give into discouragement ever again.  Once is enough.