When I completed the first draft, well, first off I was shocked at the intensity  of emotion that comes with writing the last line of a big project – I was beside myself with joy.  But secondly, I started to think that maybe someone else would want to read it.  Maybe a few someones.  So I started reading books about how to get an agent and how to get published.

I wasn’t completely ignorant of the process – I have always been attracted to books like  The Writer’s Guide and magazines about writing, but this was the first time that I had something to put in a query letter.

I spent a lot of time writing queries, researching appropriate editors and agents to send them to, and sending them out.  I believe I spent several months doing this on the side, off and on.  I never received any feedback other than a form letter.  It was a lot of work, and all for naught. But I’m glad that I spent that time.

Writing about my novel, writing out a synopsis and finding “hooks” to quickly introduce what it is about was useful – the process helped me to see what still needed to be done with character development and storyline.  But I don’t think that the process got me any closer to being published.

After I got tired of submitting queries to people I know receive 500 letters a week, I started thinking about publishing it myself.  Luckily for me and other authors, things have changed drastically since I started reading about publishing.  It used to be that books about publishing wouldn’t even really address self publishing – it was considered vanity publishing.  Now I’m seeing articles and books about it all the time.

And that’s what I’m going to do.  I’m starting my own small publishing company, I’m calling it Pennywick Press, and I will probably only publish books that either I or my husband write.  And I can’t wait to get started.

My first project, Someotherville, will be published on June 12th, and I plan to keep updating this blog on the whole process.  Hopefully I will figure everything out!  Like I said, it will be an adventure.  Wish me luck!

Anyway, I’m in a sweet spot in life right now. I love my job, I love my family, my husband, my dog and my 5 cats… my house is looking decent, I’m caught up on laundry, there isn’t too much to worry about – some things, of course, but there is nothing I can do about any of that right now. I’m just waiting for Jay to get ready and then we are going to go have a simple breakfast at the co-op, driving my reliable (knock on wood) car.

And the sun is shining. It’s October 22nd and the sun is shining. It’s nice out. And the fact that it’s oct 22nd makes it five years and a day since I changed my date for the last time I gambled. If you don’t know, I am quite addicted to gambling, but I abstain in order to keep myself sane.

It doesn’t feel like five years. It’s even longer since I went to the casino. It’s coming up on 8 years since I went to the casino. Cards with friends doesn’t even measure up to what I was doing out at Mystic…. but I know the feeling of winning even a little bit leads me to want to go back out there.

Someone told me the other day that gambling wouldn’t lead to death, not like drugs or alcohol. I don’t agree, but I’m not about to go prove it. Dang, that’s what I should have said. Oh well.

Alright, now with all my rambling, I feel loosened up. Maybe I will do a more meaningful post later, or maybe I will even work on my novel that’s been on the back burner since school started. Thanks for reading. Sheila

So that exposes my newbieness to twitter – I’ve been active for all of a month, so maybe this a bit green of me, but my two greatest discoveries have been #amwriting and online literary magazines.

When you click on or search for #amwriting, you get a timeline of tweets that are mostly writers talking about what they are writing, or posts of writing tips.  I have found several articles that I think are helpful through this hashline (? term), and I have started to connect to other writers, too.

It turns out that there is also a #amwriting website, but I don’t have much to report – I have signed up for it but haven’t checked it out at all.  I’m saving it for when I have a little time to actually read some of the posts.

As far as literary magazines, I have barely started looking at those, either, but I think it’s going to be fun.  It’s really easy to submit to some of them.  I’ve done one so far, a short story that I wrote a while ago – in fact there’s a link at the top of this page – it’s Tabulate This.

If you want to take advantage of my list of literary magazines list, feel free to check it out!  I’m on twitter as TheMcManual.

Sheila

In my first 50,000 word completed literary novel, Someotherville, Joan, married for eight years to a man who suffers from literary wanderlust, awakes one day to find him dead. At the funeral, she impulsively tells her friends and family that he had finished a novel, but hadn’t sent it for consideration.  She maintains the lie, and, although not a writer herself, she goes through his unfinished works hoping to find something that she can finish, rather than allow his memory to be reduced to a legacy of failed plots, characters, and dreams.

Joan struggles with the process, but settles on a piece he titled Arlen the Quitter, in which the characters are able to speak to their author and question him as another character.  Through the process of bringing her husband’s novel to completion, she explores her own discomfort with teaching, writing narrative fiction, being atheist, and life itself.

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Well, that’s the query letter that I have used (I left of the last paragraph) for my novel, Someotherville.  I think I will end up publishing it independently, maybe next summer.  I am starting back to school next week, teaching high school English again, and I won’t have time to go crazy with publishing…

I do, however, plan to keep working on my next novel, tentatively titled Art is for Other People. 

If you have comments about my query letter, or if you’re just dying to read the book, let me know.  I recently read an advance copy of Julian Gough’s next book on my computer, and it was rewarding.  Exciting, actually, to read it before it’s out in book form.  I think if he can send perfect strangers a copy, I might be persuaded to send my blog reader(s?) a copy if I get a request…

Let me know if you are interested and we’ll talk.

Sheila

I now wake up in the morning and the first thing I do, other than bodily functions, is check my facebook.  When I’m done looking at the recent posts and answering anyone who has sent me a message, I check three email accounts and my bank account.  That used to be it – but now  I have signed up for Twitter, and I have gotten sucked in completely.

The first time I had Twitter, I didn’t even know how to use it.  I only followed about three people, and none of them ever tweeted anything.  I didn’t understand what all the excitement was about, and I eventually closed the account.

Recently I tried to sign up for my friend’s website, “Least Dangerous Game,” but you have to have a twtter account, so I made one.  And that’s when I discovered that there are 100s of accounts that I want to follow.  Almost none of them are my friends.  They are mostly libraries, literary magazines, and authors.

Through this process, I have been at once overwhelmed and inspired.  I sometimes get the feeling that everyone else is writing, so I should join in and write more too.  The dark side of seeing all of this writing is the odd pang of insecurity that makes me feel like not writing and just reading all the time.  In fact, I almost didn’t write this blog because I was feeling intimidated.

It’s a bit like being at a big party where everyone is talking loud and fast and you can’t get a word in edgewise, but then if you go into a side room you might find someone delightful to have a deeper conversation with.  I guess Twitter is the big party and blogs and articles are the side rooms.

So for me, to use the internet in a way that will be better for me, I need to check in at the big party, but I also need to be off in the side rooms doing my own thing.

I started it about 2 years ago, and back then it was just me rambling about how I would like to write a book. Then, I started thinking that it was really time to get started. When I reviewed my notes, I found that there was a lot of material that I will probably end up using, even though I didn’t have any specific characters in mind yet. It’s a little weird to me, but I guess it’s not too surprising that what I wrote at the beginning of this process would fit in with what I am now thinking… it’s just funny that it seems like I can set this aside for months at a time and it’s still there.

I think that phenomena is what is inspiring me the most to write. Well, that and the fact that I have now developed a lot more of the storyline and I know my characters much better.

I have also been adding a lot of research to this process. With my first novel, I barely researched anything. It was pretty much off the top of my head, and I only spent one afternoon out observing a specific place that I was writing about. (the sculpture garden.)

This is much different – Jay and I went to Duluth and we kicked around a lot – went to Fitgers for an hour or so, went to the Tweed Museum and Glensheen, walked along Point Park, along the boardwalk, all the while thinking of my two characters that will meet and fall in love there, but in the 19-teens. So different being in a place when you are thinking of how the character would have seen it. I think Duluth is probably forever changed for me.

Anyway, thanks for reading.
Sheila

That might sound like a lot, but it’s just a drop in the bucket compared to how much I still need to write. I haven’t found myself writing because I have found myself watching old stupid tv. I’m done with the series I was watching – and no, I won’t tell you what it was because it’s so stupid, but suffice it to say that it wasn’t really worth the time. Well, maybe a little because I did enjoy it, but now it’s over and I have to knuckle down!!

So enough with sidetracks and back on to the main track! Ok, I’m off to write. See ya.

xox sheila

All of this is for research on a character in the novel I am writing. I like researching, but it’s really new to me. The novel that I wrote before didn’t have much research at all – it was mostly off the top of my head. I just spent some time at the sculpture garden to make observations, other than that it was all make believe.

So it’s a new world for me… the world of the historical novel. And I love it. I’d like to hear from others who have incorporated history into their creative writing. What have been your ‘highs and lows’ in the process?

What is it about art that makes people talk about supporting it?  One might ask, if it’s so important to us, why do we have to make a concerted effort to support it?  Why doesn’t art just sell itself – and therefore find support without our having to discuss it?

From what I have read, there are a lot of reasons for this here in the good ol’ US of A.  One of the reasons I have read – perhaps it was in Adbusters?  – is that all of the people designing packages and doing ad layout for corporations are artists and would have been making ‘real art’ but they got waylaid by money.  I think that this is probably somewhat true – people with technical skills and a good eye are getting jobs making artsy things for non-artsy causes.

But that can’t be all of it.  So what else is it?  Is it the ease of purchasing mass-made products?  It is true that you can go to Target and get a nice looking wall hanging, already framed, for only about 20 or 30 bucks, and it’s a lot easier than going to an art festival and choosing something more individual that will probably cost you a lot more.

And choosing seems to be the problem.  I notice that in my craft business, my best seller is a stupid item – I saw some cute little Hello Kitty beads at Bobby Bead in Mpls. and purchased two packages of them, and then made bracelets of them combined with some other beads.  I also made a whole lot of jewelry of my own design out of polymer clay.  Guess what’s my best seller?  Hello, kitty.

So.  Why is that?  They’re not higher quality than the rest of my work.  But there’s an identity factor.  People pick up the bracelet and say, oh!  It’s Hello Kitty.  And I say, yep.  I believe that these people buy the bracelets because they identify with HK or they know someone else who does.

This leads me back to the question of supporting the arts.  My work is just the beginning of me starting to feel like a little teeny-tiny bit of an artist – and I have seen already that the people who buy jewelry of my own design are the people who relate to the designs.  One lady bought a Chalchiutlicue pendant and immediately referred to the necklace as “her,” and another said she was interested because she knew that none of her friends would have one, and that she liked it.

People are searching for expressions of who they are.  And if art doesn’t do this for them, they don’t buy it.  Or they don’t go to the exhibit or the play or the standup comedy or the live broadcast of a podcast or whatever you artsy folks are up to today!

You might be thinking that I am about to advocate for art to change and be more of what people identify with – but that is far from my point.  I am thinking that we need some sort of mass shift so that people identify themselves as artists and then support art because they, too, are artists.

I’m not sure how we would accomplish this.  It seems that institutions like the State Arts Board are already working on this  – but it’s going to take more than that – somehow there needs to be an underground swell of people just talking about art and participating in art.  Maybe it’s as simple as getting more people out to participate in art that is already happening – how can we make that bridge?  I’d love to get comments and hear ideas.

Meanwhile, I’m participating by volunteering for Off Leash Area tonight to do a mailing, and I’m going to see the Mustache Rangers on Thursday, I’m blabbing about art on Facebook and with friends, and we’ll see where things go from there.

I am working on getting ideas together for a booth at the Pride TC festival in June. I am making hand beaded headbands (super cute) with lots of rainbow themes. I am also going to sell plastic rainbow headbands that I will personalize in some way.

I am also going to make beaded rose bouquets and pins, both in traditional red and white as well as fun rainbow colors.

Since I don’t know if I can fill up a whole table worth of stuff in just 3 months of work time, I’m also inviting some of my artist friends to set out some of their work. I am excited that artist Elizabeth Preble has agreed to do some small pieces – if you’ve been looking for her work, you can plan to spend $30-40 dollars on a small painting – she says they’re good for hanging up or using as a coaster… whatever you like. Personally I’d hang them up.