Now that you have your query and your various synopses ready to go, the next step is to actually send your stuff out to a real live agent, standing by.

Actually, no, agents are not standing by just waiting for queries to drop in like manna from heaven. That is a real misconception writers have. Yes, agents have to look at queries in order to find new clients to sign. But that is only a part of what they do. They have all the work for their actual clients as well: overseeing revisions, submitting to publishers, negotiating contracts… and the…

Prose writers can learn a lot from poetry, whether or not it’s National Poetry Month. Especially if you’re feeling like your writing is a little stale, you can start to play with words again by paying attention to some of the techniques poets use.

1. Imagery

Poetry rarely relies on narration to get its point across. Poets observe the world closely to come up with original phrases to describe things, like Mary Oliver’s grasshopper from “The Summer Day”: …the one who has flung herself out of the grass. Or Theodore Roethke’s Bridges of iron lace/A suddenness of trees/A lap of mountain mist…

Between pandemic fatigue, the arrival of spring, and expanding access to vaccines, more and more of us are emerging from our homes and — gasp — actually spending time with other people. While many epidemiologists are saying this is a bad idea (a race between vaccinations and COVID-19 mutations) it hasn’t been enough to slow the tide of businesses opening up and people socializing more.

It hasn’t even been a crushingly cold winter here in New England, but like everyone else, I’m sick of living on Zoom and want to interact in person with fellow human beings if possible.

BUT.

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Highlights for me this month were Craft in the Real World (nonfiction) and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (fiction). I had a pretty eclectic mix of nonfiction, but a very fantasy-based fiction mix this month, for no particular reason. I choose based on what’s interesting, but also whatever pops up as ready in my library holds list. I have so many holds, in fact, that I constantly have to recycle them so I can finish the ones I already have!

Nonfiction:

The Complete Guide to Vision Boards — Christine Kane. This one is a bit of a “gimme” since…

Why do I call it “the dreaded Synopsis?” Because for many writers, it’s more of a chore than writing the whole damn book. But it’s a necessary skill to master to sell your book, and can be helpful at various other stages of the process. You don’t need to wait until the end to write one!

What Is a Synopsis?

A novel synopsis tells your story in condensed form. It allows you to tie up all the messy points of your novel into a neat, pretty package.

You will need Synopses of various lengths: the Mini, the One-Paragraph, the One-Page…

Photo credit: Emma Matthews Digital via Unsplash

Querying a book is both a lot simpler and a lot harder than it may appear. Simple, because there are very specific things you need to include, and there is a very simple outline you can follow to make sure those elements are present. Hard, because holy cow — creating a compelling short synopsis of your book in one or two paragraphs is a major challenge!

The first thing to understand is what a query does: Sell your book! That is its purpose. Think of it as your cover letter, and the 1–10…

And you thought writing the book was hard. Now you actually have to query the darn thing. This is as much an art as a science, and everyone will have their own journey. I’m sharing mine, and a little about my process, in hopes it will be helpful to you.

The honest truth: My full querying journey so far

Book #1: Really wasn’t ready. It was MFA thesis novel, the one where I learned how to write a novel, and it got some really nice feedback from agents and editors, but ultimately never sold.

Book #2: Again, some nice feedback, but two glaring points that I kept seeing over…

Some people just seem to have it all figured out. They choose a life goal and they take action to achieve it. They understand what needs to be done, and there are clear steps and milestones along the way. They persevere, and through luck and hard work, they make it.

I am not one of those people. My path has been meandering, more full of accident than plan. For a long time I straddled two worlds: An approved academic professional one, and a creative one (writing and book coaching) that was at best a “side hustle” long before the term…