Yesteday I finished chapter 3 of the third witch book in the series. Traditionally, a proposal (on which editors often buy) is three chapters and an outline (though lots of writers, myself included, have sold on lots less). But I was waiting for a response from editors on several projects and had nothing else to keep me busy, so I worked on fleshing out these witch books. There may not be a publisher in the world who wants them — “light paranormal is a hard sell” — but if not, maybe I’ll self-publish them on Kindle and Smashwords. Who knows?
When I’m writing and I have a question I need to research or a fact I need to look up from the characters’ bios, instead of stopping right then, I type in ?? to remind me that info goes there. That’s my job today — finding all the ??s in all three witch books and filling them in with the right answer.
Then they’ll be ready to fly through the ethernet to my agent, to see what she thinks of them. Wish I could put one of Chloe’s or Kara’s handy-dandy spells on them to guide them into print and best-sellerdom, but . . . sigh . . . they’ll have to stand on their own merits.
Marilyn–
You’ve got a system I need to use instead of stopping to look stuff up. Good luck on the witch series–the first one I read was great!
I’ll do a dance if you want me to–just missed the full moon.
Any kind of moon will do!! Please, dance away.
I used to stop to get the info I needed right then, and realized I was spending two hours browsing the Internet, reading interesting stuff about the subject matter long after I’d found the answer I needed. This makes it so much easier to me to keep on track.
I usually highlight a note to myself.
I hope you do self-pub the witch books if NY doesn’t want them. In fact, I know of a wonderful cover artist you can use!
I’m seriously considering it. I’ll give them the best shot I (and my agent) can give, but I really want them out there. No matter what the editors say, I KNOW there’s a market for light paranormal — I’ve heard too readers ask for it.
Your new cover is absolutely darling. I LOVE it!! Your artist is definitely talented!
It’s a huge timesaver for me. You know how easily distracted I am . . .