Good afternoon, squiders! Exciting developments in these parts.
(I’m not sure who put Taig in mad mode in the background. I suspect a child.)
We talked about my daruma doll a month back or so, but for those who missed it and don’t want to look, darumas are little Japanese dolls that you wish on. I brought mine back from Japan in 2014 for the sole purpose of querying Book 1, and we’re just going to ignore how long it’s been since I bought it until now.
They come with blank eyes, and you color in one when you make a wish, and the other when the wish comes true.
Two weeks ago I expressed frustration with how things were going with juggling the Book 1 submission materials and revision prep for my scifi horror novella and had it helpfully pointed out that maybe I was trying to do too much at once. I sat down and thought about it, decided it was probably true, and stopped the revision prep to focus solely on my submission material.
Well, squiders, my submission materials are done, my agent list is made, and I’ve already sent out three queries. Right now I’m making a moodboard and a trope list for pitch events on Blue Sky (and I guess maybe Twitter but ew).
So, yes, all I needed to do was focus.
Which is infuriating.
I wrote a book once about working on multiple projects at the same time, and in general I stand by the techniques mentioned there, but I did include a section on working on only one project at a time, because that is what works best for different people and different times.
And I suspect as long as I could, I would have procrastinated on the submission materials. I think getting the focus on the agent list really helped, because it gave the whole submission process some tangibility. It wasn’t just “make submission materials and yeet them into the void,” it was “oh, here is an end goal, I need these things for these specific people.” Also, now I can see if agents I want to query are going to close soon (or have just opened), which gives the process some immediacy as well, and is why we have queries out.
So, we’re actively doing this. The eye has been colored.
Wish me luck!
