Saturday, May 23, 2009

Done for Now.

Work on my book, that is.

Since Wednesday, I've revised the initial draft, tweaked it, moved some stuff around, added the odd thought, and revised some more. Wrote a detailed proposal and sweated over a chapter summary (it's 17 chapters. That's a heck of a lot of summarizing). Agonized over query letter. The working title is, "Redeemed from the Pit: Biblical Repentance and Restoration from the Bondage of Eating Disorders".

Do you people know how boring it is to read 84,000 of your own words? Repeatedly?!?

I don't want to think about eating disorders anymore. I don't want to write about it anymore. When it's time to start supper, here I sit, pecking away intently. The other night, I burned the rice. The whole reason my husband bought me this laptop was so I wouldn't burn any more meals. I was working here in the kitchen - 2 meters away from the stove. See how dangerous these food issues can be? Even your family starts to suffer....burned rice. Unreal.

I finally sent whole package off today to an author from church (who's published 3 books with Zondervan) to gauge interest from his contacts in the publishing world. I hope to have an agent soon, but it's hard to get an agent when you've not yet published a book. (Kind of like applying for a credit card when you don't already have an established line of credit).

Now the waiting begins. The excruciating waiting. Still waiting for my article to be published in a certain well-known Christian magazine, too (it's slated for late this summer). I hate waiting.

My wrists are stiff from typing. My eyes feel like sandpaper when I wake up in the morning from staring at the monitor for hours at a time. Somehow I've kept up with the housework, and interpreted three days last week, too. But actually getting a quality, helpful piece of writing that will glorify God into print has consumed most of my time and brain power these last few weeks. For now, I can take a break and wait for feedback. Which is good, because I'm supposed to be leading Bible study on Wednesday night and I've not read the book yet.

Oh yes - Stefan (Kindergarten) won the prize for Sparkies at the AWANA banquet last week for the most verses memorized. He blew away the competition (mostly first and second graders) with 33 verses memorized in 4 months. That's my boy! Future John Macarthur, I tell ya what.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on getting this far! That sounds like a ton of work. The publishing part sounds daunting. I have a draft for a book and need to get started writing, but I am not certain how to go about even soliciting interest. I prayed that yours would get in the right hands, and quickly!

Beautiful picture, btw!

Marie said...

Thanks! Neil, I don't know what the topic is you're writing about, but the advice I've gleaned is to look at which publishers print works of the similar subject area, and plan to address your queries to them (mentioning similar books they have published, and explaining what makes yours unique). For example, if it's apologetics, perhaps Crossway or NavPress? Zondervan has just about everything. However, officially they want all proposals submitted through http://www.christianmanuscriptsubmissions.com.

(It costs $98 per 6 months; I set up an account with them and uploaded a proposal since that's the way publishers will see it).

I was a bit disappointed in the Writer's Market Guide - not worth the $20. It had some helpful advice on writing a query letter, but all the other stuff, like publishers grouped by interest and contact information, you can find online for free.

Here is a GREAT little tutorial from TommyNelson on writing a good proposal and chapter synopsis which I used: http://www.thomasnelson.com/consumer/Downloads/WritingABookProposal.pdf

I don't know if that will show up as a link - you may have to copy/paste into your browser. Anyway, I found it a helpful tool.

Thanks re: picture -- I've decided not to post pictures of my kids anymore, and took them down. It's ok on MySpace, and not that this blog gets much traffic, but the internet is such a public venue. It just doesn't seem like good wisdom.

Good luck with your writing. BTW, it's good (they say) to send editors queries before you finish a manuscript, so they can have input in the early stages. I guess I did things kind of backwards, but I knew what I wanted to say and just organized it as I thought best.