THE QUERULOUS PROCESS OF QUERY LETTERS

Outside, it's a beautiful sunny autumnal day. I'm wearing a brand new pink shirt, celebrating Pink Out for Planned Parenthood day, and currently sitting at the Cascade Park Library where I just finished rewriting Chapter -29- of Ghoul World. An extremely long chapter, I took several days to complete it. Today, 143 people visited this blog. It's the biggest number to visit this Beatnik, Silent Generation Boomer's blog about an old writer whose goal is to get someone other than himself to publish one of his novels before he dies. I'm now circulating three rewritten novels to agents while completing the third rewrite of my recently completed science fiction novel. Still to be rewritten is the novel I used as my thesis for a Master's in English (with an emphasis in creative writing). It's called Delinquent Lives. Also, something is stirring in me about an entirely new novel. Who knows? I recently recommitted myself to sending out more query letters to agents. I realized that every time I enter my office, I flinch to see the 4x6 yellow cards upon which I record my queries and their results. Rejection is always a painful thing to experience. Two rejections of queries came my way last week. For the fun of it, I sent one query over the Atlantic last night to a British agent.

BEATNICK SILENTLY FEELS BEAT AGAIN

I'm writing this moment at the Cascade Park Public Library after putting in two hours of writing at the Torque coffee shop and getting my third parking ticket in downtown Vancouver. See photo of Van. library over my shoulder.

Three nights in a row, I slept 8 to 10 hours yet still woke tired and discouraged. I wasn't able to write those three days, and all that ton of self-despising I carry around, waiting for me to tire and drop my guard, came crashing down, and I nearly gave up on writing for the tenth or hundredth time? I can't tell you how hard it's been during much of my life to get out from under the self-hatred and take a breath of air. It's there even when it's not there. If you understand me, you understand a lot. 

Exhaustion always carries with it negative thinking, and negative thoughts are like magnets. One negative thought attracts another. They collect together inside my all too human head and, collectively, they weigh tons. I'll feel that unrewarded writing is useless and worthless. I'll feel foolish and tell myself I'm too old to still be pecking away on a computer keyboard, trying to produce something that'll make me a little money. "After all these years, stupid," I tell myself, "if money for your writing was going to happen, it would have happened by now." To try to explain this to someone, other than my wife, also feels foolish. No one can imagine how much needless suffering I've felt over this obsession with writing and lack of monetary reward for it. I've carried it around most of my life. It sounds stupid to some more happily adjusted people I have not a doubt. I must add, that the angst is much reduced and doesn't appear half so often as it did in the past. Sobriety and much psychological work helps, but it waits, there, in the darkness, for its chances to return.

Then, last night I put in another 9 hours of sleep and, this morning, woke magically refreshed. The cloud of doubt and self-despising lifted for no good reason I can think of, and the sunshine of good spirits filled me. So today, I'm back at it, looking at Manning and trying to figure out "what happens next"—the constant voice that leads the novelist within me on the haphazard process of plotting a novel. 

SILENT BOOMER BEATS THE BUSHES FOR MARKETS

market research

As I continue to rewrite Delinquent Lives, I find the novel has a tighter structure than I thought. Close reading reveals chronological details I thought were missing, phrases like "three days later" or "last night" that I missed when I skimmed through. Like improving dialogue, finding the skeletal structure takes attention to detail.

This morning I sent off one of the essays that my local paper rejected to another market exclusive to the Pacific Northwest. I devoted four hours to discovering the new market, rewriting the essay to make it more market correct, and carefully following the submission guidelines. 

head shot

I found the new market by gathering up all the newspapers and magazines on the free literature rack in the lobby outside the Cascade branch of the Vancouver Library and studying them to see what to my wondering eyes might appear. I found a new age production which pays with a year's subscription. Again...no money, but isn't that all part of getting things published and building reputation? Submission guidelines also requested a head shot. See photos. 

Finally, I've not heard back from the senior publication which asked for writing samples and this blog address. Perhaps I'm  75 years too young (or immature) for the target audience these senior newspapers seek out. That's a definite possibility.