This is how I'm feeling right about now. My best childhood friend's mom passed away, and yesterday was the funeral. I spent a lot of time of time with her growing up, and she was a great lady. She did a lot for all of us kids and put up with even more. She was only 65, and losing her is very sad. She died in her sleep, so we're grateful she didn't suffer. Still, the experience is exhausting, and I can only imagine how my friend is feeling. Losing my parents, especially my mom, is my greatest fear. I have no idea how I'll cope. My thoughts are with her family. We were all blessed to have had her in our lives.Sad stuff aside, I've been focusing on my query letter for Light and Dark. *Grumbles, stomps, and throws stuff.* It's going better than I thought, and I've been learning a lot. Catie Rhodes has given me a ton of advice, including some cool exercises. The first one is writing about your book in three sentences or about 70 words: story set up (inciting incident) in one sentence, the major disasters are one to three sentences, the ending is one. Character gets one sentence, the conflict one sentence, and your book's unique aspects get one sentence. It's challenging, but it's a great practice.
The second trick is to write about your book in one sentence - 25 words or less. No names. It's tough, but again, great practice.
I'm also working on the synopsis. Even more stomping and grumbling about this one. Hate writing these with a passion. But Kathryn Craft from the Blood Red Pencil and TJ Proofs gave me some great tips: go through your book chapter by chapter and write down how each chapter moves the story/character arc along. Summarize the main theme of each chapter and then go from there. This has really helped me from being all over the place with my synopsis.
I also have to thank Donna Galanti for reading my query letter and giving some great feedback. She's had some experience with queries and is able to give some great advice.
My goal is to have a draft of the synopsis and query letter ready for critique/editing by Friday.
On The Prophet front, still in planning phase but getting closer. Working on the setting: a picturesque historical town in Mississippi, deep in the heart of the Bible belt. Very excited!
And on the way down to my parents yesterday I came up with an idea with another story. Thank goodness for voice recorders on cell phones. This one's definitely going in the to-write vault:)
Thanks to you all for your support of my blog and on Twitter. How's your #Row80 week going?
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