Dear friends,
I know I said I was giving myself a week’s respite from writing but when you feel a spark you have to seize it before it slips away. My period of rest lasted two days and then the miraculous happened. A key piece that was missing from my novel (working title: Finding the Bird Whisperer) came to me and I knew exactly what I needed to do to get my novel closer to how I’d originally envisioned it.
All along I thought I was going to have to make some major changes to my novel. Entire chapters would have to be cut. New ones would need to be written. But this simple change at the beginning of the novel means the rest of the novel makes more sense as it is already written, and the edits I now need to make aren’t quite so daunting.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to switch back to focusing on my novel after solely concentrating on poetry the past couple years, but the timing is actually perfect. Kind Over Matter has accepted a few of my poems for publication, one for each of the remaining months of this year. It was my intention to query at least one publisher of poetry each month, but since my poems are forthcoming on Kind Over Matter, and with my recent publication in Bella Grace magazine, I feel I can focus on my novel the rest of the year. I’ll still share my unpublished poems with my paid subscribers and will continue to share my poetry on Instagram.
If all goes well, I’ll start querying my novel (for the second time) in early 2024. Does anyone have tips for finding literary agents who are the best fit for my cozy fantasy novel?
What project are you working on now, and is it going smoothly? Crafting a novel takes a long time, sometimes years. When I wrote my first novel, a few years ago, I had no idea how much time and effort it takes to complete a novel. That first novel may never see the light of day, but I’m fairly confident Finding the Bird Whisperer is one I will eventually share with the world. At its heart, it is a novel about…
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Ink-Stained Compass to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.