Queries and Submissions… Oh, my!

It’s a no-brainer: writers love to write. Find a plot or an interesting character lurking in the brain’s back room and away we go, plotting (or not) and happily unravelling story complexities for hours, days, probably weeks… to the exclusion of all sorts of potential distractions. Housework? It can wait. Family? They’ll understand. Grocery shopping?

Using more than half a brain (or, hints for successful querying)

Nesting birds are testing our patience this week. A junco decided to build a nest in the middle of one of the twelve-inch flower baskets that hangs just inches from our family room window. (Yes, the same basket from which the finch eyed me last week. What’s with these birds?!) It’s an impossible location for

Following the Road Signs

. I’m good at telling people where to go, although I know not everyone appreciates being told what they can or cannot do. On our recent Christmas trip we encountered many highway signs. Some told us what we couldn’t do, like exceed a specific speed, while others were very helpful. We didn’t appreciate signs that

Are we poisoning our chances for publication?

. Common snowberry, or Symphoricarpos albus, is a deciduous shrub in the honeysuckle family. It grows wild on shady hillsides and woodland areas but its attractive clusters of white berries have also made it a popular ornamental shrub in many gardens. It grows in wild abundance on our family’s Okanagan property and provides winter food

Query Letter Advice: How to Avoid Being Buried in the Landslide

. If you’ve been writing with the goal of publication you’ve likely read a whole lot about pitching, querying and submitting. There are books and blogs filled with everything you need to know, but if you’re at all like me, there are times when you begin to experience “information overload” – that sense of being

The Rejection Collection

Rejection sucks. Writers everywhere moan often and loudly about the misery of receiving negative responses to their queries and submissions. I haven’t had many to deal with but that’s only because I haven’t queried much. I like the writing part best so I write, then move on to write some more. For someone who aspires