The Search and The Reading

Last week I received a few more rejections from agencies I’ve queried. It’s exciting because each rejection is one step closer to finding the right agent to partner with. It’s important to me because I have always enjoyed the partnership that comes with working with someone who knows a thing better than I do and will be a partner on the journey of doing that thing. When I was in college, my advisor and mentor professors were hugely important to me and I valued their guidance and relationship. When I was a teacher, the administrators I was fortunate to be paired with in my evaluations were hugely helpful in giving me advise and feedback that helped me hone my teaching practices. Having an agent, someone who knows the industry, someone who will be invested in helping my story be the best version of itself, and someone I can partner with in pursuing publication of my story is important to me.

Last week I also read more of The Plot Whisperer and worked on notes for the revision of the manuscript I’m working on. I am REALLY enjoying The Plot Whisperer. Each chapter I read sparks an idea of how I want to craft the next version of this manuscript. It also sparked an idea for SB (the manuscript I’m currently querying) that I wrote a note about in my journal. I was thinking of a scene in my story as I was reading a section about back story and how taking the time to write out the back stories of a certain character can help in understanding them better. It made me think of a character in SB, which made me realize a trait about that character I didn’t know before, which made me realize I need to create a moment between that character and my main character to show that trait.

I’m excited to continue reading The Plot Whisperer this week and hopefully finish it. At that point, it will be time to stop reading and jump into the revisions of the manuscript I’m making notes on. I know I could jump right into another book on craft, but this book has sparked so much that I want to jump right into the writing while the thoughts are still fresh in my mind.

What is a book on the craft of writing that you’ve really enjoyed? What are you working on now?

Happy Writing!