Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Summer Pause

I'm taking a pause from "the diary".

My summer calander is filled with writing deadlines related to completing the final draft of my first novel, as well as conference pitches to agents and publishers.

By August, I will have sent out my first batch of query letters, and I will return to posting---welcoming the diversion while waiting for the replies.

In the meantime, I will continue to receive short story submissions and make my selections for the June, July and August issues.

I've always found summer activities to be a distraction from generating new work, but it's a fine time to polish my submissions while many of the literary markets take a time out. It's also a great time to submit to markets accepting year long submissions--the competition can be a bit leaner.

Write on!

1 comment:

J.Alpha said...

Hi Devon,

My idea actually worked out better than I had anticipated. I ended up sending out a batch of query letters to agents and one publisher, just on a long shot whim, and I think the summer slow down actually worked in my favor. Within 2 weeks, I had my entire manuscript in the hands of an agent for an exclusive read. AND get this, my long shot unsolicted submission to a senior editor at a major publishing house paid off, and she's got my entire manuscript as well.

Going forward, I intend to take full advantage of the summer submission gap! But it's sort of like telling people about a short cut one takes to avoid traffic, if you tell too many people, the short cut gets bogged down. Shhhh! Pretned you didn't read this :-) Summer is a terrible time to submit!