So yeah…I printed KEPT out, along with the cover letter and synopsis and got it all prepared and addressed and ready to mail. We’re going to the post office tomorrow. And now I’m in obsession mode. Seriously I am so highly neurotic but I know I’m not the only writer like this.
I’m sitting here worrying…maybe the paper that I printed it on was too cheap. Maybe my formatting looks wonky. Maybe it’s not long enough. (I had thought it was about 24,000 words, but when I got everything properly formatted on the computer I was printing it on, it turned out to be 21,500 words, or 86 pages for the people taking notes at home.) So I know this is within novella length, and if they like it and want it but want it longer, they’ll ask me to expand it. I mention in the cover letter a couple of other projects should they like this one, one of which is a full length novel so it’s not like I get to 21,000 words and I’m totally tapped out or anything.
So i’m completely obsessed on the length issue. Then I worry that it just plain sucks. Or that it’s not emotional enough. Or that it moves too fast. Etc. Etc. Etc. But I know I have to send it out. I can’t obsess over it forever. I have to let it go into the world and if it comes back, send it out again and keep moving forward.
I have another novella in the KEPT-world that I need to outline and get started on. I need fo finish the final polish of SAVE MY SOUL. And write the dreaded synopsis for that. I have an erotica I’ll try to publish under a different name I need to edit. Mainly because it’s just so damn dark and emotionally naked, and I let people in a lot under the “Zoe Winters” persona. I really truly can’t be that naked and have conversations with people. Seriously the erotica has to be a bit more anonymous. Though I do have an erotic short story out in circulation under Zoe Winters, but it just doesn’t get quite as psychologically intimate.
Plus I have a whole big book full of novel ideas I’ve been writing down as they come to me. So I’ve got stuff to do. And I know this is the process. Face the fear, send it out, get back to work.
The more I work, and the more I complete, the more I’ll have out in circulation and the better my odds of getting someone’s positive attention and moving myself closer to publication.
June 14, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Yay, Zoe! Congratulations! Get that puppy out! 20 pound wt. is good, but anything works as long as it’s white. As for formatting, as long as it’s readable and not too small it will be fine. It’s your writing and the story they care about.
I’ve never written a novella, so can’t give you advice there. It sounds good to me.
) Good luck!
June 15, 2008 at 10:34 am
Thanks, Edie!
June 16, 2008 at 9:14 am
Funny, when I first told a few of my RWA chapter members my pseudonym, I couldn’t write for ages. I need to keep that part of my life private, so I can be emotionally honest, you know?
June 16, 2008 at 10:29 am
Congrats, Zoe!!! And, trust me, you’re not alone in obsession mode. I hit that same mode every time I submit a story.
June 16, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Hehe Spy, I hear ya. It doesn’t really bother me with my paranormal romance, and weirdly not with this one erotic short story I’ve got out in circulation right now, but…the more hardcore erotica that gets very psychologically hairy…yeah, no. I can’t meet people and talk to them with them knowing exactly how perverse and dirty my mind gets. Because it’s pretty dark in there.
Hey Cynthia, thanks! The mail man picked up the manuscript today.