Venues- Looking for an Agent, Reading and Writing

There are more venues to submit work than ever these days. I found something called "authors.me" and submitted my project. I had to build a profile, then input the project. Then, I set it for "discovery" by agents.

I asked a friend and she said it was a giant slush pile for authors to submit to in hopes of finding an agent or publisher. I'm not sure how good those are. The agents and publishers have to take the active step of looking for projects, instead of sending a project targeted to the agent based on their genre and submission guidelines.

Then there's "agentquery.com," which helps to find an agent in your genre. I've been through that database a few times.  It's a good place to look and it's free. There's an option for a paid membership, but I use the free one.

And the next option is "querytracker.com" which is really helpful. After going through the agent query site, you find the agent on query tracker when you submit to them and you set a reminder for how long to wait till you move on. It's really helpful to keep me from submitting the same project to the same agent over and over again.

However, I DO have one agent I submit to every time I have a project. She's working in the same genres that I am. Actually, I found another one recently, so there are now two people who get a submission each time I have a project nearing completion.

That's the trick, don't submit an unfinished project.

I also found two of the three reviewers I need for this project. I still need another reviewer. I'm looking for a doctor in endocrinology or internal medicine who is willing to read it - and then make a comment for the book jacket. He or she must be respected in the field. Alternative medicine is OK. So, if you know of someone, send them here - I'll check for comments.

The next idea is to break out some of the content from the book and make it into articles for magazines and websites and publish them. Getting a publishing credential in the field is always a good thing when looking for an agent.

On the writing front itself, I've renamed the book. I may rename it again. I branched out into another section - I keep doing that....

I decided to check for articles on how alcoholism affects blood sugar and insulin resistance. Of course, there are only a few studies, but enough that I know I'm on the right track. The book may trigger some new studies being done, which would be a good thing.

We know that alcohol is metabolized as sugar. We also know that too much sugar builds into insulin resistance, which triggers the beginnings of pre-diabetes. So, I'm making a leap into that territory. I'm not sure how much of this I'll include, yet, but there will be a section on it.

On the reading front - I've found a new author I can't get enough of - Margaret Coel. She writes the way I wish I could. She built her world, found two unforgettable, very real characters, and they face challenges and interpersonal growth in each book. I love it!

Future Dreaming

I've always wanted to write Science Fiction. Maybe that sounds a little strange, but it's true. I guess the first time I read "Stranger From a Strange Land" I got hooked on sci-fi.

I was told early on, that if I wrote sci-fi, I would never be taken seriously as a writer - as a way to deter me from genre fiction. I guess that person thought the "Great American Novel" was the way to go. But you know, people who write the GAN never make a penny. I want the cash and the fans.

Later, I tried my hand at writing a fictional story, but the lead character took off with the story and wouldn't give it back. Only other writers will know what I mean. I need to learn character development a little better, I guess.

There are only so many plots to fiction. Something in the 200-area, I'm not sure how many exactly. There are colorations, minor plots, major plots, under plots, plots that turn back on themselves, and many manipulations of these plots... But there are only so many original plots, so many Universal Stories.

I picked a couple of these as a fan, until I got tired of them. You know, you read the same story over and over again, and you need something new. I read Robert Ludlum's books until I could just about tell the story for him. Robert Jordan and David Eddings use the same universal plot.

So, I know a little about writing, because I read a lot. And now, life has changed for me once again. The God of my limited understanding has moved me to a new place and time, and given me the opportunity to write stories of my own.

I'm in school. To keep the grants and not have to pay them back, I need to finish the semester, and get at least a "C" in all my classes. So, I plan to do that. Come next semester, I plan on taking my first serious writing class.

Hang the degrees I've been pursuing! I have a new plan. English major? I'm not planning on it. More like the "Interdepartmental Studies" degree that lets you pick the courses and concentration. I need anthropology, biology, chemistry, more sociology, and LOTS of writing classes. I need classes in character development (psychology for writers?), some cultural understanding and maybe more history. I've got some plot structure books coming from Amazon, so that I can actually get started.

Back in 1993, I got this hairbrained idea about Goddess Archetypes, and used them in some work I submitted for school. Then, I did some historical and archeological research (in papers, not the actual dirt) and got some facts laid out about early civilizations. Then, I took some words used in everyday speech and looked into their origin. I studied Latin, Greek, and Sumarian - all on my own. I studied global mythology using Joseph Campbell's works, since all myths and legends have some grains of truth in them. The Bible is another great source for myths and legends!

So, this is a labor of love, and has taken me many years. I have all the results of my research on a disk, one that my current computers can read. I plan to take all this research and use bits and pieces in several stories. Maybe even a multi-generational epic. We'll see what comes out.

So, if I don't post about writing again, it's because I'm busy doing it.