I took an unplanned break from blogging the past few weeks because I got wrapped up in working on revising and editing my novel
Polar Night. This week, thanks in huge part to my trusted editing partner, I actually finished the final draft! So, like the kitty pictured above, I've been doing the happy dance in spite of my extremely limited dancing skills. It feels so good to be able to call my novel a finished manuscript instead of a work in progress!
I've now started dipping my toes into the query letter waters and trying to learn everything I can about the whole process. All I can say to that is yikes! I knew this would be intimidating, but it's starting to feel like writing a good query letter is going to be significantly harder than writing the novel itself. Each time I've started a letter I haven't made it past the first few lines before I just delete the whole thing and send it to the recycle bin.
But, I'm going to just take a deep breath and keep working on it, and I know eventually I'll have a letter I feel is ready to send out. I hope so, anyway!
I've also been catching up on some great books this month after being too swamped in April to do much reading at all. I just wanted to give a shout-out to three fantastic books I discovered because of the A-Z Challenge.
One of the best things about blogging to me has been the opportunity to meet so many excellent writers I might not have discovered otherwise. I've been making great use of my Kindle because of them! If you haven't already checked out these three books, I highly recommend them.
Losing Beauty by
Johanna Garth
Johanna blogs at
Losing Sanity, and her book is an intriguing and modern take on Greek mythology. This is Johanna's debut novel and I will be looking forward to more from her!
Provex City by
Michael Pierce
Provex City is the first novel in Michael's Lorne Family Vault Series and I'm already anxious to read more of the series. The artwork alone is fantastic! Michael has a great blog at
Michael Pierce Books.
Ripper, My Love by
Glynis Smy
I first discovered Glynis'
blog last year sometime, but it was one I unintentionally lost track of until finding it again during last month's challenge. I'm so glad I did, because I learned of Ripper, My Love as a result. A blend of historical fiction and suspense, set in Jack the Ripper's Whitechapel? That's a can't miss as far as I'm concerned. :D
Huge kudos to all of these great writers! I'm inspired by their journeys and I hope to someday be joining them in the publishing world now that I have my first novel under my belt.
I'm looking forward to catching up with my blog reading while I continue to do my happy dancing over the weekend.
Happy Friday to all, and I hope everyone has a great weekend ahead. :)
