About thirty minutes ago I typed the last words to my fourth novel. What a great feeling!! I love finishing things.

Of course the words I typed might not be the “real” last words. The story is out, but I have many revisions to make. Today’s manuscript is not clean and ready to be read by a publisher / agent — but it’s close.

Wilde Wagers was both the hardest and the easiest book for me to write.

Easy, because Olivia Snow and Philip Lamb showed up regularly. I’ve never liked any characters as much as I like these two–really, they wrote themselves. The mystery and intrigue are complex, yet the tone is light-hearted. I was trying so hard to be literary and poetic in my first two novels that I think I struggled more writing them. Wilde Wagers is intended to be a fun romp, with mystery and romance thrown in.

Hard, because my mom loved this story. She loved Olivia and Genevieve, and every time we talked about the story and the characters, she always ended with one command: Write faster! I was writing fast, but not fast enough. After she died, I struggled with this story. How could I not? I had no one to talk to about these characters that she loved. Without her fire, my own spark went out. I couldn’t write anything, and when I did everything was flat and depressing.

I guess I have Olivia and Philip to thank for the end. They came to me and talked to me and pretty much demanded that the story be finished.

And now it is. I hope you get to read it some day.

I wrote part of a new scene today. It isn’t complete or brilliant, but it is something. I feel good about it.

This is the date I just received for the probable pick up date for our 2000 copies of The Stolen Goldin Violin from Worzalla Publishing. A local music store has agreed to sell our book online, and hopefully we will have that page up and running pretty soon. I’ll keep you informed.

My son Tom and I have decided to collaborate on another book. We talked about this during breakfast today. It will be another children’s mystery, but this one we will write in Pilish. The most famous sentence written in Pilish, according to the Writer’s Almanac, was written by English physicist Sir James Jeans:

How I need a drink, alcoholic in nature, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics!

Note that “How” has 3 letters, “I” has 1 letter, “need” has 4 letters (3.14… ) which is Pi. So, the entire sentence uses words with the number of letters in the same sequence as the numbers that make up Pi. Because Pi goes on forever, it would be possible to write an entire novel in Pilish. Wouldn’t that be cool? It’s quite a challenge, but Tom and I are up for it. I’m not sure when we’ll find the time to attack this puzzle, but I’ll keep you updated.

Gosh, if we write a book using Pi, will I have to change the subheading of my blog????

Here is the cover design for our children’s mystery. A big thanks to Jillian Noble who did the artwork and design. I’m not sure why there are two images, but it is such a nice cover that I’m going to leave them both in this post!

The copyright holder wanted $50 for the lyrics to appear in a first printing of 2000 books. That seemed reasonable to us, so we have mailed the check. When we’ve signed the contract and all the paper work is settled, we will send The Stolen Goldin Violin to the printer!

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, so I’ll update you on what’s happening.

The Stolen Goldin Violin is ready to go to the printer–except that we have not yet gotten copyright permission to use some lyrics from a Beach Boys song in the book. It took me a long time to discover who owned the copyright, but I did, and now we are just waiting. If we get permission for free or for a very small fee, we will add the copyright permission information at the back of the book. If the lawyers want to charge us too much, we’ll just remove the lyrics. Either way, the book should be at the printers by spring break, which was our goal.

The trick with self-publishing is now we have to market. The background work on this is time consuming and not an activity I find fun or intriguing. In my spare time, I want to be writing my new historical novel.

I find myself fighting myself: shall I write? or shall I look up names of people to contact, emails, music conferences, etc. about the children’s book? This battle is interesting because writing is hard and, in the past, I have done little chores and other little work activities, to delay my sitting in front of the computer to write. However researching marketing is hard and boring and so it is pushing me to write more often.

A good thing and a bad thing at the same time.

Why don’t people in the publishing industry take the time to respond? When I send out queries or partials, I expect rejection. I hope for interest, but I’m realistic. How long does it take a person to click the reply button, type “not interested” or “no thanks” and click the send button ? But agents have stopped doing that. I understand not having the time to write long rejection letters with details about the project, but there is a decided lack of courtesy in this industry.

I have a manuscript out with an agent and a partial with an editor. I have not heard from either in more than three months and expect I never will. I emailed them both two weeks ago to find out where things stood. No response.

I keep track of my queries so I don’t re-send to the same agency. According to my current list, just fewer than half have not deigned to reply. I might get a reply or two from my recent queries, but on average half of the people I query won’t even bother to say “no thanks.” I don’t take this personally; I imagine they don’t reply to any of the queries for which they aren’t interested. It’s both rude and unprofessional, in my opinion.