The cruelty of April

The cruelty of April lies in her unevenly distributed favors. The East is getting hammered with more snow, and we are basking in spring. Y'all come here and visit a spell!


This is the park near the post office. I was a grownup and spent yesterday working on my query letters, rather than running away to the tulip fields. I spoke later to a pal who had gone, and she said that so many people had showed up that you couldn't get a picture without someone else's kid running through it. And parking was just not to be had.




Three drakes hanging out on the lake. No hens in evidence. They may be nesting. Good luck to them!!

The reason it takes a whole day to write three query letters is that each agent has different requirements, so each letter is written from scratch, and you want it to be as catchy and appealing as possible. This agent wants the first three chapters. That one wants first and last page. The other just wants a one page synopsis and a list of everything else you've published. Doing a one page synopsis is like writing a one page resume. By the time you've left out all the extraneous bits, you are left with dust! Data, rather than stories. No flavor or style or voice. And I can't blame the agents, because they must get five or ten querries a day. Can you believe there are that many people writing books out here? But there are knitting books and cookbooks and the biography of Merriweather Lewis's wife's uncle, and books on how to make your life perfect by following seven simple steps, and every one wants to be published. And after the agent has accepted a client, then the work REALLY begins for them, trying to find publishers who will pay for the right to publish these books. Letters and submissions and staying abreast of who is working at which firm today. (No point in sending a manuscript to someone who just got canned yesterday.)



I go nuts just trying to get the querry letters written, punctuated and spelled correctly. Thank God for that final skim before you stick it in the envelope! YesterdayI noticed at the last possible minute that I had misspelled the agent's name. This was for the one who lives in town and wanted the first fifty pages of manuscript. Wow! Way to shoot yourself in the foot, Roxie! I'm ever so glad I caught that.

So I got everything put together and mailed them all off today. Then I went to the park by the library and said hi to the ducks.

This last picture is from Wednesday on campus. Those flowering plums are full of bees. The buzz is so soothing. I wanted to lie down there on the path and take a nap. As if they don't already think I'm nuts up there.

Knitting? I'm working on the tote around tube sock, and another handspun baby blanket for the orphanage. Pictures soon.