Choosing the perfect notebook

 I am in the mood to start writing something new. In order to make a start on this new idea, I need to find the perfect notebook. Is anyone else this way with stationery? I feel like the notebook needs to match the mood and vibe of my new story idea.

I have a lot of notebooks that I have collected over the years, notebooks I have been saving for potential stories but are currently utterly unwritten in.

I decided to look through them and try and see which one best suits my story idea.

This is probably one of the oldest notebooks I own. I purchased it on holiday as a child (I can’t even remember where I got it now) because it reminded me of Boooook from Hocus Pocus. This one needs something magical to be written in it. 

I bought this one for when I was travelling around Italy and I have done a lot of travelling since but still have not christened its pages. I still feel that it needs something worldly, travel-based in it. I will save it for when we are able to do that again.

 I can’t even remember where and when I got this notebook. I thought it looked like a Tardis and the diary River Song has in Doctor Who. I feel like I need to save this to document more personal/ life events. It doesn’t feel like a notebook for stories.

This leaves me with notebook number 4. My Van Gogh one. And for what I am planning to write, I think this one is perfect!

Query Avoidance

 I have started tentatively querying the story that I wrote this year.

What I mean by this is:

- I am spending hours researching and preparing my documents and cover letters for agents.

-All of these documents and cover letters are all lined up in a folder, waiting to be sent.

-I am procrastinating and putting off sending them by coming up with the odd excuse as to why now isn’t the best time to send.

-And occasionally, nervously hitting the send button on the odd few that I do summon the courage with.

I don’t know what it is, but it is so scary to query an agent! I never feel ready, I constantly doubt my work and I also feel so frustrated with myself that I have spent all this time creating something (and I want to be a writer so much), that why can’t I just take the plunge and just do it?

So, I will be honest, this blog post right now is just another form of query- avoidance. I have determined that I will send at least 3 queries I have pre-prepared in the next hour, and here I am writing this…

I have also started planning another story because that’s the bit I enjoy. The planning and the creating, and I feel so much happier in my non-judgemental creative bubble rather than scrutinizing over every word of a query letter.

Does anyone else feel like this when it gets to the time when they start querying? What do you do to motivate yourself to do it? Does anyone have any tips on how to be more confident with querying? I would love to hear them. Please comment below.

Ten Signs You Are Obsessed With Literature

 1.Your house is full of references to various books/ plays/ poems. On mugs, cushions, bookmarks, t-shirts…everything seems to have some nod towards a classic or two.

2. You get withdrawal symptoms if you haven’t read a book for a week.

3.You are simultaneously intrigued and horrified at the thought of your favourite text being turned into a movie.

4. You compare people you meet and situations to book characters/ plots. “He better not turn full Macbeth over that.” “I’m not going to do a Penelope and wait around forever.” The moment there is snow- “It looks like Narnia!”

5. Your pets are named after your favourite characters.

6. Your children are named after your favourite characters/ if you don’t have children your ‘favourite name lists’ definitely is just a list of your favourite characters.

7. When you think back to a wonderful moment in your life, you can remember exactly what book you were reading at the time.

8. When you think back to a terrible moment in your life, you can remember exactly what book you were reading at the time.

9. Whenever anyone quotes literature in a film, you turn to the person sitting next to you and name the writer, the book/play/poem and occasionally the page number/ scene. 

10. You just can’t stop looking for hidden meaning… in everything.

All in all, I am so glad that I was introduced to reading at a young age and that I have had opportunity and encouragement to pursue my love for literature throughout my life- wouldn’t change it for the world 😊

When is the best time to query an agent?

 In my excitement of finally feeling “ready”/ “ready as I will ever be” to query my dream agent, I sent my cover email and first three chapters at 4pm on a Friday night. Now, on reflection, I am not sure if this was very wise. Fridays are probably not best days to send query letters and certainly not towards the close of a day- especially if I want to get noticed. Anyone’s mind would be on the weekend ahead rather than another query which will undoubtedly end up in the slush pile.

But I am having difficulty with finding that perfect time to query. My job requires my attention from 8 am until 5pm (or later) every day during the week. I only have time for a quick 15-minute lunch, and when I am in school, I am often supervising students over my breaks and lunches. I barely have 5 minutes to use the toilet, let alone construct and send a query email. There is no good time in the week to send a query, leaving me only with afternoons and weekends which, I feel, heighten the changes of my query being missed. Now, I am not making excuses, I know there are many reasons why an agent might decide to discard and not pursue a query letter, but I can’t help but think that timing is one of them.

When do you recommend sending out query letters? What day of the week? Time of day? What do you recommend in terms of getting noticed? I would love to hear your thoughts. Please comment below.