Writing Like the Wind

This November, I’ve impressed (and intimidated) myself – managing to crank out an average of 2,500 words a day.

With the standard formula of 250 words to a page, that means I’m writing 10 pages a day. I already have plans for restructuring the first 30 pages, consolidating and streamlining it,* but today is not that day.

Every day that I get my words out, that I push my story on, that I meet that next checkpoint on my scant outline…

How do I feel?

• I feel proud.
• I feel accomplished.
• And I feel super confident about my productivity.

But you know what else?

I also feel scared.

• What if it sucks?
• What if I’m pushing too hard and about to burn out?
• What if this is a fluke?

Query Like the Wind?

I look out there and I see other people querying. I see the advice to query 3 agents a week. I can’t do it.

I see people posting about their ‘request rate’. How many partial/full requests per 100 queries they’re getting. I see that they’re getting the requests, but not getting the agent and I’m intimidated.

Maybe my book’s not ready yet. But I want to know what sort of rejection I get before I know if I need to change the query or the pages. Or maybe I’m submitting to the wrong people! I can’t bring myself to query that heavily yet.

Writing is a War

Everyday, I fight between being impressed at what I’ve accomplished and being intimidated by how far I have to go.

I yearn for that external validation of an agent, who gets me a publication deal, who gets me thousands of readers. I yearn to stumble across someone, who I don’t know, talking about my book, suggesting it to others.

That’s the dream.

If you’re writing, how is your progress? If you’re querying, are you blanketing the world with queries or cautiously sticking your toe out there?

* – I didn’t miss the opportunity for an oxford comma. I’m listing those as one object.