Sandra Gail Lambert

Novel update

 

As you know, I wrote the novel, I wrote the query letter, I wrote the friggin' synopsis.  There is a lovely chart of the agents that have received some combination of the above. 

And there has been some "interest."  (Yes, I know I'm using the passive voice all over the place here, but it helps to put a little distance between me and this weird emotional existence.  

So.  Now, I wait.  And write.  And wait.  And walk the dog, visit friends, and wait.  

P.S.  The photo is lifted from Moonrat's blog.     

The Query Letter

So.  I have one.  Every night, just before bed, I look at it and change a word, change the word back, move a sentence to another paragraph, twist a clause,  

However - and in a few weeks I might be mortified about this - various versions are off to four agents.  I've already noticed that in one of them I did the "it's" "its" thing wrong.  The agents' names were checked over and over so probably only one out of the four is spelled wrong.  

Wouldn't it be great to say how I'm reveling in this lesson in letting go, of moving forward, how I'm celebrating this new stage, that in my head there's a big party going on? Yeah.  For me, it's mostly that after the party feeling - nausea and lethargy. 

Here's a snippet from the query.

"For most of these women it is the last day of their lives.  They are not famous.  None of them have children.  Instead, their stories rise out of the shadowed history of a river in Florida where sweet water billows to the surface from caverns of silent lakes."  

 

Writing Below Sea Level - The Cedar Key Project

I've posted about Connie May Fowler's upcoming writing workshops before, but I want to again.  For one thing, the deadline for them is soon.  But also, as the days build up since the novel was declared done, I'm figuring out things.  Like, that you can watch too many episodes of Dexter on too many days in a row, that it's really exhausting not to be writing, and that the workshop I did with Connie May and the connections I made there over a year ago are a big deal.   

Long Past Any Memory - An Excerpt

 

I've posted a piece of the novel here.  Or just click on the tab in the header. 

Enjoy. 

Long Past Any Memory

 

I am finished.  The novel, Long Past Any Memory, is done.  Really.  Done, done.  It's printed out, wrapped in a pink and an orange rubber band, and flopped at the end of my writing bed.  I pat it from time to time.  Three years of work and there it is.  Oh my, I feel like I'm wandering around outside of myself. 

Despite the weirdness of it all, the work on the agent query letter proceeds.  The drafts have progressed from horrid through moderately awful to moderately okay.  Not that I have any perspective.     

 

How to revise a novel

 

Wander your kayak around mangrove islets.  Watch for crabs skittering along prop roots.  Surprise a burst of night herons.  Be ignored by an eagle.  Push against a rising afternoon wind to reach home. 

And in the middle of the post-kayak eating of shrimp and crab (caught in the same Gulf waters you just left) you will know what is important and how to begin. 

"My fingers press into clay.  I balance at the edge of my mind.  The excitement rises and wants to spill into bright colors and glare.  It whispers out of my bones and demands that I continue.  It says that I will not fail, that I know enough, everything."