Thursday, November 21, 2013

A Resolution

Debra is looking ahead to the new year.

Now if you know me at all, you'll know I am all about giving each holiday its due. Each needs to wait its turn, and one can't jump in front of another. I stick to this rule especially regarding Thanksgiving and Christmas. With Christmas decs and other merchandise in the stores before Halloween, it's easy for Thanksgiving to get skipped over. This makes me sad. So I have a hard and fast rule about not thinking about anything that has to do with Christmas before Thanksgiving.

That said...today I was thinking WAY ahead about a New Year's Resolution. Or maybe it's more of a goal.

I have a completed mss sitting in my computer doing nothing. It was one I'd queried and received a request from Harlequin for and then...nothing. Never heard from them even to say they'd rejected the story. I tried following up with an e-mail, and still nada. Well, it's been well over a year since the submission and several months since the follow up, so it's time to move on. It's doing absolutely no good collecting figurative dust sitting on the hard drive of my computer.

So, my resolution/goal is to do a read-through to refamiliarize myself with the intricate ins and outs of the story, add to the word count, polish up the mss again, and submit it to my editor at TWRP right after the first of the year. The Press closes for a couple of weeks over the holidays, so I figured that was a good time frame. It also gives me time over the upcoming holidays when I'm off for two weeks to actually spend time with it.

I'm going to need to come up with some type of progress meter or check list type system. Having something visual in front of me helps to keep my goal focused and in mind. And I'm thinking some type of reward for accomplishing this particular resolution/reward might also be in order! Whatever works, right?

And I'm hoping Thanksgiving will forgive me for thinking so far ahead...

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

FREE this week on Kindle, This Feels Like Home.









4 comments:

  1. I think Thanksgiving and Christmas will forgive you, Debra. You're not planning holiday things, you're planning work things. And I wish you the best of luck with the manuscript!

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  2. Send another query to Harlequin, Debra. When I submitted to M&B/HQN here, I had to email about 3 times before I finally (after about 10 months) got a response. In the end it was a rejection, but I'd be tempted to tell them you are preparing to submit elsewhere if you don't hear anything from them by (whatever date you want to choose!). It would be galling to submit it to TWRP and then get an acceptance from HQN!

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  3. Thanks for the luck, Jen.

    That's a thought Paula. I really would hate for that to happen! I'll try sending another e-mail. In the meantime, I can still be working on the mss and getting reacquainted with it. It's been forever since I looked at it.

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  4. Feeling in limbo is awful, Debra. A re-read / polish of the mss is a good idea. You'll fall in love with it again.

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