J. Mark Miller | A Writer's Fantasy |

Sometimes I think I’m too worried about whether I’m worried enough about my writing. Some of you know what I mean. The constant questions the internal editor makes you ask yourself.

“Is this story good enough? Do I measure up as a writer? Is this story interesting enough? Was the query I just sent my best effort? Did it convey the proper sense of voice while evidencing plot, conflict, and character?”

The list goes on and on.

I’ve read several agent’s blogs lately where there seems to be an increasing influx of poorly crafted queries. I’m sure most of this is due to the internet, and the subsequent ease of firing off a quick email rather than sitting down to craft a letter by hand before typing it up on stationery. There’s no longer a significant cost of time and materials to consider. Even so, there has always been a small percentage of so-called writers whose queries just seem to be lazily thrown together.

Because they didn’t worry enough.

Somehow, these rogue query writers got it into their heads that simply writing up a short synopsis of their story and firing off multiple carbon copies to a myriad of agents is somehow going to land them a contract. They’ve done no work to learn the agents name, or what genres they will and will not represent.

A query is indicative of the writer’s product. If a writer doesn’t care enough to do a little research about proper queries, it’s likely their prose suffers from the same laziness. Why would an agent waste their time on such an author?

At the same time, I’ve come across those who constantly worry about getting the query just so, and end up talking themselves into inaction. They are so worried they’re about to do something wrong and wind up offending an agent in some way, permanently dashing any hopes of ever being published.

Get over it.

Have enough care to make a concerted effort, but don’t let the worry overwhelm you into a state of constant worry. Do your best to make it right, and the agent will notice, even if they decide not to take you on as a client.

READING: Soldiers Live (Chronicles of The Black Company)

Confession time. This blog hasn’t really been around for twenty-one days. After reading on several literary agent’s blogs that modern writers often need a pre-existing online presence to be successful in the business, I figured I’d better get started. I created the blog a few days ago, and began writing reports on my NaNoWriMo progress as if it had been written that very day. It’s been a pretty fun exercise, both from a writing standpoint, and in doing a quick review of what’s been written so far.

To be fair, this is not my first blog, and I’m kind of well known in the blogging circles in another realm entirely, but those credentials really don’t mean anything for my desired goal becoming a published author. I’m not trying to hide the other side of my life, I will usually just make it a point to not bring it up unless it is relevant in some way

If you happen to stumble across this blog in the future, welcome to the dream. As of this writing I’m sure the only people who have read any of my posts are myself and my wife, and I doubt she has or will read most of them in the future.

What are my plans? Until the end of NaNoWriMo, not much beyond the daily report. I do have an idea to share some really great resources I’ve found in the last month or so. In the future, you can count on periodic reviews of whatever I might have finished reading, and reports on where I’m at in terms of writing, editing, revising, searching for and agent, and hopefully getting published.

After NaNoWriMo, I’ll also start writing either short story series or one-shots. I found this really great book at the recycled book store called The Daily Writer. I plan to start using it on a regular basis as a source of writing prompts for free writing exercises.

I’m glad you found me, and I’m thankful for any and all input you can provide as we journey together to get me published.