3 manuscripts and 3 publishers

September 12, 2013

Today is the first day since being homeless (other than the weekends) where I haven’t come to work and immediately started blogging about my living situation. Instead, I finished the first draft of Madison Wants Her Tooth Back as well as a query letter about the book. I finished illustrating the CopyCats. All of that took a lot of work. Then my sister called. I haven’t talked to her in two weeks. We made up for it by talking for 1.5 hours!

Two days ago, I spent almost the entire day working on homesless-related stuff – organizing this blog, researching food prices, and pricing some things I’ll need eventually as a homeless person. What I really wanted to do was work on my book. When I finally had some time to stop and eat, I said, “No the library is open for only 30 more minutes and I really need to type up my query letter.” So good discipline had me go into the library and type up a query letter.

When the library closed, I came outside and ate while reading on the iPad about how to write children’s stories. At 10:00 which is my curfew to be in my sleeping spot for the night, I had an idea for a new story. Instead of driving to my sleeping spot, I drove to a nearby mall parking lot (more lights and people, the library lot was dark and empty). I wrote down the new idea for a 2^nd story, then I had a 3^rd idea!  I mean not just an idea – I wrote the plot in good detail. I was really surprised that in one hour I had 2 more manuscripts in my hand!

I have the addresses for 3 publishers who accept unsolicited manuscripts. I have 3 manuscripts. That means I can send each one a different manuscript. That’s a privilege many writers don’t have. Many only have one manuscript.  This is productivity that only God could put in me.

Two years ago, I rented an apartment that was too expensive, hoping that the expense would motivate me to really produce and make money. That didn’t happen – I had to sublet the apartment. This is a very different situation. Instead of stretching the budget and going into debt to help me be successful, I went to the bare essentials (the other extreme). But I feel God is blessing me for taking this step. I don’t know. Maybe nothing will happen with these manuscripts. One benefit of writing them: I used a technique I can now use to teach children how to write their own stories. I’ll at least be a better teacher.