Tuesday in August
- By: Jessica Faust | Date: Aug 14 2007
It’s been a while since I’ve done a day in the life post so I thought I’d check in. The last two weeks have actually been painfully quiet. You can definitely tell it’s August and everyone is on vacation. I’ve been having periodic conversations with editors about various things, but other than that I’ve been doing what everyone should do in August. I’ve been catching up. I have to say, it’s amazing.
My submission piles have gone down significantly. Of course they’ve gone up too. The other day I recieved seven! full manuscripts. Amazing. I didn’t even know I had requested that many. Clearly I’m seeing some really great material cross my desk. And it’s been lots of fun. As of this writing I haven’t made any calls, but I’m hoping there’s a real keeper in that stack.
What else have I been up to? I’m currently in the middle of submitting a nonfiction project I’m very excited about, I’ve been reading and critiquing/revising client manuscripts. So thrilling to see the ideas they’re coming up with as well as the work they’re doing. Some of the critiquing has been for material I’ll hopefully be ready to submit soon and others has been for already contracted material. I have a couple of projects under serious consideration with publishers–I’m just waiting for the calls–and of course I’ve been reviewing contracts, hounding editors about payments, making sure the bills are paid and catching up on fun reading.
For now I’m off to read yet another full manuscript. I’ll keep you posted!
–Jessica
After only a year or so in the game, I’ve noticed an ebb and flow in activity, too.
After the big conference push, many agents and editors are off to relax befor the autumn push. Sorta like retail advertising.
Getting the feel for the pattern of activity in the publishing world will hopefully help any agonizing writer to accept the lack of response to queries, etc. It’s another slow-down, like Christmas/Hanukkah (etc.).
I’m actually in the middle of a two week “break” myself. Decided to see if I could go two weeks without writing–and of course I’m blogging, doing email and anything else to keep me at my computer. Is there a cure for this addiction? Hope you find some real gems among the mss.