I’m writing a query letter for a literary agent. I did this many many long years ago after I wrote my first book. I sent it out to one agent after another. Nothing. Not one publishing house, not one agent would accept a new manuscript. It wasn’t exactly rejection, more like a waste of my time. It was one of those discouraging things I never tried my hand at again.

This is saying something since I have entered many juried art shows and competitions. Breaking into the art world? I’ve done some diswading things just being an artist, but man, the literary world is tough! Tough enough that I never tried again. I’m clearly no Jk Rowling in the tenacity department Yet here I am again…

That first attempt at a book became a gallery fiber art show. I did the illustrations in wool inlay felt. It was a intensive labor of love that sold and disappeared. Somehow, I fell in love with the process of writing and illustrating picture books. Go figure.

‘Peaceful Hearts’ seemed different. It all came to me in a moment. The words did, making art takes longer, but it fell together perfectly in a lovely cosmic way. Plus it was a soothing response to some ptsd I was working through.

That journey was all over the place. I had two small publishing houses very interested and willing to go forward with it. The glitch was that the sample copies of books they sent me both had washed out illustrations which were completely unacceptable to my artistic brain.

I found a publisher that would essentially do a hybrid self publication. I worked closely and for weeks with their head designer. I didn’t even know what a PDF was or what ‘dots per inch’ meant or why it mattered, back then. I didn’t understand the importance of an ISBN number or why when they accidentally left it off or didn’t asign me one, it would cause so many problems. Wow did I learn some important things!

(Note: never buy an ISBN number on the internet from some third party person who swears it will work, it won’t)

Fast forward to to today. I’ve spent every free minute filling out the online submission form and reading about, then writing a query letter. Twelve year old Lily suggested I use more ‘energetic adjectives’ , but said it was otherwise good. She wondered if I wanted to run it by her English teacher because she’s a real stickler for grammar and punctuation.

Coincidentally, the sample copy of ‘Peaceful Hearts’ soft cover from Amazon came. It needed some adjusting, but was otherwise a huge triumph. The girls helped me make corrections. It’s an actual hard copy of a book anyone can order and have delivered from Amazon.

I’m not sure why I’m about to waste my time and fry my nerves filling out this query form. Self publishing has lost much of its stigma over the years. Some self published books get picked up. You never know. I’m just following what feels like a next step. At the very least, I’m sure I’ll learn a thing or two, I always do.

We just drove down the coast from the Central Valley to San Diego. A beautiful drive if you don’t count LA. (sorry LA, traffic still sucks in a Tesla)

Tidy snacks, do they have those? We tried. We did pretty well actually. Did I mention that we were driving my daughter in law’s parent’s brand new Tesla? Only because it held a longer charge than their’s and we would only need to stop for one hour at halfway to charge one time. Did I mention it was a six hour start-to-finish drive with a two year old? Thats a lot of sitting in a car seat. Sandwiches wouldn’t work. (Have you watched a toddler eat a PB and J lately? It’s a whole thing). We stopped for breakfast, but in toddler time there are many long snacking hours before lunch.

They had an appointment at 12:30. I had my meeting at 2. Somehow lunch was a quick hello to cousins and a few cucumber slices when we arrived.

My meeting was at first stressful, (getting there on time), then lovely, and long. By 4:30 the sun was dipping, a marine layer had rolled in and I suddenly noticed that I was cold. We were sitting at first in the sunshine.

When it was over, I realized I was hungry, cold and my blood sugar was dipping. Breakfast was too early for me, and lunch wasn’t really lunch so as time started creeping towards five o’clock, no wonder I was getting a migraine. G to the rescue. He swooped in with grown up snacks and some tylonal.

Circumstances got the best of me. Despite all the great things that happened all day, I needed a warm bath, a good meal and an early bedtime. Some days, no matter how fun or perfect, need a little time to wrap my brain around., I’m still wrapping.