Scheduling, Research and Queries

I have been working at scheduling my writing. This weekend I spent a lot of time researching different companies to submit my Wishman story too - I think I have officially changed the name to Wishes and Pockets, which I think might make it more appealing as opposed to the longer title of They Called Him the Wishman. Then I was researching query letters - I have written a couple, and the initial companies I sent the story too, would not take simultaneous submissions, so I then had to play the wait game. I did not like doing this - then there was no helpful hints. I know they receive a lot and don't have the time - the one company I submitted it to had a 12 week wait period and if I didn't hear from them in that time, I can safely assume they have decided to pass on it. Again, not liking this, but I thought I had a really good chance with this company as I had checked out other children's books they have, but I move on. The agent I submitted to responded fairly quickly - to the negative. Still it would have been nice to know if it is a good query or not.

The thing is I would like to sell the book on it's merits alone. I have even played with doing the art myself and selling it on iuniverse.com or something - who knows, that might still be coming. I actually have some ideas for art, even though my drawing is not good enough, I have been playing with some of my photographs and think that there are programs out there which would allow me to work them into the story. But first I am gonig to try what I wanted to do from the beginning which is to first send it to all the companies which will take simultaneous submissions (ss), then if no one bites, I can work with sending it to the companies that do not accept ss. It's like Josh Stolberg said when I saw him at the Omaha Film Festival - he sent out 75 copies of his script at one time, and only one responded with an offer - but that's all it takes, right?

Right now I am trying to figure out more of a writing routine - I want to at least completed some writing every day, this weekend I had a lot of writing time planned and it really seemed like the research of it all became my focus - in addition to getting my house back in order for company both tonight and tomorrow. I think that whatever writing time I have scheduled, is good, but if I have to do some research, I will have to set a specific time to allow me to get back to the writing.

I am excited to have gotten a bit farther on 2 of my stories though - one is a psychological thriller that I have hit a few roadblocks, mostly when it comes to presenting it to my writers group. I have become so aware of some of the critiques that they catch, that I find myself trying to fix those before reading at the meeting - which I honestly believe is the right thing to do, instead of reading it and thinking, 'I knew they were going to say that.' The other story is one that I really believe I am writing for a screenplay, but not having written one before, am thinking I should write it in story form first. This one is a little exciting to me, when I was thinking of the story, the main character was always a male. However, when I was thinking of it as a script, I know it only works and is more marketable if the lead is a female. Well, I realized that if I know this, I need to make the main character a female and go from there - so much has come together with this story since doing this. Now, I need to have some time to write, lol. This is becoming less of a problem as writing becomes more of a priority for me.