Hi everybody, I'd like to tell you a brief story, if you'll indulge me. Once upon a time, not very long ago, there was a plague unleashed across the globe. And, for several months, the Earth stood still. Then, for many months thereafter, it remained mostly shut down where just about the only thing a person could do in their free time was go outside (and, if they had the misfortune of living in a city, they may not have even done that). Before this horrific event, people loved nothing more than to sing a song of somedays -- and perhaps the most famous of these verses is "Someday I'll finish writing a book." And then people started running out of "somedays." So, what does one do when faced with a bit of extra free time and an ever-present reminder of their mortality? For a great many aspiring authors, the answer was finally writing that book. Many toiled and struggled at this task, with some surrendering, others delaying, and -- unsurprisingly -- a lot of people actually finishing. But what does one do after they finish writing a book? For many people, the answer is writing another. And another. And another. And thus the once-aspiring authors became unpubbed authors, starting out on the next leg of their quest... and many of them -- including the hero (so to speak) of this story -- fell flat on their faces when they entered the big, scary ocean of querying where they had to compete against countless other pandemic-era authors for the attentions of an increasingly shrinking amount of agents. Then, the hero did the only rational thing one could do under the circumstances -- they cried. A lot. And then they sought out writers communities for help, advice, and -- most importantly -- feedback on querying. Which is how our enterprising hero found themselves here. And, you might be surprised to learn, that hero is... well, yeah, it's kinda me, isn't it? Guess that might not have been some epic twist. After reading a bunch of Janet Friedman and other vaunted querying experts, I figure I still need a lot of help in that regard (particularly from a lot of different sources), so that's more or less my focus here... and I'm wondering if that whole 14-days thing applies to just the fiction-writing (and non-fiction-writing) feedback or also to queries, synopses, and stuff. Anyway, I write fantasy, I write horror, and I write YA in those genres. The small amount of sci-fi I write barely counts as sci-fi. I presumably got into fantasy since I was interested in monsters, dinosaurs, strange lands, and mythology from a young age. Horror, I imagine I fell into from a love of the scary, as well as monsters. Growing up, I loved Bradbury, Lovecraft, and Poe. While I still adore their creative visions, I'm not sure I play favorites anymore. My earliest short stories were written in middle school and, rather thankfully, have been lost to time. My first novel attempts came in high school and, less fortunately, may exist somewhere. College and the years after saw a number of short stories and half-finished works but then there was the Great Empty between then and 2020 -- this was a dark period when I'd sometimes try to put together an outline, maybe I'd occasionally write a few thousand words before abandoning a project, and there was an overall lack of consistency. Finally, 2020 onward has been a generally-daily habit of either writing, editing, etc, a project. ...and I realize I probably went too long with this and buried what I was looking for back at the 2/3rds mark instead of the end, so anybody who read the beginning, shouted "BORING!", and then skimmed to the end to see what I wanted wouldn't be able to find it.
