Cat Johnson Braves Doll Lil’s Word Association Challenge!

For me my journey to get published started when I decided to get my masters degree. Before going back to school I never thought my work could get published. It’s not that I thought it wasn’t good enough it just that I wasn’t focused on my writing. I started this journey after my third rejection letter from the University of Hawaii’s law school. I figured it’d be better to go into Grad school than to sit around until Lucas and I left the island. So I applied to three different programs and finally got into National University. There I took classes that would help me improve my writing and that were geared towards fiction. During the classes I had peers and teachers critiquing Legacy and other stories that I’d created to get them closer to publication standards. By the time I was entering my thesis class Legacy had been written and I was editing like crazy. My adviser at the time recommended going to a writing conference, which if your thinking about writing a book or if you’ve written one you should attend a conference. I learned so much while at the conference and met a handful of agents and editors. In fact one editor liked a tag line I created for Legacy that she said she’d like to see the manuscript. At that time I was still editing Legacy, and yes I still make changes to it everyday. She made no promises that her publishing house would publish the novel but she did make the publishing world seem a little more plausible. So as soon as I finished my thesis the first people I sent query letters out too where the agents and editors I met at the conference.


Now here’s the thing just because you meet and talk to the agents and editors in person at a conference that doesn’t mean they’ll offer you a deal or sign you as a client. It may give you a better chance because they can put a name and face together but that’s not always the case. Yes the editor remembered me and wanted to read the first hundred pages which is great, but normally an author doesn’t get to send their work directly to the editor. Like I said she happened to really like my tag line. However at the conference you will get to meet editors and possibly skip a step like I did as well. I still haven’t heard back for the editor as to if she’ll take on Legacy but the last time I spoke with her she was pretty backed up with the work of her authors.




One of the agents I met on the other hand rejected my query a few weeks ago, so you never know what’s going to happen. You just have to keep your head up and send out queries. Next time I’ll go into my rejection letters, my tag line and my query letters. I’ll have our lovely ladies post my old query letter that got my rejections and the new one I’ve created that will hopefully land me an agent. Fingers crossed.


See you soon.
Grazie
~Teresa

Day is a dreamer who has never met a stranger. She is fearless and will talk to anyone and read anything! She taught music and dance and was a singer/actress for years, performing on stages both nationally and overseas. Now married with children, she spends less time singing on stage and more time writing songs at home. But, family life has not completely slowed this chick down. She still loves an adventure and learning new things. She resides in Texas with her family, Great Dane (Sophie), Labradoodles (George & Cosmo) and Chihuahua (Juan Carlos).

Doll Day

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