Writing...and Publishing

We attended a writing conference this summer. I had an online class working on a specific manuscript. We met monthly to critique (in the nicest possible way!)and we still love to write. Some of us make progress on big projects. Some of us flit from one little project to the next. And we still love to write.

It would be so...urbane? sophisticated? mature?... of us to simply love writing and do it for its own sake! And never care if the only people who read it are our families and critique group.

Here is my dirty secret: I want to see the Javalina Brothers in a school library. I want Victoria Dragon to be on the display table at Borders. I want a stuffed Tuk-tuk! Under all the "love to write" is a desire to move to the next step: getting published.

So every year I wait for the Children's Writer's Market to emerge and - clutching my yellow highlighter - I flit through the first pages of the Publishers Index knowing somewhere is the editor who is waiting for Danny Lion! Flitting becomes slogging very quickly as one entry after another "is not accepting..." Well, think of all the time I have saved by not contacting THEM! Or them. Or them...

Ah, the route - they say at conferences - is long and difficult. We noticed. Is it interminable?

So I am trying this year to squelch the Insane Hopeful Direct Publisher Contact Gene that drives me to the SASEs and focus on agents. Most of them take e-mail. All have websites and useful contact information. Many have not said "no" yet...

So that is hopeful...