Nothing like a bad query to get you writing!

I won the war with my muse!  Last night I poured out 1700 words in less the 45 minutes and woke up with the next scene racing through my head.  I wish I could give thanks to coffee or even the amazing bottle of merlot my husband bought to cheer me up.  But I can’t.  The credit and my undying gratitude lie with two people – one who challenged me to write the worst query of my life and the other who gave me some insight as to why my creative mind was refusing to cooperate.

Rebekah, an amazingly talented writing friend of mine, is hosting a “Worst ever query contest.” http://rebekahstories.blogspot.com/    I thought what the hell, it’s not like I was writing anything good . . . or anything at all lately.  I laughed hysterically as I read some of the others that were written and then poured 300 grammatically incorrect, cliché laden words out onto her blog.  It was the first time I was able to put pen to paper in over a week and it felt great.

Just last night I received another email from a different, equally amazing, writing friend of mine, Lindsay.  http://www.lindsayncurrie.webs.com/    She knew I was struggling to get my momentum back and wanted to give me some insight into why she thought my muse had gone into hibernation.  For the past few months I’d put an extraordianry amount of time and effort into Cedar.  Agent revisions, grammar checks, and countless re-readings have literally consumed my life.  Now that the editing is over and Cedar is on submission she figured it was only naturally that I’d have some trouble switching gears to my other WIP

She was 110% right.  I still find myself constantly wondering if I should’ve switched this word for that or added this element here.  As long as my mind was stuck on Cedar, nothing else was going to break free.  So, last night I put Cedar to bed.  Literally!  I put the entire edited copy on a new thumb drive, sealed it into a manila envelope, and tucked it into the bottom draw of my desk.  Then I sat down, fired up one of my neglected WIP, and wrote.  The 1700 words that finally flowed from my mind are far from polished and are in desperate need of a few good transition sentences to make it work.   But it’s a start, and a damn good one if I do say so myself!

So hats off to you two ladies.  With one bad query letter and some thoughtful insight you single handiedly jump-started my creative mind!