Querying for a book you have written is sort of like asking someone out on a date. Only in this case, you may never get a response, or you get a form letter back, or if you are very lucky, someone may want a first date (e.g. “send me the first fifty pages”) or a second date (“Send me the whole thing”). Ack! it is nerve-wracking and makes me wonder why I do it. But, nevertheless, I persist, and have sent several queries for the novel out to various locations. Now I wait. Some take 4-6 months, yes that is MONTHS! The supply far outweighs the demand.
So what to do while waiting? Ski, of course. We have had a low snow year so far, which means the irrigation ditches won’t fill up, which means the creeks won’t fill up, which means all sorts of things that aren’t great. Here’s hoping the snows of February and March show up. In the eleven years I have been here, I have seen the effects of a changing winter. Sometimes I’d like to stick around for a hundred years just to see what happens, but other times I am glad I won’t live that long. I feel like I grew up at the best of times. No internet, no social media with artfully posed women with long flowing hair in front of mountain scenery (seriously? tie that stuff back), no keyboard cowboys judging everything, playing outside until the streetlights came on, freedom to be free range. We lived for the mail, there was no instant gratification of text messages or email.
OK Boomer (technically I am not a Boomer). I have stayed far from the topic, as usual. Snow! Snow and writing. Two things that have made the past year bearable. And puppies, And sunsets.