230: April 2026 Q&A

 

Welcome to our April 2026 Q&A episode! Topics discussed this month include:

 

  • writing dream sequences effectively 0:58

  • cutting word count from 160k to 110k 4:47

  • procrastinating by focusing on research/worldbuilding 7:49

  • updated advice for querying 13:07

  • finding beta readers 16:32

  • my writing journey + updates on my book 18:24

  • whether to list comp title elements 22:11

  • organizing plot when starting a book 27:05

  • querying a few chapters vs. the full book 34:04

  • health update 37:12

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APRIL Q&A

 

Welcome to your Big Creative Life podcast for writers and creatives that helps you write and live your best big creative life, whatever that means for you. Join me every Tuesday for discussions and tips on writing, mindset, up-leveling your life, and everything that will help you achieve your big creative dreams. Let's get started. Hello, welcome to Your Big Creative Life podcast and welcome to our April Q&A episode. This is a Q&A episode. We do this every month. The last Tuesday of the month is when the Q&A episode is released. If you have a question that you would like me to answer for an upcoming episode for the May one, you can find the link to submit your question in the show notes. It's anonymous. You can ask anything about writing, editing, querying, mindset, my business, personal stuff, just anything, and I'll answer it on the podcast. We have quite a few questions this month, so we're going to go ahead and dive in. Okay, question #1. I have a few questions that are kind of long, but I want to read the whole thing because I think it's important and yeah.

So question #1. I have a character who is very much in denial about his feelings, even to himself. I have a couple of dream sequences that force him to face how he's feeling, but I know dreams can **** a reader off. I've been there. The scenes have been really fun to write. They're weird and they run on dream logic, so it's clear they're dreams. There are no fake outs and they do move the story and character forward. But is it best to lay off dream sequences to avoid slowing things down by showing stuff that isn't really happening? Or do you have any advice for making them work? Thanks, Katie.

Yes, you are right to be cautious about dream sequences because here's the thing. If dream sequences can be one of those cliches in writing that when readers encounter them, they're like, oh, okay. And I think that the important thing to remember with dream sequences, well, I'll give you 2 big tips that inform how I think about using dreams effectively. Number one is to make sure that they function like scenes, meaning they're not just like, they just don't go on for 10 pages because like, oh, it's cool and fun. to write about a dream world. They need to serve a purpose. You mentioned in your question that they do move the story and character forward, which is great, but something you also mentioned is like they force him to face how he's feeling. I understand having a character who's in denial, but if the only way that they're able to process it is in a dream sequence, I don't know. I wonder if there's a way that you could kind of show character growth through the story.

So like in the beginning, first half of the book, yes, the character is really in denial about how they're feeling. They're struggling to confront it. They just want to shove it down and pretend that things aren't happening or whatever it is. But then over the course of the book, as they sort of experience more and grow and change than they are kind of forced to like let those walls come down and confront how they're feeling and what they're thinking about things. So I wouldn't only have any sort of interiority just be in the dream sequence. But going back to what I was saying is you really want to focus on making sure that they're full scenes and also look at the timing of when the dream sequences occur. It's best to avoid dream sequences early on in the book. Like I would even say the 1st 25% of the book, try not to have any dreams because the risk of this. I just think you're more likely to **** a reader off or to have a reader get frustrated if you have a dream sequence in chapter 1, 2, 3, et cetera, because the reader's still getting immersed in your actual world of your story, right?

They're still connecting to the character. They're still trying to like get their bearings and figure out what is going on in your book. So to then pull them out of it and have a long dream sequence just feels like, okay, you know. So you want to be strategic about when you use it. And I would try to push it later, like middle of the book, end of the book, something. instead of having dream sequences right off the bat. And I would also really limit them and just, again, I think going back to making them feel like scenes, make them short. Make them short scenes. Yeah, because it's sort of like, It's sort of like the timing thing where you don't want them to occur too early. You also don't want them to go on too long where it starts to feel like it's just an exercise for you, the author, to have fun and write something cool and it's not really serving the story.

So just think about making them short as well. Those are... Those are my tips for dream sequences. Be strategic about them, use them sparingly, keep them short and try to push them to not have them in the first like at least 25%, maybe even more, maybe even the first half of the book, honestly. So that's what I would say for making them work. All right, next question. I'm currently struggling to cut the word count of my finished romance slash literary fiction novel. It is 160,000 words and I want to lower it to at least 110,000, but I don't see where I could cut any more. Who should I reach out to? Is this the work of an editor, a developmental editor, or is there another role that could help me here? So I'll answer the question of who this is, who would help you with this. Yes, it's definitely an editor, a developmental editor. This is like a big thing that I help clients with. I have my manuscript evaluation, which is a form of a developmental edit. And this is something I'm always able to give feedback on for authors who have long word counts and want to cut. This is definitely it because it impacts pacing, it impacts the plot. So I'm always able to give suggestions on where you can cut things.

So yes, that's what a developmental editor will do. And then second, so romance and literary fiction are two different genres. I know you put romance slash literary fiction. So I would, I would figure out which genre you want to pitch this as, because it's going to impact the reading, like the readers of this book. It's going to impact how you pitch it, if you want to query. So you need to decide what genre you want it to be. And it also, I think if you're marketing this as lit fic, you have room to go slightly higher in your word count than you do for romance. I'm concerned that if you want to lower it to at least 110,000, 110,000 is still very long, probably too long. if you're doing this as contemporary romance.

Now, this also, it also depends on if you want to query or if you're self-publishing, because if you're self-publishing, you have the freedom to do technically whatever word count you want, although I do still think it's good to keep reader expectations in mind. So 110,000 for a contemporary romance or 110,000 for literary fiction is probably still okay. But if you want to submit to a small press, if you want to query this, I would definitely get it under 100,000. Contemporary romance, probably under 90 would actually be better. Lit fic, 95, 100, you'd probably be better. There's, you can research this online. Just go to Google. Agents who have blogs or social media content or even agency websites will tell you like, hey, if this is the, if you're submitting, like here's the word count that you should be at.

So you can get specific if you want, once you decide what genre you want to like market this as and pitch this as. But I would even get it under that. So I definitely think because you're at 160,000 and you've taken it as far as you can and cut as much as you think you can, I would definitely suggest, if it's possible for you, to reach out to an editor because that's definitely something they can help you with. I'm happy to help you. I can't, I'm not sure from this question if someone put their name. I won't share their name if they did, but feel free to reach out to me if you want. I can talk this through with you or any other editor who offers developmental editing, but I think it'd be a good idea to get some assistance with it, because you really want to get that word countdown. All righty.

Next question. Hi, Katie. Love your podcast. Thank you. My question has to deal with procrastinating. For the last year, I've put my writing on hold while I finished my bachelor's degree in creative writing. Now I finished school and I decided I want to try to write a fantasy series. I've never written fantasy before and I find myself getting obsessed with details in my fantasy world and feeling like I need to keep doing more research before I can start writing. Do you have any tips to overcome this feeling of procrastination? I'm not sure why I'm procrastinating because I love.... I love writing and just working on the series gets me really excited. I don't know why I'm hesitating to start writing it. Imposter syndrome, maybe any tips would be appreciated. This is very common and something we've actually touched on the podcast recently. And I think Maybe we talked about it in, I'm trying to think when I last talked about it.

There's an episode that we did on last week or the week before, a couple weeks before this episode will come out, about self-sabotage, like ways that writers self-sabotage. And one of the things I talk about in this episode is this, is planning and outlining and brainstorming and world building, especially if you're writing fantasy. All of that stuff can feel so important. And it is important to some extent, but also like it can be exactly what you identified. It can be a way to procrastinate. So #1, I just want to reassure you that this is normal. And 2, to say that it's really good that you're able to articulate this and say explicitly like, hey, I'm procrastinating. I can tell that I'm hesitating to actually get into the writing part and I'm not sure where this resistance is coming from. So the fact that you can identify it is great because I think a lot of times, either new writers or writers who are trying something new, They're not always able to articulate that. It's more of a subconscious thing that's happening where their brain is like, oh, this is scary. Let's just stay where it's safe world building and researching and plotting and all that kind of stuff.

So what I would recommend for this is giving yourself a deadline. You can research to your heart's content. You can world build to your heart's content. In fact, stop yourself from writing. You are not allowed to write. But then look at the calendar and set a date. Asterisk, gold star, this is the date where you're going to start your first page. And that's it. Like, do what you can to hold yourself accountable. Get a friend, partner, like someone, like this is the day you're going to start writing. Another reason why I think this can happen, in addition to like, it feels, is I think we can put a lot of pressure on ourselves to start the story in the right place to get the first page perfect, especially if you're someone who has been doing a lot of research. If you have been doing a lot of world building and really preparing yourself to write, it can feel like, okay, I've done all this prep work, I've done all this research, and now I have to start writing, but like, where do I start?

So maybe for you, I don't know if that tracks, if any of that resonates with you, but it might be like part of you is scared of messing up those early pages because it feels so important. And if that does feel true, for you, I want to just remind you that you can always change page one. You're just starting the story anywhere. Like it does not matter. And if even starting, like if you look at the calendar, you set a date, okay, I'm going to start writing on this date. If that even feels overwhelming and you're not sure that you can hold yourself accountable or actually do that, instead of starting to write, what if you just did some outlining for the scene? Like what if on that day, instead of sitting down to actually write full sentences, you just created, I don't know, 5, 10, 15 little bullet points, or created a summary of what that first scene is going to be. Like pretend that you're telling someone about the scene. That's your assignment is to just start there. And then once you crack it open and you get started there, maybe that'll give you a little bit more momentum and it'll be easier to get into it. But I really think it's important to set aside the brainstorming and the researching and the world building at a certain point and shift over to writing sprints.

Okay, so give yourself full permission, world build, research, geek out and all that stuff, but then set it aside. And if you get into the story and you decide that you do need to do more work and figure out more things, fine, you can do a brainstorming sprint, you can do a world building sprint where you're just focused on that. But you want to start to separate the two. So you have a session where you are sitting down and you are only writing. And even if it's not writing full sentences, it's just summarizing the scene or blocking it or getting some bullet points down, something there. So yeah, those are some tips for you. And also check out that self-sabotage episode if you want, because I think this is something that's very common. And finally, just remember, like, this is very low stakes at this point.

Give yourself permission to just play. in this world that you've created in your new fantasy series. It's low stakes, no one's gonna see it. You just get to have fun now with this world that you've started building. Okay, over to our other questions. Okay, I'm finally starting the querying process. Any new slash refreshed advice to get started? Exciting. I'm very excited for this person. And okay, querying. So just for some context, if you're new to the podcast or new to me, I have queried twice. I'm on my second agent. So I queried the first time it found my first agent in 2019. And then I queried again. I left that agent and I queried again in 2023 and signed with my agent then. So I've gone through the process twice and the last time was 2023.

So I don't think too much has changed in terms of querying. I have a couple of querying episodes that you can check out if you just want a refresher on like writing a query letter, how to structure it, where to find agents to query. But I do feel like I've heard some rumblings or some things from agents on social media that like... I just think it's more important than ever to really make sure that you are following all of the guidelines. I just, I can think of some videos from agents I've seen recently where they talk about like a flood of AI content or AI, clearly AI generated stuff, but they're kidding. So yeah, I don't know. I just think it's like even more important to make sure that you are following all of the guidelines. and making your submission as strong as it can possibly be. And that's always been true.

There's never been a time in querying when that wasn't true, but yeah, I would just really, really make sure it's solid. There's lots of advice online on writing a query letter and finding comp titles and, you know, any personalization that you want to add. But yeah, I don't think there's... I don't think there's any, oh, oh, going back, I know I was going to add something on to that, flood of AI sort of queries that agents are seeing. Because of that, I am hearing, I've seen some people talk about how response times might be a little bit longer from agents. So I think that might be something good to just like kind of refresh your like expectations about hearing back from people, that it might be a while before you hear back and to just kind of like give agents some space and some grace to get through the queries that are in their inbox. So it might be a longer Rd. now. in 2026 than it was even a few years ago.

So just kind of know that. I think it's helpful to set your expectations. I mean, querying is always challenging. There's always agents who have like incredibly long response times, but even it's just more true now. Yeah, I think otherwise the advice still stands. Like I recommend sending out six, 8, probably no more than 10 query letters to start or queries to start. Making sure that you're following the guidelines, not doing anything crazy with your query letter and to try to stand out and like reinvent the wheel. Make sure that all your ducks are in a row in terms of your sample pages. Your word count is where it needs to be, all that good stuff. And then your querying agents who are like really good fits for the type of book that you're writing. So good luck. Again, just manage your expectations and it might be a little bit longer, a little bit tougher, but it's exciting. I'm crossing my fingers for you.

Okay, next question. Can you give tips on how to find beta readers? If you have already, that is cool too. We do have a podcast episode that I did, I don't know, it was a while ago, maybe a couple years ago about how to find beta readers. And the information in there probably still stands. I can't remember exactly what I shared in that episode, but you can go check that out if you'd like. But basically social media is a fantastic way. I've seen posts that are like, you know, where people post about wanting beta readers or use hashtags for that. Reddit, I've heard of people finding groups on Reddit, Discord, Facebook groups for like indie authors in particular. I can just think of 1, I saw like a screenshot of someone share.

But also like writing classes, if you have a literary center or a library in your community that does writing classes, that's a great way to find a writing group in particular to get plugged in and then you can find people there to beta read for you. those are all places that I've heard people have found beta readers. It can be kind of difficult, to find people and to, you might have to, it's almost like... It feels like it's similar to dating or like making friends as an adult, where it might be awkward and uncomfortable and you have to go through some duds, like people who just don't, who ghost you, who, you ask them to beta read and they ghost you, or like they're not really helpful or whatever. It's just not a good fit. So just stick with it. I promise there are writers out there. Like I hear from so many people who are looking for beta readers or like want to find a writing group. This is so common. And the good news is with social media, this is more, and just the internet, really. this is more accessible than ever. Even if you live in a small town or a rural area where you don't have like in-person writing classes, that's fine. You can find it online. Okay, I have two questions that are similar. Someone asked, how's it all going with your writing journey if you can share? And then someone said, when can we buy your book?

So I'll give a little writing update, which is that there's not much to share, unfortunately. I feel like a broken record. at this point saying that my book is almost, on submission. I am just waiting for the final check on my manuscript by my agent before we send it out. And something you have to know about having an agent is like, it can just take them a while to get back to you because they have so many other clients that they're juggling. And so there's been a lot of waiting involved on my end, which is fine. My agent's very busy. Like, I get it. So I just keep thinking, like, we're so close. And then I have to wait a little bit longer. So I don't have any updates on my book, unfortunately. I'm really hoping that we're going to be able to send it out soon. I should, you know, hear back any day now from my agent. And last time we had a phone call, which was Probably 2 months ago, at this point, she talked about her submission strategy and coming up with a list of agent or a list of editors. So, how this works is your agent will... Once you sign with your agent, you're going to do some edits on your book, make sure it's polished, make sure it's totally ready to go out on submission.

And being on submission just means that your agent has a very targeted list of editors at different publishers who they think would be a good fit and be interested in acquiring your book. So then they send out the manuscript to all these different acquiring editors and just kind of wait to hear if anyone wants to buy it. And then you get a book deal, or you don't get a book deal, depending on how it goes. And then if no one's interested on that first round, then you send it out to a second round of editors and so on and so forth. And there's a lot of strategy that's involved and it's one of the benefits of having an agent. So anyways, that's a part of the process that we're at. I also just sent like 2 weeks ago, I'm writing a new thriller.

I'm like 25,000 words into it. And I just sent my agent a synopsis and like the 1st 20 pages or so just to kind of get a gut check on it because I hadn't really talked to her about this. and this book and kind of my vision for it and the premise and all that. So we're going to chat about that as well. So that's the status with the new book, about 25,000 words in. It's another psychological thriller. And yeah, it's, that's kind of all, I don't want to share too much about the premise, but yeah, that's my writing journey. I've also been playing around with writing some, just as like a palate cleanser and to do something different, I've been playing around with writing these little mini essays. I got this notebook. Well, I have this three notebook ecosystem. They're three thin notebooks.

And then I have one of those like leather kind of covers that goes over it. Well, mine's faux leather. But if you've ever seen like a Louise Carmen or a Paper Republic where they have those gorgeous covers for your journals, it's kind of like that. Except mine was a budget one I got off Etsy. And so anyways, in there, I've been, I've been, I challenged myself to write a couple of just like mini essays about things for my day, like a page, 2 pages at most, longhand. And it's been really fun to do that, just to play around with it. I'm having a lot of fun. So that's also something I'm working on. I'll share more as soon as I can. I will, I'll let y'all know when we're officially on submission. And I just like, I feel like, I feel like I've been saying that for like literally a year. But that's just, that's just where, how the process is going. So All right, but thank you both for asking. That's very kind, and again, I'll share updates when I can.

Okay, next question. Thoughts on whether to list comp title elements similar to your book in the query letter? And I'm going to go back to, I think this person sent me more in a message that I don't think I sent myself. Let me just go back to messages. Okay, I've heard different opinions on whether you should list the elements and comp titles that made you comp that book in the metadata of a query letter. Some say never do it, others say you need to show agents why you comp those titles in case they haven't read it or to show your understanding. What do you think? So I've heard conflicting advice on this too, in terms of like, if you need to do it. I don't know that I've ever heard anyone say don't do it, but this is my take on it. Just please disclaimer, keep in mind, I'm not an agent. This is just my interpretation of it and what I've seen and how I have thought about this from successfully querying myself, but then also editing query letters for clients. This is one of those things where if you're going to do it, you should do it well and do it for the right reasons. And if you can't do it right, then just don't include it. Like just include the titles without any information. That's my take on it and probably why some agents say like don't do it is because they see people doing it wrong. So comparable titles or comp titles are books that you include in your query letter that show the agent a couple of things.

They show the agent that you are reading in your genre, you're familiar with the market, what's been published recently, and then also give them an idea of where your book, that you're querying would fit in on the shelf? Like what other books would it be next to? And comparable titles are not, you're not comping to a plot, meaning like you don't have to find a book that is exactly the same genre, exactly the same topic, has the same premise, and then comp to that. That's not the point of it. It's more to tell the author, to tell the agent the style and like the voice and the tone of your book. Because think about, fantasy. If you just say that you're writing adult fantasy, are you writing Brandon Sanderson-esque style adult fantasy? Are you writing Rachel Gillig style adult fantasy or romantasy? You know what I mean? Like it, I guess that's romantasy, not fantasy, but you get the point. Fantasy authors, fantasy is a broad genre and a lot of authors, like every author has a different voice and tone. And so it's helpful to communicate to the agent stylistically where yours is, what yours is similar to. So I think if you can do it well and effectively, it can be a good thing to do. But if you're not sure, then just don't do it and only include the comp titles. So for example, going back to Rachel Gillig, you could say like, you know, this book will appeal, or this book is similar to One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig with its lush prose and gothic whatever, and also similar to this because of this.

Like if you can clue the agent into why you're copying those things, sure. But yeah, I My take on this is, again, knowing that I'm not an agent myself, my take on this is agents probably get a lot of queries where they don't, they haven't read the book. So I don't think it's a, if they see a title that they're not familiar with that you've comped to, they're not going to be like, oh no, I don't know what this is. How am I going to get into this query? You know, they're just going to keep reading. Like, it's fine. But going back to just generally speaking about comp titles, I do think it's important that your comp titles are recently published books, two, three years, within the last two, three years, that they're traditionally published and that they're not like the most massive books that have come out in this space in the last three years, because like everyone's going to be comping to those and it kind of becomes meaningless after a while. I edited probably 6 query letters in a row for fantasy that all comp to 4th wing. two years ago, I was like, this is not, you got to pick something else. Probably an agent who is accepting fantasy or romanticy, like every other query letter, will be comping to 4th wing or ACOTAR or whatever, even though ACOTAR is very old and wouldn't be an appropriate comp title anyways. So anyways, that's a bit of a side note on comp titles. But I think this is one of those things if you can do it well and you understand what the elements are and why you're comping to those things in terms of the voice and tone, then sure. But if not, it's fine to just include the comp titles.

That's my feeling. Because I've also heard agents say explicitly about comp titles, if you can't find comp titles, number one, everyone can mine comp titles. So if you truly feel like you can't find comp titles, you're probably just not looking hard enough. But if you truly feel like you can't find comp titles, that's fine. Just don't include them. Like just leave it out of your letter. And you can just include your title, your genre, and your word count. So I think it's kind of similar to that. I suspect it is. Okay, next question. How do you like to organize plot at the beginning? Like index cards, big board, et cetera. So I have done something different for every book that I have written. I have written three books and I'm working on a fourth. I did try the index cards, or not index cards, post-it notes for one book that I was writing. I did a W outline, which I think I have an older podcast episode about actually, where I put a W on the wall, like the actual letter W with green tape, and then I put post-it notes up. And it was fun and it was a creative way to think about the book, which actually, I just realized it's the book that my agent has that we're going to be sending out on submission soon. God, it's that book. I started that writing this book a few years ago. I kind of forgot about that. So I've tried that and that was fun.

My process now, however, I'm someone who's not a big plotter And I'm not a big pantser or discovery writer where I just like to start writing and see where the story goes. I'm somewhere in the middle where I like to do a bit of brainstorming and plotting, particularly about the twists because I'm writing thrillers and I kind of want to know, okay, what happens at the end? How is everything, how does everything get resolved? How do things shake out? And that, like in order to work my way backwards and think about twists. And I also do a bit of brainstorming about my main character or characters because I find that helpful to do before I start writing. But otherwise I just like, that's it. And I just start writing and kind of see where things go. And then I might stop in the process to do a bit more brainstorming along the way. But so for this book that I'm writing now currently that I'm like 25,000 words in, I just have a Word doc that has everything in it. It's probably, I don't know, 6 pages or so. I have a summary where I'm just, I started out like summarizing some ideas about the story. I was like, character name, this age, lives in blah, blah, blah, and is blah, blah, blah.

One day she blah, blah, blah. Like I'm just kind of brainstorming and talking about what the idea is. And then I also have a couple of bullet points in there about the first, I don't know, what I thought was going to be the 1st 10% or 20% of the book, just like some bullet points of early scenes. And I also have a couple of bullet points about my protagonist. I have some description of her, some details about my other major characters in the book, kind of their backstory, their personalities, et cetera. And all of it just lives in one document. That's it. Excuse me. Allergies. Am I done? I guess I just had one. Okay, so you can get very complicated with this. You can do the index cards on the wall, you can do the post-it notes, you can do flashcards, you can do all that stuff if you are a, either a, well, I guess if you're a visual person and you like to see it all laid out that way, that can be helpful. But it doesn't need to be anything like that. It doesn't need to be complicated. Again, I've done something different for all of my books. This has worked well for me just to do this Word doc that has, it's basically a brain dump document where I just have everything. And then if I want to go reference something, I can. If I want to do a bit more brainstorming, I can. make some bullet points of upcoming scene ideas. I also have a folder of newspaper articles that I downloaded because I'm going to be writing an article or two or including snippets of a few different pieces of articles. in this book.

And I wanted to get an idea of what articles from the 80s would look like. So I went on through the, I went to a newspaper archive that I was able to access through my public library, shout out public library, and download examples of like, you know, newspaper articles from North Carolina from 1988 or whatever year it was. And so I have those in a file as well. But that's more research. That's not really plot related. But yeah, that's what I do. Next question, you've talked about celebrating wins. What celebrations have you done for your wins? Okay, I just want to hug the person who asked this. was on Instagram so I can see the person who submitted this and I just want to like give you a hug through the podcast and say thank you because I have not been celebrating wins recently. I think my, I've been experiencing some frustration with waiting for my book and feeling like I'm so behind, it's taking so long, I'm so impatient to just be on submission already, that it's kind of, I don't know, my mindset just hasn't been great always the last few months. But I have, I have sort of like mentally acknowledged that it feels really good to be writing something new. I'm basically 1/3 of the way through this rough draft. I'm guessing. I like my first draft to be, I would like it to be somewhere between 70 and 80,000. So like basically I'm 1/3 of the way through a rough draft and I think that's a big win. But also, oh, one, I did like 1 anticipatory thing. I'm thinking through, okay, once my book is on submission officially, like I get the e-mail, my agent sends me the list of editors, I'm going to celebrate, I'm going to, Sam and I are going to go out to a nice dinner. Like that feels important to acknowledge and celebrate, but that's like an upcoming thing.

So we're not quite there yet. But Yeah, I need to get better about this because it is so hard with writing to get caught up in like what you don't have yet or what's not done yet, how much you have left to do on something. And I forget all the time. I mean, that's why I give you all the advice because I need to hear it too. I need to hear the advice of stopping to acknowledge what you've done and being grateful for that and celebrating that because it's all, it's really important. And just the other day, I was kind of complaining to a friend about like some things in my life and she was talking about writing and saying, she's a writer as well. And she's like, yeah, it, There's so much that we can't control, but we can control the writing. You can always write and you don't have to wait to do that. And I was like, oh yeah, that's, God, I need that reminder too. So anyways, thank you for submitting this question. It's something I need to get better about. So maybe I'll, maybe like once I hit 30,000 words, I'll do something to mark that because it does really feel, I'm like kind of pleasantly surprised at the process of writing this book. and how it's gone. And also, I need to celebrate the fact that I got done with my edits for my book that will be on its submission soon, because it's been a long process. Yeah. So celebrate the wins. If you're listening to this, please acknowledge all the little milestones. It's so important. I think we have two more questions. I know this is kind of a longer episode, but I wanted to get through all these questions.

Okay, the full question is, can I go query the first couple chapters after it's polished and I send them to an editor while the rest I'm still going through them, but bit by bit with my slow-paced beta reader group? I would fix based on their previous feedback the rest and make my manuscript ready for querying. Would that be a healthy approach since I can't afford a developmental editor and line all at once? Like, would my chances to getting an agent be good with this approach? So... It's very important that you only query a finished, edited, done manuscript. You never want to query a work in progress. You never want to query if you just polish the first few chapters, because those are going to be the sample pages, but the rest of the manuscript isn't ready. Here's what can happen. You can get an agent who responds back to you like so quickly. And they say, thanks for sending. I'm interested in seeing the full. Can you send along the full manuscript? And then the full manuscript isn't ready. So then you'd have to e-mail the agent back and say, oh, I can't. It's not ready, which is not a good look. So you definitely, this is like one of the rules of querying is you only query something when the entire manuscript is done and ready. The last time that I queried, I had an agent get back to me within 24 hours asking for a full manuscript. That was the shortest record time. Because, yeah, an agent... In most cases, you will send sample pages.

The first chapter, first three chapters, first 50 pages, whatever they ask for. Sometimes an agent will just want a query letter, but normally they're going to want to see some sample pages too. If they like those sample pages, they will ask to see either a partial manuscript, like half of it, or a full manuscript. So you have to have that ready to send them. I'm going to look back at your question here. so it's definitely possible to do, like if you want to hire an editor to just look at the first chapter or something, you can definitely do that. But that's like a separate case. Querying, it's the full manuscript. Some editors only, some editors have like minimums per project where you have to send a certain number of words. I have a first chapter review that people can book with me. It's $99. It's the first 5,000 words. So even if your first chapter is only like 2,000 words, that's fine. You can send a couple of chapters just basically until you hit that 5,000 word mark. And I'll give you feedback, I'll leave comments, and then I record a video for you that summarizes my suggestions and feedback for you. So editors will sometimes do that, or you can book like early, you know, a small chunk of pages. If you can't afford to get a full round of editing on the entire manuscript, that's definitely a way to do that, to make sure that your opening pages are solid. But that's something to do before you query.

So then you can implement the editor suggestions, improve it, make changes, and then work with your beta, work with your writing group or beta readers or whatever on the rest of it. But yeah, just make sure the full thing is done before you query. Okay, next, I think Final question, actually. Let me check. Yeah, final question. How's your health? Normally, I'd avoid personal questions, but you've listed personal stuff. Like, life has its challenges and stresses, and I believe there's value in accepting them and being real rather than allowing silence to stigmatize struggles we all face. A thousand percent, yes. So, health is very good physically. I feel like... You know what? I'm 39 years old and I feel like I'm in the best physical health of my life. And part of that is just because I'm in really good physical shape. I've been doing strength training and weights in the gym. I've been eating a lot more protein than I did in the past, like really being trained, trying to eat more and eat more protein. And I can tell a difference in my body in the way that it performs. And I'm not doing it for weight loss. I'm not doing it for like purely aesthetic purposes. But it's just nice to feel myself getting stronger. And I really enjoy working out. It's something that I need to do for my mental health as well. If I don't move my body, it's I just get a little squirrely and a little crazy.

So it's just, yeah, I feel like I'm the healthiest I've been. It's mental health is another story, however. I got back in therapy about six months ago to deal with some family stuff. My parents are separated. They separated about 2 1/2 years ago. They're still separated. I don't know if they're going to get divorced or continue to be separated. And when they separated, some things came out 2 1/2 years ago that just sort of like shook my foundation, my understanding of my childhood, my understanding of my family, myself, my two brothers, my parents, just everything. And it sort of like reframed how I, it just shook things up for me, basically. And I was having a lot of, I was looking at a lot of things and needing some help with it. So I got back in therapy. It's been a few years, and it's been extremely helpful to deal with that and just process things. I've also been doing ART therapy, which is like a form of EMDR, which is the eye movement thing for trauma.

My therapist does ART, and I forget what ART even stands for, but it's similar. She talks you through something, you move your eyes, and it's been very helpful to process them. some trauma and just some stuff that I, wasn't ready to look at. It's sort of like an onion, like layers of an onion. You kind of like get ready to deal with things when, or you're able to look at things in layers. Even five years ago, I wasn't ready to look at some of this stuff, and I am now. But it's been challenging. It's been, it's been, it's been tough. And it's, I've also been doing a lot of like nervous system work, regulating my nervous system, because I've realized like I'm kind of stuck in fight or flight.

And I have been for the last few years. It's just, yeah, I think it's like my body's way of coping to stuff. And actually, I want to do an episode about this. I was thinking about like an episode coming up about like mental health for authors or something. So I'm going to make a note to myself to do that after I finish recording this episode. And I've been looking, I've been doing some somatic work and just really trying to heal my nervous system and kind of get back to a more healthier baseline and increase my window of tolerance for things. Yeah, it's just a, it's a lot. But you know what? I'm in a much better place to deal with all this stuff because I don't currently have depression. I don't currently have anxiety, which are things that I've struggled with in the past. I'm sober now. I'm clear-headed. I've been sober for 12 years. So like I'm in a place to deal with all of this stuff. I have a good support system. So I can handle some stuff coming up and my mental health being like not great some days because those other things are in order, which is something I'm very grateful for. So if your struggle, I totally agree with what this person said. Like it's, we all deal with ****. We all deal with **** at different points in our life. whether it's mental health stuff, physical health stuff, whatever's going on. And it all impacts our writing.

It all impacts our creativity. When I'm having one of those extremely stressful days and I feel activated and I feel just weighed down by things, I can't show up and write and do my best work. And like, that's okay. I've had to just give myself grace. So I guess I'd say the same thing to you if you're struggling. It's not like writing is just this separate thing that we're able to like, I don't know, everything affects each other. Our work affects writing, our health affects writing, our relationships, where we live, our environment affects writing, all of it is impacted by it. So that's why it's important to look at this stuff. Okay, so thank you for everyone who submitted questions this month. Again, if you want to submit a question for next month, you can do so at the link in the description of this episode. And I will talk to you all next week. Thank you for listening. The best way to show your support if you enjoyed this episode is to leave a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to help other people discover the show. You can also take a screenshot of the episode and share it to your Instagram stories and tag me @KatieWolfWrites. These episodes are available on YouTube if you prefer to watch the video. Don't forget to follow @KatieWolfWrites on Instagram and TikTok for more writing tips. And you can also follow @theKatieWolf, my author account on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. See you next week.

 

 

Katie Wolf