Susan, I think it's what you said -- trying to find a way to control the incontrollable. I know in the summer everything slows down -- July and August -- between vacations, RWA, and summer hours. And yeah, the week before Christmas is bad because no one wants to work, and usually the week between Christmas and New Year's everyone is closed. But I don't believe anyone simply clears the decks via rejection letters. You're just looking at a longer wait time than usual since mail is going to pile up.

Thanks, AmyLiz!

I asked because at the rate I'm currently writing, I expect to have the wip rough draft finished by the end of September. Since I already edit a fair bit as I go along, I'm hoping to start querying by early November. I'm planning to only have 5-10 active queries out at once, because that's a bit of writing loop conventional wisdom that does make sense to me--don't query everyone on your list at once, because if you've got a good story and an engaging query letter, it's easier to juggle three requests for partials and/or fulls than a dozen, while if you get rejected by everyone at once, you've blown your chance to play with the query and synopsis a little more and try again.

So, to make a long story short, I can see myself wanting to send some queries in the first half of December. Of course, that's all assuming I stay on pace. I'm trying to stay flexible about all my precious plans and schedules, given my father's situation and the fact that I'm the mother of a toddler.

connie, did you know Idol's touring this summer?

t weeps over the tour schedule that doesn't come anywhere near enough to Salt Lake that I can afford, wipes eyes.

Yes, I knew that.

I am way pleased. I not only sorted out a humongous amount of research materials on the palace of Placentia (aka the Palace of Greenwich), I wrote some on Cruel Sister. If Minotaur declines the rest of the series, I may be writing into a void, but hell, the book wants to be written and that's what I'm going to do. It's at 10,000 words right now.

And, having discovered that I can write fiction and lyrics at the same time, I wrote the music for the song lyrics I posted.

So I feel all virtuous and shit.

Go, Deb! That sounds like quite a productive day.

Yes, indeed. I'm now greedily eyeing the Studiomaster head and Fender amp it's plugged into, and my vintage Gibson electrics, so very very close...

Oh, deb. I'm so glad you're songwriting again.

It's a lovely set of lyrics. It has all the elements I love in a song -- the wordplay, the rhythmic groove, the passionate truth. It's great.

I fell off my songwriting wave. I was surfing the crest for quite a while, it just kept coming. But then I got busy and preoccupied. I'm on the road again, for a two week stretch this time, so I ought to set aside some time to work on it since I'll have a ton of downtime. I have some rough mixing to do for our boys' recording project, but they only got through instrumentals on two or three tunes, so it won't take me that long. I should definitely make some time to be creative this week.

Plus, I've got to rehearse my bass duet. If the SO's tendinitis clears up in time, we've got to get that ready for June.

Huh. I digressed.

Anyway, it's a gorgeous song, and I'm glad you're back in it.

Deb I love the way you segue: from writing to gourmet chef, and back to writing and now all the way back to songwriting. A Renaisance woman!

There are only eight notes in the scale. Anyone who composes music has me in awe, more than painters or sculptors or even writers. How can you take eight notes and, with all the melodies in the world that are already written, come up with something new? It's operating in a dimension I can only witness from outside it.

Anyone who composes music has me in awe, more than painters or sculptors or even writers.

Likewise. There are few things I love more than performing music, but I can't compose, and the closest I can come to even improvising is making up a harmony line, and I'm not even all that good at that--I do better at executing what's written. So I'm in awe of anyone whose brain has that gear.

Bev, you're asking the wrong person. I can't deconstruct how I make music any better than I can deconstruct how I write words - less, in fact.

There's a story, and in this instance, there's a melody. Looking at those lyrics, had they been written by anyone else, I would probably have assumed a haunting melody line, an Arabian scale or tritones or at least a lot of minor chords. But no - it's rather uptempo (Liese, think Uncle John's Band in rhythm and speed, and the only minor, from the G basic to the E minor, is almost triumphant, definitely not mournful).

I don't know how to not do this stuff. I can't read a note of music - my father refused to have me taught - but I can play and write it.

Need is very freaky stuff.

I don't know how to not do this stuff.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I wasn't actually asking how *you* compose. I was expressing awe that anyone can, and does do this thing that seems like magic to me. Moreso than other art forms.

I think visually, and I can comprehend how to draw, and paint, and sculpt, even if I can't do those things myself. I have written, and I understand what that process feels like. I studied piano for eight years with a bad, incompetent teacher, so that works out to more like, maybe, two years, total, and I've always sung, solo, in duets, trios, sextets, or chorus. I've sung soprano, alto, tenor parts, and I read enough music to know whether to go up or down on the line (see above, bad teacher). I can follow a melody line having heard it once, and I'm fairly good at finding or inventing a harmony or descant line.

But I can't make original music. I can't hear it in my head, I can't make it up, no matter how I try. And I'm in awe of people who can and do.