It's off!

And it's off! Into the land of the automatic postal box. I must say I wished for Judith Kuwatch's wishful thinkings over the tape as once was applied to my grad. school apps, but being that I am in New Hampshire, I opted instead to seal them with my good wishes and hopefilled thoughts. (Especially because two of the places aren't accepting unsolicited submissions...)
I also queried two literary agents today for the book so that if it gets picked up by one of them I might be able to slide by those rules of unsolicited better. Pretty much I look at the places that I feel are applicable and go with J.K. Rowling's approach to find a name that speaks to me and query away.
At some point I'll have to do that for my artwork too but TSH gets priority today as I made a contract with one of my employers to accomplish some task I've been avoiding and that would be it... so, since the deadline is tomorrow, off went the Trina Biographies... I would love to hear back in three months or sooner but I doubt I will. I did get a big, Not for me, already from a lit agent. So, one down, one left to respond.

Trina Triumphs!

The printer hums along beside me as I patiently wait for the thirty plus pages of my Trina Schart Hyman sample chapters to print out. I have reviewed, cross reviewed, saved, resaved, and am officially printing the three sample chapters, proposal and cover letter to be gathered and sent out for publisher consideration as we speak. Today is the day! So, in lieu of not actually having a contract but wishing to celebrate, I'm writing a whooohoooo to those who have helped to make my dream book a possibility.. in no apparent order:

So for you Kate Silver who stashed herself outside of the fancy motel lobby as moral support while interviewing Lois Lowry, & for coming along and poking through the folders at UConn, for you Jennifer Helen, who supported my wild wanderings of thought and letters about Trina, for keeping my painting safe over my wanders and for constant encouragement and belief in the book, for you Dr. Dales who said, "You can be the expert, you can write it," and for carting me along to all the speakers and conferences, for you Ma who edits all the writing I do & lets me speak to her class about the awesomeness of Trina, to Dad for coming up with the rapid funds for me to meet Katrin Hyman the first time, to you Kathryn Thompson who always asks how my book is going, to Maggie who did a fabulous mock up or dummy book for her class project to let me hold a sample of what it might look like with all the images, to Katrin Hyman Tchana's ENDLESS help via interviews, questions, emails, and pokings (and for being grand and not intimidating on meeting), to you Anita Silvey for saying, "Go for it," and helping me connect with people, for Lois Lowry agreeing to be my first interviewee and not scaring the daylights out of me, for you Eric Kimmel, Jane Yolen, Tomie dePaola, Will Hillenbrand & Judith Lerner for your grand memories of Trina, for you Claire Clounihan for your helpful emails and fond memories of Trina, for Jim Wieland, & David White & Susan Bloom for sharing their knowledge, paintings and photographs with me, and all the other glorious people I met at MU or UConn or wherever I met them & who I will actually list in acknowledgements some day (hopefully) that shared their time, their expertise, encouragement and their memories with me!

That was fun. I kind of felt like the Oscars for a minute--save for the fact my dog is the only one home to hear my glorious speech or toast with a milk bone to my glass of water. Well, and I suppose the fact I'm in my painting pants rolled to my ankles because after all this I am planning on finishing up my icecream pieces, but I do have a stunning smile on and that ought to count for my attire :)

So the printer is still cranking. And my first chapter printed out blue... a good set of twenty pages in dark blue... Pretty much I'm entertaining myself with this blog entry while I wait. Wow. I feel very writerly with this huge stack of paper the composes only FOUR chapters of my 12 chapter book. Maybe I'll just print out the whole thing for fun :) Okay, I'm done blogging for this entry as I have resorted to rambling...but YEAH! Today I'm sending out submissions for the first time of my long-researched-long-time-in-the-writing book!

Deep Sea Treasure Hunt

While I have always dreams of being an artist or illustrator, I have decidedly found my backup career--a deep sea fisherwoman. This weekend a friend took me out on a party boat to experience the delights of deep sea fishing off the Jersey coast and after one line drop, I was hooked. Deep sea fishing requires a bit of messiness (the bait is slimy and questionable) a bit of coaxing, (here fishy fishy), and a bit of hope that when that line reels in there will be something on the end. Now, frankly, I have little interest in eating whatever I pull out of the large pond, but feeling a touch piratey I sure enjoy the sense of treasure hunting when the line disappears below sight.
My prideful catch didn't amount to too much as I could never quite tell when something was biting but pulling up my first catch of the day, a starfish, was probably the most exciting thing I have experienced--nevermind that I was likely fishing on the floor of the ocean where the fish can't exactly get hooked...
So, two small sea bass and two sea robins later (those sea robins are U-L-G-Y) and a fisherman helping me pull them off (he reminded me of my Uncle Jack Brennan), I was enraptured. Sea fisherwoman for me.