Having a completed novella/skinny-novel manuscript is super exciting! However, the next steps are daunting.
Writing a synopsis is a trip. I have a few permutations of pitches/"synopses" but it is a weird animal for sure.
This reminds me of being a college student and scheming how I would organize and decorate my future classroom, only to realize how daunting every little detail is--and that decorating a classroom is basically a non-issue compared to all the psychology, rhetoric, pedagogy, etc. that goes into teaching. Not that I thought dressing up four walls would be the main task, but I definitely overestimated how much time/resources I would even have available to decorate.
The first year and a half have certainly been spent with minimal décor. Thank goodness for student art!
Point being--classroom decorating always seemed like the fun part! Yet suddenly it is super tricky. Every color on the color wheel evokes different emotions--in super subtle, subconscious ways, sure, but that is still huge to children--you want calm, blank-ish spaces, but you can't be too busy either. Have things at their eye level but also sweeping up vertically to improve the mood. Maybe seek a grant to obtain flexible seating. Oi.
So it's entertaining to write a synopsis--it is definitely a boost of confidence to feel like I'm selling my novel--but it is also huge.
Identifying a genre is another step that sounds whimsical or fun, but the more I think about the genre (YA suspense), I wonder if it's too loose-fitting.
I think part of the struggle is that the narrative occurred so organically over the past 7-ish months, so to try to package it all of a sudden is disarming.
I'm super excited to share it when all the pieces are in place, but the process to get it out to an audience is slippery.
Thank goodness for Youtube. Shout out to author Alexa Donne, by the way. While I was hanging out with my momma dog waiting for signs of impending labor, I binge-watched a lot of her videos. They were super educational! I'll include a link to one I really enjoyed, but do check out her channel!
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