Melissa Grant Writes

How can I STILL be finding things to fix?

HOW??

I started feeling like I was editing the soul out of Cloudia.

Polished started to feel too polished, you know?

I’m not polished, and I’m not terribly interested in polished (I promise I’ll stop saying polished in a second here). Perfection has never been my goal in life; flawed is more interesting to me.

But I do understand I can’t look like I don’t know what I’m doing (psst, I don’t really).

So, I’m still going. I’ve sped up the read-aloud voice, so it sounds like a crack-addicted spider monkey speaking in tongues, and recently, when something went haywire with Word and the voice changed, I was unreasonably angry.

I tried doing the query letter, but according to Tiffiny, I have not yet mastered that skill. After my third try, she started off the note with ‘Dear Melissa,’ ha! That’s when I knew she was trying to let me down easy and not say, ‘Dude, this sucks *ss.’

I know you’re reading this, Tiffiny, and you know I’m right.

After I found out I can’t use 40-year-old books as comps, I talked to a librarian friend and ordered a couple on Amazon.

Cue the imposter syndrome.

Whoa, these are so much BETTER than mine.

What am I doing??

I’m still going; that’s what I’m doing.

I’m plucking out the POV changes and sending them to Tiffiny. I’m avoiding the synopsis because it sounds like a lot of work, and I’m writing this because I can be unhinged and undisciplined, and up to now that’s the way I’ve lived my life.

And I may be neglecting my work work because city council meetings right now feel like torture. Sorry, Snoqualmie Valley.

I started an Instagram in addition to this because someone might want to know me better, and I had no online presence other than Living Snoqualmie (trust me, you do not want to be recognizable when you write a hyper-local blog; the locals can be…interesting) and I’m plugging along.

Oh, and I started book two because why not? Even if nothing comes of this, I’m no longer creatively constipated, and that feels good.

But I do want something to come of it, even if it’s only for the eventual neck lift I see in my future.

Cloudia would approve.

*Recent books that are similar to yours in some way, whether that’s the audience, tone, premise, or style. Basically: If you liked these books, you might like mine.