Life After Revision

I've had some questions about what I've been doing with myself after finally, finally reaching the end of revision. Now that all those years and drafts have resulted in a novel I'm really satisfied with, I'm occupied with a few different things:

→ Getting started on the querying process. I'm not going to be blogging about the details of my specific query-related activities, but I assure you that things are happening. The basic idea of the process is that an author sends a query letter (generally email at this point) to a literary agent, briefly describing her book and why this particular agent might be interested. The agent reads the query and potentially some sample pages, and if she is in fact interested, she requests the manuscript. Then when an agent and a book love each other very, very much... No, maybe that's something else. Anyway, connecting with an agent can be a lengthy undertaking, and it involves a lot of waiting, but I'm glad to be on the journey at last.

→ Chilling out. Hey, I've earned it, right? The end-of-the-year timing worked out nicely in that I feel quite comfortable about not getting started on any new writing projects until all the holidays are over with. I have a big list of random stuff to get done this month, and I'm gradually checking things off, but I'm also not getting too stressed about not being all that productive.

→ Reading. A large component of the chilling out has been compensating for all the reading I didn't have time for in November while I was so focused on revision. Last week I finished three books that I'd started weeks earlier, and there are a bunch more I want to read in the rest of this month. Several book-related posts are in the works.

→ Miscellaneous and sundry. Some of this has been boring real life tasks such as reporting for jury duty (I didn't get to do anything except sit in a waiting room for an hour) and having my teeth cleaned (no cavities). But I've also done some far more fun things, including offering feedback on a friend's story and shopping for books for my nephews.

→ Not revising. It's really kind of weird. I basically spend all day going, "Okay, wait, it's all right that I'm not working on my novel right now." I can't quite get myself to believe that I'm not procrastinating. I'll be happy to resume writing in January so that I can get back to avoiding it.

Good Stuff Out There:

→ Instead of releasing best-of lists this year, the NPR staff put together NPR's Book Concierge, a neat way to browse through 2013's great reads.