The Artistic Process Begins

Today, Rudy started sending me some concepts for Grandfather Goodspeed (also known as Fyodor, Fy, or Professor Goodspeed). We're doing a "deep dive" on Grandfather Goodspeed's look right now since his face will dominate the cover in the way I imagine it. I think once we nail the way he looks, a lot of the other elements will flow in around him.

I've included here some of the initial sketches Rudy has created. It is so interesting to me how words can be interpreted so differently by people. For, although I think each of these is roughly close to how I envisioned Fy Goodspeed, some are definitely closer. I really appreciate though I am working with someone who is able to envision and capture so many different ideas for what Grandfather should look like from the words I wrote.

I'd love to hear feedback from readers of my blog what they think. I've already polled family and friends and gotten a variety of feedback that has helped my finalize two of these, in my mind, for Fy Goodspeed's look.



Kalamazoo!



Christopher

The Rejection Letters Pour In

Well, I've been told from the start that rejection is part of the writing process. Today, I believe it. After Writers House turned down my first submission, I decided to cast my net wider and submit to a number of agents, some exclusively, but most simultaneously.

There's a lot of debate in the writing community about what appropriate practices are for submissions (exclusive versus simultaneous) , but I largely decided on the latter due to the time the whole process takes. If you consider that each agent takes two-to-three months (at best) to review your submission package, you're talking about only four to six agents seeing your material in a year. Since I truly believe my book has market potential and am not afraid to self-publish, I decided to accelerate this process by submitting to many agents simultaneously. I figure if I am going to be rejected, I'd like to get that out of the way as fast as possible.

And that's how I ended up with the forest of letters below. To the agents who included a personal note: I appreciate the time you took to write me. I will take your comments to heart.



So, here I am, three months and thirteen rejections later, standing on the verge of self-publishing, excited as hell.

Kalamazoo!



Christopher