Help: Being Brave Enough To Ask & Take

It's not always easy, is it?

Especially when it come to something you love and hold dear to your heart. 

Your art.

I took the opportunity a few months ago and placed bids on different services, one was to raise funds for Ukraine and the other the WFWA (Women's Fiction Writers Association). Agents, authors, editors, coaches, and others donate their time and services to help authors.

Bids can start as low as $5.00 with $1.00 increases to starting at $250.00 with $50.00 increases.

There are multiple kinds of critiques that are usually on the list of services:

• Query package
• Query letter
• X # of pages
• Full manuscript
• Synopsis

Then there are the book coaches and private calls with agents, some authors donate copies of their books... it's really a great opportunity if you have the funds set aside and time to check in on your bids to make sure you don't miss out on the item you want.

It's an exciting event to be part of, but then comes the time you "meet" with the donors who you then need to share your work with... and get feedback. 

For myself, and I believe most other creators/artists, the fear of failure is something that holds us back and turns us into procrastinators. But you need to remember this is your work, so you have the last word in how you want things to turn out.

*Knock on wood* I haven't had any negative experience from those I've connected with. (A mentor assigned to me is a whole different story and blog post perhaps)

I'm currently working with Kristen Owens on my query letter and Samantha Skal on my query package and they're both beyond amazing. Both are supportive, encouraging, and understand the creative process, knowing how it can be nerve-wracking to share our work in hopes that it's not absolute garbage.

Both work differently, but together they had asked me the perfect questions and offered advice that really helped me make my query letter shine. It does need a final buff to make it really shine, but I will be forever grateful to them both.

My synopsis is a whole other ballgame, I loathe the dreaded synopsis. I think most authors do, to be honest. Writing +100K words and spending countless hours and months editing is a piece of cake compared to condensing your entire book into 1200 words.

Yikes.

But, Samantha left questions and comments that will make it easier to work through it. I'm a little more confident now, having an idea of where it needs to go, what needs to go and things to add.

​So as scary as it was to ask for help, it's only allowed me to grow as a writer and person.

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