K.E. Skedgell

E rr, or maybe not. We all know what 2020 has been like so I'm not going to go there. However...ugh! It was the beginning of the new Roaring Twenties. It was supposed to be a good year. Only it has been so tiring, so frustrating, so...so... Anywhooie! Back in May I attempted fate and sent out my query letter to seven agents. Five rejections and two CNR's was the result. I know it wasn't very many to judge by what my failure could have been. Maybe wrong timing, maybe it wasn't the query letter but the sample pages that made them go, not for me. Who knows? Agents don't usually tell you why they reject, if they even respond. I have been wanting and meaning to rewrite the query letter but my desire just hasn't been there, especially after going back to work at the end of May, and work for the past few months had been chaotic to say the least. Things are simmering down though, and now I'm starting to think about that query again. This time of the year should hope...

Y es, I had finally reached the end. Back on the 18th. I'm a little late with the announcement (not that anyone reads this blog), but I finally did it after nearly six years of on and (mostly) off writing this novel. It is not done, there's much editing and research and filling of gaps to do, but I reached the end of the novel and I'm glad but sad at the same time. The editing process has already began and I hope to get it into the hands of betas by summer, and while that's happening begin with the torturous task of writing a query letter.

Y ou did it, Nashville! You made it 150 years! And to celebrate, some of the locals made birthday cake to be passed out via local restaurants and the Putnam District Library. My hometown turns 150 today; here's to 150 more! And from August 2-4, the village will have its celebration with all sorts of events and dedications and a parade and fireworks and things going on. It'll be the most exciting thing to happen in this village since it broke the Guinness World Record for world's longest ice cream sundae in 2016 (and got beaten a couple of years later--we'll be back!). Have souvenir spoon, will eat ice cream. And guess what? I'm nearing the end of writing the first draft of Lake One. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm still working on it. 5 1/2 years later. BUT! I am on the last chapter, with an epilogue and some bits and pieces I skipped left to write. For much of the last year I didn't write squat, but the start of this year I've really been hustling to...

I 've taken on a new hobby. Just what I need, another hobby to take me away from writing. But it's okay! I don't write much in the summertime anyway, and this hobby, alongside with my gardening, which by the way I've been slacking on this year, can only be done when it's nice outside and not freezing. What is it you say? Take a look! Before After! Before After! Before After! The inscription on the bottom reads: Jennie, it's my sorrow's pride This last dim duty to fulfill Though all the world forget beside Friends will you remember still And one more... Before In progress... Since last fall I had begun cleaning headstones, starting with a few that the historical society I'm currently a board member of have chosen to put on a list as part of a cemetery tour/walk of some notables of our town. The walk is scheduled for our town's sesquicentennial in 2019, so that is giving us time to clean up s...

T his post goes hand in hand with my last post, Can You See Them? Your Characters, That Is. A few days ago as I was mindlessly browsing my Facebook news feed, I came across a post from an author I'm following who posts photos of people and ads and such things from the era of the book she had written, which is the early 1900's. For the curious. The post was of this photograph of a handsome young man. Dapper! Swoon! I think I could look at him all day. Um, herm. Okay, back to the post. Anyway, as I was saying, when I got done drooling (I wasn't really drooling, you can't prove that I was), I realized that this young gentleman, or dandy, or whatever he was, resembled what I pictured in my mind's eye the character Josef Reichardt in the current novel I'm working on. A little about Mr. Reichardt. Born in Germany in 1803 to a wealthy baron, Josef lost his inheritance after his beloved father's death to his uncle when he married Josef...

...of sorts. It's called the Samhain Visions Cover Story Contest where you write a story, poem, or essay about the photo on the cover of Gaelsong's catalog. So I wrote a short story (the name of it is "Betty") and I think it's an okay little story. I need more votes though to win the big prize (hint hint) since the stories are voted on by your peers. Hence, it doesn't really matter how good the story is, or how well it's written, just as long as you can get enough people to vote for your story. Anyway, the voting runs until the 29th of October and you can vote on a story once a day every day until the the voting ends. I'm just looking to be somewhere near the top, I guess, and not dead last. I have ten votes as of writing this. Hope I get more. In other news... My progression on my Lake One Gothic romance novel, or novella, or whatever it'll be, is coming along slowly but surely. I have over 12k words written, some of which I'm sure ...

I haven't made a new post in over two months for good reasons. Not much has happened. Well, maybe a little. I have a job now, which being jobless was really taking its toll on my sanity. It's nice to finally have some money rolling in. I've been in a depression funk for quite some time and it still has yet to lift, but it's getting better. Not enough for me to get back into my writing, though I did start on a new project, sort of. I have about 3000 words written, The direction I wish for it to go is horror on the Gothic side, but since I'm a 'by the seat of the pants' type of writer, it could turn out to be anything. The working title is Lake One , and here's the gist of it: During the summer of 1923, strange murders plague the "friendly village" of Nashville, Michigan, and the residents don't know who could be behind the deaths. Young women and children are found drained of blood laying on the bank beside an old boathouse on Lake One...