Yessireebob, it’s the one year anniversary of Inspiration Monday! Okay, technically today is Friday. And technically Tuesday will be the official anniversary, but who’s to say we can’t start celebrating now? I asked our badge creator Marantha to design some kind of celebratory graphic and she did not disappoint! Just looking at it makes me happy!
Thanks, Marantha!
Thank you so much, Marantha. InMonsters: feel free to use it on your upcoming InMon posts. : )
And here’s a little recap of the year:
I want to thank all of you for sharing your work and for being generally awesome – both those of you who have joined us for the first time this week, and those of you who’ve been with us since the beginning (the most frequent participants can check out their names in the graphic above). But linking to 67 of you would take quite awhile. So let me just give some props to Debra over at FindAnOutlet for giving me the idea to start this, and for bravely (and beautifully) taking on the first prompts.
I really can’t express to you all how much fun this year has been, how inspiring it has been to read your work. You guys have taught me so much. Thank you thank you THANK YOU!
And I am so looking forward to another year!
Couple of things before I go:
1. The InMon book. I mentioned the idea of self-publishing a “Best of Inspiration Monday” book several months ago, and several of you thought it was a great idea. Then I got busy and forgot about it for awhile. In case you’re wondering, yes, I still want to do it. It’s just not feasible time-wise right now. We’ll hope we can make it happen sometime in the future.
2. What do you want to read about this year? What topics would y’all like to see covered in future Friday posts? What questions do you have about writing or getting published? Let me know in the comments!
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Congratulations ! Enjoy the challenges…keep up the good work.
Peace,
Siggi in Downeast Maine
Thanks, Siggi! You, too!
Hard to believe it’s been a year already. Thank you so much, Stephanie. Your blog got me writing for the first time in almost 30 years. Even though I can’t write often due to time constraints, I still have special thoughts of InMon and I keep up with all of you. WAY TO GO!
I know, time flies! WAY TO GO right back at you, Char.
Although I’ve been lurking a lot lately instead of contributing, InMon has been a learning experience and a blast. Thanks for hosting–it’s a lot of work and we all appreciate it so much. But, a year already? Where did this year go?!
Yeah, the year seems to have flown by, and yet looking back it seems like forever ago. Lurking’s cool, but I hope you’ll still contribute now and again. I still think about your take on “unorthodox alarm clock.” Genius.
Congratulations Stephanie and all the writers! Nice badge, too. 🙂
Thanks! You, too!
Congrats, looking forward to actually participating as this new years begins for InMon! 🙂
Regarding questions about publishing, actually I just wanted to ask if there is any preferred format for a covering letter for publishers and if the manuscript should be sent out along with it or only after the letter if a response is sent asking for a submission?
Depends on if you are submitting a book or a short story. Here’s a quick breakdown:
Short story – submit cover letter and story directly to the magazine (research submission guidelines and which editor to send to beforehand). More about submitting a short story here.
Novel – submit a query letter only to a literary agent (research submission guidelines for that particular agent beforehand – sometimes they ask for a synopsis along with the query letter, but most will NOT accept unsolicited manuscripts). More about writing a query letter here (formatting).
I look forward to reading some of your work in a future InMon!
Thanks for the info, actually I’m looking at novels as well as a set of short stories both. The thing of it is though that even though I am published already in that I have been with a magazine and freelanced for a few things apart from more recently venturing into graphic stories/comics – here in India literary agent is not exactly much of an option and though I could I am hesitant to connect with agents abroad given I know nothing about them and I have no legal protection beyond a bare minimum for my work and ideas with someone in another country.
I was just talking to someone from Australia who has the same problem – I’ll tell you what I told them. You can certainly query American agents, and there are some great resources to find out more about them. If they are AAR members and/or have good reviews on Predators&Editors, you know your work will be safe with them. You won’t have to worry about getting scammed or plagiarized. Here’s a post I wrote awhile back all about those resources.
Thank you for that, will definitely look into it.
Also, when is the next InMon likely to be if you don’t mind me asking?
“InMon” stands for “Inspiration Monday” – so prompts go up every Monday, anywhere from 5pm to 12pm Central Standard Time – but you have the entire week to write anything you want based on those prompts.
Cool, just checking if it would active this monday or not, will definitely be participating this time!
Sweet!
Happy Anniversary! I know i just started, but it’s been fun. 🙂
In retrospect, this should’ve said, “Happy birthday.”
I’ve been using both interchangeably. : )
I’m glad!
I’m so proud to be a part of this – and tho my submissions have been a little scarce lately – I plan to be back in it to write more songs for the second year of InMon! Congrats to all involved!
We’re proud to have you! Looking forward to listening to more of your work. : )
Wooo! Happy Birthday!
(Oooh, 29 October: “LoveTheBadGuy coins the term “InMonsters””. I made the calendar!) 😉
But of course!