Introductions:

Hello Blogger, Reader, Writer, Agent, Editor and anyone else fortunate enough to stumble upon my blithering,

First, I would like to point out that this blog has nothing to do with either real estate, or real estate so wonderfully amazing it can only be referred to as unreal estate. The title of my blog was inspired by Stephen King. In his book On Writing, Mr. King refers to a manuscript as the "unreal estate that took up three hours of your every morning or afternoon for a period of three or five or seven months." (p. 213)

I would highly recommend this book to any and all authors, but especially anyone in the process of writing a novel. Just pick up a copy and you'll see why.

This blog is intended for people who share my situation... having written a novel and beginning the esteem-crushing process of trying to get it published.

Here, I plan to track my progress, or lack there of, and even go back and explain my writing experiences from the beginning.

There are a number of reasons for this progress report. First, I am someone who has done a large amount of research on this process, and most of my information either came from authors who have been through all of this, or agents and editors that blog about what they want to see from up-and-coming authors. Maybe I didn't google the right keywords, but there were very few sources of information that included other people in my "stage." Honestly, I can see why. I've heard people say that getting your foot in the door as a writer usually requires hell freezing over, farm animals other than pigs sprouting wings and flying, and all the planets and stars aligning. It stands to reason that someone would want to keep all of their successful aspects of this process to themselves until they're nice and secure in a three book contract with a prestigious publishing house. By then, they're too busy writing three books to help other people go through what they remember as the most excruciating stage of their career. So, I intend for this blog to be like a step by step guide. Simply find your corresponding stage of the process, and follow along. I apologize to anyone who may have to wait for me to catch up to them. Bear with me here.

And, here's my second reason for writing this Blog. What I lack in confidence, I make up for in optimism. I am convinced that I will get my foot in the door, that I will have a book published, that there will be many more books to follow, and that writing will be my career for the rest of my life. Therefore, I want to have this blog handy when I start making lists of Frequently Asked Questions and many of those questions are, "How do I write a novel?" or, "How do I write a query letter?" or "How do I write a synopsis?"

Disclaimer: Please don't think by my level of optimism that I'm not tough-skinned enough to handle the rejections that are undoubtedly on the way. Trust me, I can handle it. I don't see why I have to be negative while waiting for those letters, or even after receiving the first, tenth, or hundredth letter. It's not in my nature.

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Courtney Odell, I'm 27 and live in Central Louisiana with my husband and (nearly) 3 year old son. Before and after our son was born, my husband and I worked together. We ran a restaurant and made our own schedules so it was possible for one of us to always be home with our baby. Without getting into too much detail, the restaurant closed down when our son wasn't even a year. We were both out of a job. My husband had more experience, so we decided he would be the one to find a job and I would become a stay-at-home mom because child care would cost the same amount as any paycheck I could earn.

I've always been independent and have had a job since I was 16. While raising our son IS a job, I still felt useless. I wasn't providing any income and therefore felt like I wasn't contributing. It was hard, and just before I sank into depression, I turned to books for escapism. After reading 9 books within a month I decided I could write one. Writing was something I really enjoyed in school, but I never dreamed I would make a career out of it.

I started 2 different books that still remain unfinished to this day. The third book I started took me about three months to finish. It's almost been a year since I finished it. I waited a couple months before starting the editing process. Editing went slower than writing mainly because life interrupted more times than not. I also found myself waiting for other people to finish reading it and give me their opinion. It's not their fault, they all have lives and full-time jobs.

I'm sure I can (and most likely will) dedicate entire blogs to these issues. Therefore, I don't want to wear out my welcome with you, the nice soul reading this blog, so I'm going to stop here. I hope you'll leave comments and questions for me, and revisit my blog again soon.