OK, universe--putting it out there that I would like to see my biography of Marjory Stoneman Douglas published, and I imagine myself doing book signings at bookstores in Florida near the Everglades. I see myself donating proceeds from book sales to the MSD High School fight for tougher gun laws, and to the Friends of the Everglades. I see my book in the Everglades National Park bookstore.
How am I going about getting the book ready? I've hired a presenter from the Highlights non-fiction workshop to help me shape it up, and I've been fortunate to get input from women in my Caldecoots group for older women writers. I joined RYS and I'm going to submit an edited version of my story every month until I get a 1, or at least a 2. I'm looking up agents on MSWL and I've risked sending a version off to a couple agents already. I've written to Pineapple Press to see if they would let me submit my story to them, since they have an MSD bio for older readers but not for young, PB readers. I'm checking out dozens of PB bios and studying how they are structured.
My story is about a women who is not well-known, and who was an early environmentalist, which gives it a STEM interest. I feel these are both selling points for my book. And I am willing to revise again and again. I even wrote one draft as the story of the opossum she once rescued. I have the current version down to about 750 words, and about 400 words in back matter.
OK, universe, do your best!
