When I first started submitting UNFINISHED to agents and publishers. I got no response. Absolute crickets.
I had submitted other works before, and had received some response. A request for more pages. A few requests for a full manuscript.
This time, the silence was deafening. It struck me as odd because this book was definitely better than the last book I sought to publish.
Now, I knew that submitting works that were not complete was breaking a cardinal rule of the publishing industry. My novel was complete. It just happened to be that the title was UNFINISHED.
I started to wonder if maybe just seeing the word “unfinished” in the subject line of an email was turning off potential agents and publishers.
After much deliberation and consultation, I reluctantly changed the title to MAKING ENDS MEET.
It worked. As soon as I changed the title, I started getting responses and requests.
But the first question I asked my publisher after I signed my contract was, “Can I change the title back?”
It was important to me that the title be UNFINISHED because I, myself, am unfinished..
I love the idea of being unfinished.
I love that every mistake I make is an opportunity to learn and grow and change and improve.
I love that I’m 46 years old and just now starting to realize some of the dreams I had when I was younger.
I make a hundred tiny mistakes a day because sometimes the only way to fix something is to find out what doesn’t work.
I like getting better at things I used to be terrible at.
I can do things now 20 year old me never would have attempted because of silly fears or insecurities.
Sure my knees hurt.
Sometimes I’m more tired than I was when I was twenty. Okay, I’m always more tired than I was when I was twenty.
But I still love learning more about myself because once you’re “finished”...your best days are behind you.
I hope I’m always unfinished. I hope to spend the rest of my life working on myself. Forever learning. Forever growing. Forever changing.
I had submitted other works before, and had received some response. A request for more pages. A few requests for a full manuscript.
This time, the silence was deafening. It struck me as odd because this book was definitely better than the last book I sought to publish.
Now, I knew that submitting works that were not complete was breaking a cardinal rule of the publishing industry. My novel was complete. It just happened to be that the title was UNFINISHED.
I started to wonder if maybe just seeing the word “unfinished” in the subject line of an email was turning off potential agents and publishers.
After much deliberation and consultation, I reluctantly changed the title to MAKING ENDS MEET.
It worked. As soon as I changed the title, I started getting responses and requests.
But the first question I asked my publisher after I signed my contract was, “Can I change the title back?”
It was important to me that the title be UNFINISHED because I, myself, am unfinished..
I love the idea of being unfinished.
I love that every mistake I make is an opportunity to learn and grow and change and improve.
I love that I’m 46 years old and just now starting to realize some of the dreams I had when I was younger.
I make a hundred tiny mistakes a day because sometimes the only way to fix something is to find out what doesn’t work.
I like getting better at things I used to be terrible at.
I can do things now 20 year old me never would have attempted because of silly fears or insecurities.
Sure my knees hurt.
Sometimes I’m more tired than I was when I was twenty. Okay, I’m always more tired than I was when I was twenty.
But I still love learning more about myself because once you’re “finished”...your best days are behind you.
I hope I’m always unfinished. I hope to spend the rest of my life working on myself. Forever learning. Forever growing. Forever changing.
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Unfinished
Amy Snyder
Publisher: Fiery Seas Publishing
Genre: Women's Fiction
Book Description:
Mirabelle is a writer who just can't finish any of the stories she starts. When her twins leave home for college, they take with them Mirabelle’s sense of identity. As she strives to adjust to her empty nest she is visited by someone unexpected: a character from the very first novel she ever attempted to write.
Characters from all of her unfinished works begin to materialize in her home, in her car, at her job. They talk, yell, and some even throw things at her. Mirabelle can see them, smell them, touch them and though she knows they’re not real, she can’t help but engage them. She created them, after all. They become part of her daily life and she finds herself alternating between hiding them from and sharing them with her almost-always-doting husband, Alex.
Some of Mirabelle’s characters are like good friends, encouraging her to finish something she’s started. Others manipulate her for their own needs and story lines. Good and bad, these characters are part of her and Mirabelle discovers she needs to both fix and finish them before they destroy her life, her sanity, and her marriage.
About the Author:
Amy Snyder began writing when she realized the strange things that happened in her imagination were far more interesting than the things that happened in her real life. After earning her degree in Radio, Television, and Film from Northwestern University, she worked at a financial brokerage house, a nationally published magazine, an advertising agency, and most recently, an elementary school as a Math Tutor, Substitute Teacher, and Library Paraprofessional.
But she’s always been a writer.
Amy lives in Glastonbury, Connecticut with her husband, two teenage children, and two cats. While she has been known to talk out loud to the characters she’s writing, she hasn’t had an actual hallucination…yet.
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