Mothers can tell you there's no pain like labor. Mothers with grown children can tell you they might have been wrong, that raising them is worse. They can also usually tell you that the reason it's worth it all is much more than just the payoff of a grown and respectable offspring. If they're honest, some will even admit that one of the best parts if just trying to get the whole thing started...
"Hey, I've got an idea..."
Something has to inspire one to spend hours on end writing something that might never make it anywhere. Face it, the average doctoral thesis is over two hundred pages, where a common first novel is three hundred.
And no matter what your idea, it's always easier to make it sound stupid than to make it interesting. Every asteroid apocalypse story could be sold as Chicken Little. The hard part is telling your idea so it isn't lame, and then talking about it in synoptic brief for queries in a way that doesn't make it sound lame.
I just put our first draft synopsis (read "query template") for CADAGAR'S JUSTICE in the right margin. Comments and suggestions welcome, but one of the biggest issues is that it's a cultural piece. All the characters are from one of a few cultural backgrounds, and none are Earth-"normal". Most of the main cast are Pellans; though there's a great deal of history behind it, someone will call them "star werewolves". A couple of important players are Ptokariat clergy from a world where total personal responsibility drives a purely agrarian lifestyle, but someone will boil them down to "hick neo-Catholic atheists". All I can hope is that the crass oversimplifications are belied by the quality of the writing.
As of this July 4th, 2011, CADAGAR's is over 20k words and climbing swiftly. Watch for updates, and happy 4th.
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