Week two, a rough patch

 

    Oh my! Where could I begin for the beautiful month of May! As many of you already know I am legally blind. I have a condition called Glaucoma, and when I was a young girl the doctors were not certain what to do about the pressure in my eyes. I ended up losing all my peripheral vision over the years and years it has been progressing worse. This has never stopped me from working towards my dreams as I believe I can do anything a sighted person could, just in my own special way. 

    I had to take a little bit of a break from querying this week as I could not see the screen no matter what I tried. My light sensitivity has often made using technology a bit of a challenge so I've learned to use it without the need of my sight. Drawing is one of the biggest challenges for me so soon I will be transitioning back to paper so I can feel the marks made into the paper and stop the guesswork of how my digital drawings actually look. 

This was my art in my young teen years;

    Ah, how I miss the feel of canvas, but the wonderful thing about learning things in a new way is how accomplished you feel when you've done it. 

    It would be wonderful to be paired with an agent who can find an artist to replicate my style, as I hold it dearly to me. I feel it is a badge of what I have accomplished as a legally blind woman. I am confident that with advances in technology there will someday be a way to reserve blindness, now that would really be a dream come true. 

The Journey to being Published week one

 During week one, I've sent my manuscript around to quite a few different agents. Most I have yet to hear back, while the others have rejected the manuscript. I was fully expecting to be rejected as I'm a newbie and there were probably a few holes in my query letter but I wanted to keep a detailed journal of the process so those in the future have a reference when trying to start their own adventure. 

I have a lot of confidence that an agent soon will take interest in my manuscript, after all no great book was taken on the first try. 

Bunny Tales and Mermaid Scales

 In addition to "Will You Be My Friend" I have written the first story that showcases a little elf who is blind. I based this character on myself and the daily struggle I face as a legally blind author. I have sent the manuscript out to a few agents so far, but it will not be an easy journey as there is not a lot of books on the market about blindness so to publishers it may be a risky market. For that reason that is why I will continue to find an agent who believes in this process and can help open that door for our community. I could simply self-published as I did my two previous books, but I think it's important that a book like this is on shelves and not just something someone would need to dig Amazon for. It is time for the world to see us as no different than anyone else, and I believe a story about kindness could help with that dream.