Annemarie Plenert

Category: blog

  • earth day

    It’s a deep breath, this time between the never ending impossible frost and the scorching oven. I inhale it deeply, and it makes me sneeze, the uncovered rotten leaves, the new pollen, the smell of wet dirt. The frozen air hurt my lungs and made me cough. The baking air will make me sweat. But […]

  • ideas

    I’m on hiatus from novel-writing these days. I’m struggling a lot with the system of publishing; it seems like there are so many people trying to get in that there is no room for people like me with no connections and no previous distinction. I write okay short stories but not award-winning ones, so I […]

  • memory

    I drove down Academy in our ready-for-baby four-door beige sedan listening to Peter Gabriel as loud as I could stand it, crying. I thought, this will be the last time I can do this. Ever. I remember laughing when the tall ristretto hazelnut latte kicked in and we could see it kick in for the […]

  • rejections and distractions

    I’ve received my first rejection for this novel! My goal is to try and think of it as an important part of the process, rather than a discouraging slap to the face. It’s so difficult, because in order to do any of this – write a novel, revise it, and query it – I have […]

  • news

    I don’t have any query news. Poor Imogen is languishing, waiting to hear back from various people about how she’s “not a great fit” or whatever. But I do have other news: I’ve started another novel! I’m quite excited about it. The feel for this one is summer, beachy, and gay af. Very different from […]

  • querying

    Me, working on my query letter: “Titles Are Stupid,” a 66,000 word novel, is about a girl who loves the winter even though it tries to kill her.— Annemarie Plenert (@amtastical) January 15, 2019 I’m doing it. I’m prepping my finished novel for the querying process. Querying is exciting and awful; there’s so much waiting, […]

  • goals, productivity, and achievements

    When I am writing a draft of a novel, I aim to write one thousand words a day. Sometimes it is drudgery and I have to be very firm with myself to keep my eyes on my document and my ass in the chair, and some days the words come flying out of my mind. […]

  • am i a writer y/n

    I have written two novels front to back, including revisions and edits. I sent the first one to around fifty agents and received approximately fifty rejections, so I cried for a month and then shelved it. I wrote my second novel, a novel I think is much stronger, and I am just waiting for my […]

  • books: january twenty nineteen

    I’m going to start a new feature where I list the books I read, both by myself with my kids each month. I have two extreme readers who are well ahead of their grade levels (4 and 1), and one kindergartener who is just starting to learn, so it’s a range of novels to picture […]

  • soup time

    It’s been unreasonably cold in Winnipeg this week. Polar Vortex Shenanigans. It was actually -50°C with the wind chill the other day! The schools weren’t closed or anything, of course, and thank goodness, but it is hard to do anything when it’s this cold. But there is one thing I can do: I can drink […]