I would look for an agent first, unless my doctors tell me I have only 6 more months to live.

Two promising young men,intelligent, highly successful between age 55 and 60, died last year.

I was so upset, I could not deal with entry for a major painting award. With prizes between $1000 and $10,000.

So enter early for any kind of "prize."

All agent queries and/orprize entries need a certain amount of prep work.

Your entry and samples must fit their requirements--e.g.word count, when paintings were painted etc.

You don't need your Major Dormo fixer to count hand-written pages by eye now--as Hemingway did in his Finca Vigia in Havana, Cuba, before Castro, but you still have to re-read your work and choose suitable work--some don't limit themes genre, some do.

Georgia O'Keefe said, "It takes time to paint a flower, like having a friend."

So, clean your room, wash your clothes and take a shower, comb your hair,whatever you have to do, then sit down and WRITE.

Hemingway wrote standing up.

I have an acquaintance who reads mostly bodice busters which she literally holds against her chest, she doesn't want you to see what she's reading.

She's already a millionaire as a landlady with many rental properties--and maybe also from her millionaire husband.

But I've never seen anything she ever wrote. She has a bristly personality.

One does not become a writer just by wishing to be one.

I've stopped talking to her, and other pains in the arses.

Kyi May Kaung.

1-12-2026.