monagustafsonaffinito   CHATS AND RANTS — PSYCHOLOGY AND LIFE

For several weeks I’ve been reading sources on “How to write effective query letters,” preparing to search for an agent for my Mandala: A Jigsaw Puzzle of a Psychologist’s Life.(My original title was On My Way Out but too many people found that a downer though I haven’t reached for the door knob yet.) All agree the first sentence must grab the potential agent’s attention or it will go into the slush pile, so it’s important that I come up with a template to which others respond favorably. But the same opener is seen as a grabber by some and a turnoff by others. I’ve made many changes along the way, but I realized yesterday that I have to be careful to preserve my own voice. It kind of smacked me up the side of the head when a kind reviewer suggested I should fact check the dates. Since it’s my own life I’m talking about I realized I’d better be clear that I am correct about those dates.

Yes, having been born on the day the stock market crashed in 1929 I am indeed approaching the middle of my ninetieth decade. Yes, psychology has been in my life for pretty much seventy-seven years if we include the early years in college when I got hooked. Yes, I began my college teaching career when I was twenty-two and never really faded completely from my identity as a professor. Yes, during those years I did serve as department chair. It’s also true that my career in private practice overlapped the last of my academic years and culminated at the end of May, 2024, when I voluntarily gave up my license. It’s also true that I have published books on psychological stuff, sort of biblical stuff, and personal family memoir stuff. And I have two really neat adult children, one of each, and two adult grandchildren, also one of each. Now I’m pushing my down-to-earth story of life and times over the past seventy plus decades. Lots has happened, most of it evoking shared history with the [potential] reader. 

For further validation you can check out my website at www.forgivenessoptions.com.

Thanks