First query out!

My gosh, it took me forever to get just one query out! I'm not sure why the change ... with my last ms I was a querying fool (emphasis on fool, probably), but this time around, I'm so much more ... cautious? Is that the word I want to use?

In the past few days, many times I felt like "OMGsh, my ms sucks, no one's going to want to read it, it's not going to go anywhere, what was I thinking!?!" But I finally told myself, "You can't just give up and not even try." Today was the first time I truly felt that fear of failure thing. While I'm drafting my story and editing my story and revising my story, my hopes and dreams are still alive and well, living in the "someday" in the back of my mind. But once I offer it up and get REJECTED ... sigh. That's in-your-face type stuff right there.

What's worse? I didn't succeed because I never tried (I may have made it but I'll never know), or I tried but I didn't succeed (i.e., I FAILED)?

I'll just have to do my best and see what happens.

I do think that is a major difference between this story and my first one: I feel like I've done my best. I've read and re-read and edited and revised ... and the story fell into place for me. I forced things to work with my first story, so querying never felt quite right. I pretty much threw queries to anyone with a literary agency email address but had an underlying lack of confidence. I loved the characters, but I don't think I told their story properly.

I feel like I told my new characters' stories properly. I really like this ms. I'm proud of it. And I didn't rush into querying. I edited and polished until I had it as clean as I could get it.

Though, of course, as I was doing some formatting today, I came across an errant apostrophe s ... I mean, really? How did I continuously miss that!?

And then, as I was personalizing my basic query letter for my second query, I noticed a missing "to" ... ARGH!!!! Do you know how many times I read this query copy? And my brain, thinking it was being helpful and efficient, just inserted that "to" for me every time?

Sigh.

But at least I caught it after only one query and not after I sent out five or six.

I've researched and kept seven agents on my list so far. That is definitely adding more time this time around ... narrowing down the massive "represents YA" list to those who may be interested in reading my particular manuscript.

So, first query is out.

Submission guidelines for two agents on my list include a synopsis, so that's my next undertaking.

I'll do my best.