Ooh ... a YA contest

I absolutely love these GLA “Dear Lucky Agent” contests ... this one's about my genre and very timely! Woo-hoo! Very exciting!

Also exciting: The judge is Andrea Morrison of Writers House.

WRITERS. HOUSE.

So, I'll be throwing my hat in the ring, and sharing the URL for others as well:

http://tinyurl.com/z7e9rsc

Wish me luck! :)

No news isn't bad news, right?

Well, the query front has been super quiet.

I currently have 14 queries out. I just sent seven out this past weekend just because I wasn't hearing back from anyone. :) I'm sure many of my older queries are to agents who have a "no response = no" policy, which is frustrating. So frustrating, in fact, that when one of my newest queries resulted in a form rejection, I immediately thanked the agent for taking time to let me know.

I was dismayed when an agent recently announced on Twitter that she's switching to responding only when she's interested because of NEGATIVE REPLIES!

Really, fellow hopeful authors? Ugh. That is so annoying to me. Though, it feels like people in general are just getting more angry and negative. But that's for another day.

It just floors me, the arrogance of some writers looking to get published. Agents post about writers saying "Here's my manuscript. It does NOT need to be changed." or responding to rejections with snarky things like, "You'll be sorry" or "Don't need the money, huh?"

(I won't even get into the writer who recently blew up Twitter with his horribly nasty account of a pitch session.)

It reminds me of this quote that I LOVE:

I cannot tell you how many times the following has been me:

I can be in love with my words and then completely loath everything I've ever written in the same night! :)

But, I love it. I'm not giving up.

As I'm querying, a new idea has started bouncing around. I have an old WF manuscript that I'm thinking about reworking into a YA.

You know the drill: Dialogue that flies into the brain while washing dishes. An entire scene plays out during a shower. Random ideas ping in and out during the work day. Thank goodness for voice memos on my phone!

I'm both looking forward to a new ms and dreading it. It's a lot of work. It's countless hours and outlines and first drafts and stakes and editing and killing your darlings. But I am looking forward to meeting these new characters.

In the meantime ... I'll continue to humbly submit queries and chapters and synopses, and tentatively - but hopefully - peek at my inbox.

Updates ...

Queries sent: 8
Rejections: 3 (One within a couple of hours! I guess if you know what you don't like, why waste time, huh?)

So five still out, but two agents are "no response means no," and we're coming up on the 30-day mark for one of them.

I got a "favorite" or "like" - whichever Twitter term you prefer - on an agency's Twitter pitch session, so I sent my pages off to the amazing agent who favorited/liked my pitch. I almost fell over when I saw it! :)

Another super happy moment: A request for 50 pages yesterday! I recently researched this agent and felt good about her and the items on her wish lists, so I sent my query and heard back from her the next day. Incredibly EXCITING! And nerve-wracking. I sent the pages out this afternoon. I read her Twitter page and blog with much interest but didn't follow her on Twitter for some reason, and now I'm kicking myself because is it weird to follow her now, like I'm only following her because she requested pages? Sigh. And she mentioned in an article that Twitter was her favorite social media. (No, Twitter is not paying me money to mention it a hundred times in my post.) It's that fine line that I'm always tiptoeing around: What is considered a positive move and what is negative?

I did some more research and have two more agents on my "to query" list, but I'm going to wait out the pages that are out and see if I get any feedback first.

Or an offer!! :)

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.

It's out!

Whew! I finally got my full submitted. I wish I could relax, but right now I'm a nervous wreck. Because I was honest with this agent about some feedback I received, and I'm so worried that she'll change her mind.

But honesty's the best policy, right? RIGHT?

Ugh.

What I was afraid of was that I'd keep quiet about the agent feedback and send out the full and then receive the same feedback and the door would shut and that'd be that.

What I was hoping was that this agent would still read my ms, and if she ends up agreeing with the other agents, she might respond with an R&R rather than a flat-out rejection.

But what do I know!?

I'm sick to my stomach that I may have possibly given this agent an out before she's even read one word.

The nice thing is that she followed up with me regarding her initial request, and I told her I was editing based on a comment an agent just made (he had my first three chapters and synopsis). She was fine with waiting. I felt that the follow-up was a good sign. Have I just blown it now? WITH HONESTY?!

Or should I have just taken the agents' advice and simply revised the ms? Well, I might have, but I got the second feedback two days after I got the full request. I really wasn't sure how to handle it.

Obviously.

There's nothing I can do right now, so I should just sign off and get some sleep. If she passes, she passes, and I'll know there's a flaw in my ms that is going to continue to keep it from getting repped. If she still decides to give it a read, I'll do a happy dance and chill the heck out!

Oh, and those five emails that I'd been ignoring? They became 13 by the time I read them. One was the follow-up from the agent who now has my full, three were newsletters (two from agencies, one from WD), and the rest were rejections. But I must say, this was the NICEST group of rejections I think I've ever gotten. I'll share tidbits another time; right now I need to get away from the computer and breathe.

Wish me luck!!

Another request!

So. I was feeling discouraged, burnt out, a little query fatigued. I was still irked about the rejection I mentioned the other day, though I know I shouldn't take it so personally. Agents don't owe us any explanations, and I should just be happy to have an answer. (Still. Can't it be a nice-ish answer?) (Okay, let's not get me started.)

I sent out a few queries this afternoon. An agent tweeted about the summer being a slower time for her, so if anyone was thinking about querying her, they should do it. She happened to be on my list, so I sent my query out. A couple hours later, her name showed up in my inbox, and I thought, "Oh, great! The person who proclaimed that she has lots of time to read queries/pages has decided to not even read mine!" But nope ... it was her auto-response. Whew!

Then, an hour or so later, I got an email from an agent I had just queried a couple hours earlier. I've had experience with some super-quick rejections, so I opened the message with some trepidation.

"This sounds so wonderful ..." it began, and my rejection-addled brain finished the sentence for me "... but it's just not right for my list."

But wait. That's not what it said.

Not " ... but I'm not the right agent."

Not " ... but I'm going to pass."

It said, "... and we're very happy to consider."

Honestly, I was a bit too stunned to do anything for a bit. Then I realized.

I just got a request for my full manuscript.

Well ... that's good. (See? I told you I was stunned.)

After I finally got up to speed, I was excited and thrilled. And I AM excited and thrilled. Someone not only liked my idea, but also liked the way I presented it enough to want to invest some time and consider my full manuscript!

So. Happy.

But with an ever-present low hum of anxiety. Sigh.

Once I hit "Send" it's out of my control. I'm just going to be positive and enjoy this ride and give it my very best.

"Not for us, thanks."

That was it. That's all it said.

I don't know about you, but that irked me.

Yes, I KNOW that literary agents are beyond busy. And I KNOW that their first priority is with their current clients. And I also can imagine how tiring it must be to slog through dozens and dozens of email submissions from wannabes like me.

But four words? That's all you can muster in response to my query? The query that I spent several days researching, editing, proofreading ... and then several more days researching, editing and proofreading again?

Rejections suck, but those kind words written by several other agents reminding me that the profession is subjective and that I should persevere and find an agent who is enthusiastic about my work and will champion it as it should be championed? They help. Even though I know it's a form, the words are kind, and they anticipate that I'm going to be disappointed and they try to soften the blow.

Maybe I'm just being oversensitive because I've had about six rejections this week. It just rubbed me the wrong way.

One paragraph synopsis?!

Are they kidding?

Yikes! Inconsistent submission requirements ...

I sent out two more queries yesterday and did research on about four or five agents. I found three instances where Agent Query mentioned an agent that I didn't find on Query Tracker, which I found really odd. So I looked up the agency itself on QT, and it was listed there, just with different agents.

I wasn't sure if this was because it just happened that no one on QT queried these particular agents or maybe information on AQ is out of date. The "missing" agents were listed on their respective agency websites and appeared to be actively accepting queries, so it just seems so strange to me that they aren't listed on QT.

One agent/agency had a very basic one-page website with submission guidelines that requested an email query with sample pages included as an attachment of no more than 25 pages. I was delighted by this because by attaching Word documents, I could ensure formatting wouldn't get messed up like it can when I paste pages into an email. However, further research on AQ and Publisher's Marketplace reveal that only a query should be submitted, no sample pages at all, not even pasted into the message. Sigh.

So, then I'm questioning ... what do I do? The agent's OWN site says to send attachments, but these other sites state "no attachments." I've decided to err on the side of caution and will not send any sample pages to this agent.

Another agent's bio stated that she only accepts snail mail queries. That's fine, I made note of it. But then on the agency's site, she's listed in the drop-down of the agency's online form used to submit queries electronically. Again, heaving a sigh.

This is why I don't go willy-nilly into the night sending email queries as fast as my fingers can type.

Ugh ... Part 2

I worked on the synopsis on and off throughout the day and finally have a decent draft finished. Since it's almost 1 a.m., I'm going to save it and take it back out tomorrow for a fresh reading. Once I have it in good shape, I can query four agents from my list.

Why is it so hard to write a synopsis!?

Again, as with my query, I kept hearing Janet Reid's voice (QueryShark) asking questions as I typed. SO helpful! (I hope!) 

I sent a query today to one of the agents that I previously mentioned as specifically looking for women's fiction, but she tweeted a day or so ago that she's very behind on queries right now. Also, I'm still on the fence about re-querying agents who rejected my previous manuscript. If they rejected it because of its high word count, the edited ms is almost 30,000 words shorter, which might make them more inclined to take a closer look.

I also have on my list a couple agents who are notorious non-responders. But how can you skip them? If they rep your genre and are open to unsolicited queries, you just have to give it a try, I say.

Here we go again!

This is a beginning twice ...

1) Writing the first post of a new blog (my old blog www.foodasfrenemy.blogspot.com has been gathering dust since I became more serious about finishing my manuscript)

2) Beginning a second attempt to obtain representation for my manuscript

I've just completed the fifth edit on my manuscript. (I promise every paragraph in my blog will not have the word "manuscript" in it.) The fifth and most brutal. I'd heard the phrase "kill your darlings" many times, but this time I lived it. It's rough.

(Manuscript!) (Just messing with you.) I've also read the advice to put your first novel in a drawer and forget about it while you write your "real" books, the ones with a slightly better chance of being published.

While I do have a couple other ideas rolling around in my brain, I'm just not ready to give up on this one yet. It's still too darling. I don't feel like I've given it every chance yet. This last edit, as I mentioned, was a doozy, but it may be just what my novel needed to get a little more attention.

During my first go-round with the query process, my manuscript was at just over 120,000 words. This is too long for women's fiction, but I plowed ahead anyway. (My first draft was 145,000! I'm a bit wordy.) Now, it's 92,500, a mite too long maybe, but much better.

And I've learned so much about writing query letters, particularly from one Janet Reid of FinePrint Literary Management and her blog QueryShark (http://queryshark.blogspot.com/). I devoured those blog posts and took copious notes. I had Ms. Reid's voice in my head asking questions and making comments as I typed and edited my query ... "Why does THAT matter?" "Yeah, but what CHOICE does she have to make?" "Too much detail! Delete that!"

In fact, I submitted my query to QueryShark in the hopes that I can have the real Ms. Reid comment on it, though hopefully not rip it to shreds. Though, if it needs ripping, so be it. I'm totally open to learning, which in turn will just help me become a better writer.

I've started researching agents (using wonderful tools like Agent Query and Query Tracker), and I have a couple new agents that I'm going to start with.

Wish me luck!