Yet another query post

And just like that we're back in the dark.

Among the many things to not like about the return of Daylight Saving Time is that, as I write this, sunrise is still 21 minutes away. Yes, it will not be dark when I start my drive to work. Yes, it will be lighter in the evening when I make my way home from work, but it was still light when most people were driving home, anyway. I can take solace, I guess, from the fact that the sun rises one to two minutes earlier each day, so by the time March is over, it will be light at this time. And I guess the other benefit to Daylight Saving Time is that we don't have the sun rising at 4:30 in the morning. But if they can do it in Alaska, I guess we could do it here.

Ah, well, I come not to gripe about Daylight Saving Time but to talk once more about queries. After the last two weeks of talking about querying, I'm finally querying. Hurrah! Querying is a funny beast. Right now, I have over 100 agents on my list, a mere drop in the bucket in terms of actual number of agents out there, but a good number to start with. My list includes BIG STAR agents at BIG STAR AGENCIES as well as just starting out people working for themselves and all manner of folks in between. All of them, however, have a track record, actual real clients, and a reputation that is not "Watch out for this scam artist!" or "I signed with them and sent my finished manuscript and heard nothing for two and a half years."All of them are people that, based on reputation at least, I can see myself working with.

The tough part now is figuring out the query strategy. Carpet bombing the agent world, aside from being exhausting (seriously--I did five yesterday and was shot for the afternoon), can be counterproductive. The simple truth is, though I've polished my manuscript, though I've vetted my query with people I trust, I really don't know how good either of them are. If either the query or the opening pages is flawed, what then? If I blast my entire list, I'm sunk (most agents don't like getting the same project a second time unless they ask for it or it's really, really revised).

My solution is to try to send out small batches of queries equally divided between agents who like pages included and agents who don't. I figure if I get requests for pages then the query is pretty solid, and if I get requests for additional pages/fulls from the ones who ask for pages included, then the query and the opening pages are pretty solid.

The only flaw with this plan? Well, two, actually. The first is small sample size. You can argue that three queries in each category is not really enough to draw conclusions from, especially when there are so many other variables involved. Maybe, despite their website, the agent has decided they don't want what I'm selling right now, or they have another client with a similar project. Or the dog eats their slush pile. Or they closed to queries right before I hit "Send." There are a lot of things that can skew the results when you're dealing with small numbers.

The second thing is the wait times. Publishing is a slow game. Odds are good that I won't hear anything from any of these agents for at least a week. Looking at Query Tracker, most of the agents I queried yesterday have at least a three week wait time between queries and responses. So we're back to the waiting game.

Hey, look at that, the sun is up! Time to get on with my day. How about you? Any particular strategies for querying that you employ?

 

Gearing for battle

It seems like almost every movie that includes some sort of battle--be it epic fantasy, war, even a sports film--features a scene in which Our Heroes prepare for the coming fight. We see Our Heroes gearing up for battle: sharpening swords, fletching arrows, shining armor, taping up sticks, lacing up the cleats, all while looking strong and determined and ready to carry the day. You've probably seen it so many times you don't even think about it!

Some time this week, maybe as early as tonight, I will step into the fray and fire my opening salvo in my latest battle to break into the world of the published. It will be a long fight, with many battles. How have I been preparing myself for this battle?

The manuscript: Like the armor Our Heroes wear, this has been polished to a high shine. Holes have been patched and repaired. Excessive bits that add unnecessary weight or could get in the way have been trimmed and removed. (Of course, me being me, i.e., a writer, just yesterday I thought of something I could easily add somewhere in the first thirty pages of the manuscript that would add just the right touch to the scene. This could go on forever.)

The query: Like the unending supply of arrows Legolas fires into unending legions of Orcs, my query is straight to the point.

The list: There are thousands of literary agents out there in the world. As of right now, I have over 150 on my list that could be a match. Almost every day, I learn of a new one. Good thing I have a Quiver of Endless Arrows!

Synopsis: What can be harder than boiling your story down into a 250-word query? A synopsis! It doesn't seem right, but the query letter is really just the hook--WHO is the protagonist, WHAT is her problem, WHAT happens if she doesn't solve it? The query needs to make the agent want to read. The synopsis, on the other hand, is the condensed version of the whole book, a reduced outline. I have somehow managed to create a single-page synopsis for my nearly 400-page manuscript, in case anyone asks. And speaking of things agents ask for:

Excerpts: Some agents ask for the first five pages of your manuscript when you query. Some want to see the first ten. Some want thirty, some want fifty. Some want 'the first few chapters.' Some agents want sample pages embedded in the e-mail, others want them attached as a word or pdf. To prepare for any and all eventualities, I have created multiple files with titles like PROJECT NAME--10, PROJECT NAME--20, etc. That way, I can just grab the right file whenever needed instead of having to go back into the massive manuscript and cutting and pasting (every time I select a large block of text in my manuscript, I have the near-paralyzing fear I'm going to inadvertently delete it all and not be able to get it back).

And finally: Something to help me forget I'm querying.

Actually, this is ideally the time to be working on The Next Thing. Usually, I've had the idea of The Next Thing right around the time I'm wrapping up The Last One. This time around, The Next Thing is not presenting itself. Maybe I've had too many of those martinis.

So, that's it,  that's how I've prepared myself for this latest round of the publishing wars. Many of you have elected to skip this step in favor of doing it yourselves. For anyone out there who reads this blog that isn't self-publishing, are there any items in your arsenal that aren't in mine? How do you prepare yourself for this battle?

Hello, Square One

Oh, hello, Square One, I...wasn't expecting to see you here. How are you? It's been a while, hasn't it?

Four years? Really, that long? Time flies, huh? Sorry I haven't kept in touch, you know how it is.

Well. I'd love to stay and hang out, but--

Yeah, sure, we can hang out a little. Catch up a bit, sure, I guess I can do that. Is there anything you'd like to do?

...

Sure. Yeah. I guess we can look at the old spreadsheet. I guess it's around here somewhere...yeah, there it is. Geeze, what a lot of work we put into that, huh?

Yeah, I guess we can update it. Wow, what fun. You really haven't changed much in four years, have you?

Wait, you want to do what? Query writing? I haven't written one of those in...four years. But I do sometimes write query-like paragraphs, so I'm not totally out of practice. Oh, but guess what I still do a lot of? Waiting! Yeah, I'm still pretty good at that.

Well, it sure has been fun catching up with you, Square One, but I'm sure you've got places to be and I don't want to hold you up, so....

Oh, you've got time? Lots and lots of time?

...

Yeah, that's great. Just...great.

***

Welp, as you may have figured out, I am once again agent free. It's a business decision, one of those things that happens from time to time. I want to express my gratitude to Carrie for taking me on, showing faith in me and my work, and working on my behalf, and I wish her well in her new position at Laura Dail Literary Agency.

***

Interestingly, on my way to work on Tuesday (before I became a free agent, so to speak), I heard this song on the radio, and remembered how much I like it, and considered slipping it into a blog post somewhere soon. Now, it's more appropriate (I also think I may have done this once before, but if I did, I didn't tag it specifically, so if it's a rerun....). The song is, when you get right down to it, pretty sad. Chrissy Hynde wrote it shortly after the death of Pretenders guitarist, James Honeyman-Scott from a drug overdose, which itself came about two days after the band fired bass player, Pete Farndon for his drug use. Despite this, I've always found something optimistic and uplifting here, and I'm going to be positive. Hope all is well with all of you, what's new?

 

Help A Fellow Writer Out...

...and head on over to agent Carrie Pestritto's blog. Leave a critique on the posted query and help the writer potentially receive a 100-page critique from Carrie. I can tell you from experience that Carrie does excellent critiques. And as I've said ad infinitum, critiquing queries is an invaluable experience for the critiquer as well as the critiquee.

I am exhausted after a long, eventful weekend (a very positive long, eventful weekend). If I can get my act together on this, I will post about it tomorrow. See you then, and stop by Carrie's. Thanks!

How I Met My Agent

As I mentioned last week (or maybe it was Monday, which would make it this week), January saw the anniversary of me becoming an agented writer, as it was late last January where I signed on the dotted line with Carrie Pestritto at Prospect Agency. I have very much enjoyed working with Carrie thus far and am quite hopeful that 2015 is the year that I will join the ranks of the authors who are sold and are in the publication pipeline. So, how did it come to pass?

On the surface, it's not all that different from the typical story: author writes book, author searches for agent and queries many, is rejected by many, finds agent. But there is a little wrinkle in this story.

Back in the spring of 2011, I was finishing up the first draft of a manuscript (PARALLEL LIVES) and learning about what it took to get published. I was, I admit, operating under the delusion that I would soon have a deal and be published, but then I re-read the manuscript and crashed to earth. However, I did start combing through blogs and author sites and agent sites and Query Tracker and Absolute Write and on and on, and for Christmas that year I received a copy of the 2012 Guide to Literary Agents, and a year after typing ### at the bottom of my manuscript for the first time, I was ready to start querying. By then I had amassed a list of agents to submit to. Carrie was on that list. Her agency had a good reputation, and from what I had seen of her online presence, she had a good personality and was still a new agent building her client list. Some people may not be comfortable with new agents; I had no such qualms. It looked like she was doing good things, and doing right by her clients.

A note about the list: the list was generated primarily by finding agents who took what I was selling, and then priorities were built based on sales record, reputation, and personality. Personality is a tough one, because there are a few agencies out there that have no web presence at all, but have a great reputation. It's also tough because I remember submitting to one agent who looked really good, but afterwards, I found some of her twitter posts and found myself wondering if this was really a person I could work with.

Now, there are many different approaches you can take to sending queries. Mine was to release 10 of them at once, then I was going to release roughly five more each month until I got an offer or ran out of names (hint: I'm not sure it's possible to run out of names; there are a lot of agents out there). I didn't quite stick to that plan; there was a little more space between query batches, and that space included continued research, continued query revising, and much angsting. I did not actually query Carrie until December of 2012. Somewhere between unleashing my queries on the agent world in April, 2012 and December, I found Carrie's blog and started leaving comments. You may remember this causing me some doubt (of course it did)--will it look like I'm sucking up? What if I leave a really stupid comment, or accidentally offend? Blah. Anyway, it turns out in this instance, it was a good thing.

About a month after querying Carrie, I was rejected. A form rejection. Ouch. Ah, well, part of the process, pick myself up by the bootstraps and carry on, right? However, as spring wore on, I was facing a depressing reality. Two queries in that first batch of ten received full requests. Both were rejected, one without any particularly helpful comments, the second one after 9 months with a note that essentially said, "I didn't get to read the whole thing, not for me, sorry." Other than those two fulls, I was like Charlie Brown on Halloween:




Naturally, feeling rather bad about the whole thing, I did what any writer would do: I blogged about it.

It was only a passing reference, a short note that said, "Maybe it's time to bury this." I honestly didn't know if it was the query, the pages, or something else. And then it happened. A few days after, an e-mail turned up in my box notifying me of a new comment.

"Jeff, have you ever sent this to me? If you want to email me the query and first 3 chapters I'd be happy to take a look and provide feedback if you'd like it!"--Carrie Pestritto

 !

!!

Who even knew this agent was reading my blog? Not me, though when I looked at my followers, she was down there in that sort of "hidden section" of followers, along with my wife and one of my closest friends--who knew they were reading this blog, too?

Now, as they say, my momma didn't raise no dummies (although when I sent the query to Carrie, I told her she had in fact already rejected the query, so maybe she raised one). The query and chapters went, and Carrie sent me some feedback on both the query and the first chapter, along with an invitation to send the first 100 pages once I'd done some work on it.

!!!

Naturally, I put off my current project in order to fix up PL. I sent it, thinking, "Yes, this is it!"

No, this was not it.

Carrie rejected it, with some helpful feedback. It wasn't quite right, I don't think she even  got through all 100 pages (or she stopped commenting after a certain point, recognizing a sinking ship of a manuscript), but again she offered to look at it again if I ever did a substantial revision, and she told me to send my next project directly to her e-mail, skipping over the Prospect Agency's online submission form. We had an exchange or two about PARALLEL LIVES, then I backed out the door, not wanting to abuse the relationship. I should also point out that at this point I developed an even larger degree of stage fright about commenting on her blog. I decided to continue doing so. When the manuscript formerly known as BARTON'S WOMEN was finally ready for query, Carrie got it, and the rest, as they say, is history. It's been just over a year and I like the way Carrie works. She's doing a great job, is pleasant and positive, and I'm confident that we will have a long and productive relationship.

That's it, that's the story. Note that I'm not suggesting you go out and start spamming your prospective agents' twitter social media sites, but interaction can work out. Also, it's another good reminder that you never know who's reading. That's it, have a great weekend, everyone!

Public Service Announcement

Carrie Pestritto, my agent, is once again open for queries via her Query Critique Contest. She posted 8 hours ago, so it may be too late this time around, but maybe not. If you've got a query you would like critiqued (with a chance at getting your first 100 pages critiques as well), then check out her blog and the official rules RIGHT HERE.

Allow me to say that getting your query critiqued by an agent is an invaluable experience--and Carrie's excellent! If you miss out this time or don't have a query ready, bookmark her site for next time. Good luck!

Double Post Monday!

Schnikies, it's usually all I can do to get one post out on any given day, and here I am with a second. Well, there's news--no, not that news, news that may be good for you!

Agent Carrie Pestritto, the wonderful woman who represents yours truly, is offering a chance at a free critique of your query letter. What could be better than that? Well, if your query is selected, you also have the chance of winning a critique/edit of your manuscript's first 100 pages--and Carrie does a bang-up job, let me tell you.

What are you waiting for? Hie on over to Literary Carrie right now!

What Do We Want?

I'm back in the trenches, friends, once more fighting for attention, once more hoping my query stands out enough for agents to want to read pages, once more hoping and believing that my manuscript is good enough to bring me to the next step on the road to publication.

As part of the process, I've gone over my manuscript umpteen times, I've drafted and redrafted and redrafted again my query, and I've even done something of a synopsis (though I need work on that, and querying if any one component is Good To Go right there and then is an admitted risk). In reviewing queries--not just mine, but ones on Absolute Write and in various other places--I find one phrase keeps popping up. It usually come right at the beginning of the query, and it has long made me tap my chin and wonder, even as I do it myself:

"I am seeking representation for my novel...."

The phrase has long made me stop and think. I've even drafted a couple of blog posts on the subject, but never posted them for one reason or another (at least I couldn't find them; I did find one other unfinished post in my blog file. It accounts for the sense of deja vu I've been experiencing while writing this). What it makes me wonder is this: Are we seeking representation for one novel, or are we seeking representation for a career full of novels?

I certainly don't plan on being a 'one and done' kind of writer, but I don't know what life will bring me. And, yes, it would look all kinds of pretentious and pompous to start off with a query with a line like, "I am seeking representation for what will be a long and distinguished literary career", or "I am seeking someone who will champion my work tirelessly over the next 25 years." Those kinds of openings would get you hoisted up on the anonymous agent blogs under the heading, 'What Not To Do In A Query'--who wants to see themselves there? That's not the sort of 'in print' exposure I want.

But agents are smart people. "I'm seeking representation for my novel...." is a sort of standard, one that is understood to have "...and any others that I produce after this one" added on to the end. I just get these things stuck in my head every once in a while and have to let them out.

That's about it for me here. How are you all doing? Do you have a phrase (writing-related or not) that always makes you stop and think? Please share, and have a great weekend!

Carts and Horses

What are people thinking lately?

If you're not familiar with Query Letter Hell, it's a section of the Absolute Write forum where you can post your query or synopsis and get it shredded, along with your ego, by anyone with an Absolute Write account. It's like Matt's QQQE, though folks at QLH are less likely to soften the blows (the people at both places are motivated by the same thing: the desire to help writers turn out winning queries). At any rate, last month two different writers posted query letters in the span of a week that had one amazing similarity: they were both for books that had already been published. The letters went up, and no one noticed the sig lines with pictures of the book, or the link to Amazon.

The first letter received a good amount of critique. If you've ever spent any time critiquing another writer's work, you know it's a time-consuming process; this querier received a great deal of thoughtful, constructive criticism, criticism that took time and effort from each of the posters (and was met with flippant-bordering-on-rude replies from the querier). Someone finally noticed, and said, "Hey, this book has already been published!" and the thread got locked. The second one arrived a day or two before the first one got shut down. This one was noticed much quicker, did not get as much feedback, and died on the vine.

My question: What gives, people?

The time to query is before you publish the book. Say it again: the time to query is before you publish your book. Publishers generally don't want books that have already been printed. Not unless you're selling books at at the rate of Amanda Hocking or E.L. James, in which case, congratulations, they'll probably be coming to you with a query of their own.

Freefoto.com - Ian Britton

I'm all about dreams, folks. I'm writing these stories because they're in me, because I love to write, and I want to share them. Part of that dream is to get published (traditionally), have people read and enjoy them, and, yes, make money. In my Big Dreams I'm on book tours and talk shows and NPR (yeah, I know I've done this before, forgive me for repeating myself. At least it's not a bathroom scene.). If I call it a Goal maybe it doesn't sound so silly. Anyway, within that framework of dream is a reality built on knowledge of how the system works. Yes, there are people who go from self-published nobody to members of the Millionaire's Club, but the reason we hear so much about them is because of how rare it truly is. Can it happen? Can you turn a self-published book into a Big 5 deal, movie rights, and millions of dollars? Sure. But if you're trying to do it that way, if you're trying to use self-publishing as a short-cut to riches and fame, you're going about it the wrong way. Especially if you're book is not really, really good.

+++++++

HUGE congratulations to my friend Lisa L. Regan, who has revealed the cover for Aberration, her second book, which will be released in June. Head on over to her blog to take a peek. She also received printed copies of Finding Claire Fletcher, which will be released in less than a month. I will have an interview here with Lisa next month, watch for it.

Finally, I must be on to something, posting about potty scenes. I eyeballed my stats for the week and was shocked, shocked I tell you, about the number of page views The Potty Post has gotten. Now I just need to figure out why….

Anyway, have a great weekend, all. See you Monday.

Is There Anybody Out There?

Back during the Sad Songs Bloghop, I listed this as one of the saddest songs going. You may have to turn it up to really hear.

I thought of this song this week, not because I'm especially sad, but because sometimes it feels like the only person in the world who doesn't write YA.

I know it's not true, of course; a number of you regulars here don't write YA, but still. It seems nearly every blog I find is penned by a YA or MG writer, and every query that turns up in AWs Query Letter Hell or on Matt's QQQE is YA. When I got my first 250 in the Mother. Write. (Repeat.) Agent's Inbox contest last spring, 14 of the 20 entrants were YA (and 1 MG). In looking back at one of the Drop The Needle Contests at MSFV in May, 14 of 25 entrants were YA/MG (and the percentage was even higher in her second round). The ultimate occurred this week. I managed to get a revamped first 250-words of Parallel Lives into Miss Snark's First Victim's September Secret Agent Contest (entrant #6, if you're interested; why I chose to do a revise is another story). 48 of the 50 entrants were YA or MG. Wow, it can be lonely out there. I wonder if I'm just looking in the wrong places, or if YA/MG writers are that much more sociable than the rest of us (with authors of literary fiction the most hermit-like).

In other news...


The cover for Carrie Butler's debut, Strength, goes live on Monday, and we'll have a sneak preview right HERE!

The Catbird returned to school yesterday; oh, how strange to see her alone at the bus stop.

The Magpie seems to have recovered from her case of the Second Week Blues.

Barton's Women sits and cools; meanwhile, I re-read (am re-reading, that is) Parallel Lives, and all I can say is, I thought I did a better job editing. /facepalm

That's about it for me for today. Thanks for stopping by, hope you all have a nice weekend. Be sure to stop by Monday and see Carrie's cover!

Another Month

It's the end of another month, and that means it's time to fire off some more queries for Parallel Lives.

When I sent out my first batch of queries in April, I admit that I sent one to an agent who was:

1. Notoriously fast
2. Known to always responds
3. Unlikely to represent me

It's important to note that I was not wasting her time. She represents my genre, and I would have been happy to have her as an agent if things had broken that way. But she works with a small, exclusive list, primarily of previously-published authors. While she takes on new clients, she doesn't take many. I figured it was a win-win: if she really liked it, great; if not, there's my baptism by fire. I thought it was important to experience rejection early, start hardening the proverbial skin. Five hours later, I had my first rejection, and that was good. It didn't really hurt, not at all.

Tougher was the rejection I got on Mother. Write. (Repeat.). Tougher, because it was public; tougher, because I got to see what the agent thought about it. Which is to say, not much. It hurt much more than a 'Dear author, thanks for you submission, but I'm not going to represent you, good luck', but it was also instructive, and got me on the query revision bandwagon.

Tougher than that, though, was what came in two weeks ago: my first rejection on a full. It came with a nice note, a very pleasant note, but it was obviously not what I wanted to see. This was one of the top agents on my list, someone I thought (and still think) I'd love to work with. The note was nice, but it wasn't a 'consider fixing this, this, and this, send it back, and we'll see.'

My reaction wasn't quite what I expected. I thought it would be a gut punch, like the time I got a call at work informing me that a close friend had been killed in a car accident. That was a gut punch moment, a 'you'd better sit down' moment, the sort of thing you read about in books but hopefully never have to experience. This rejection hurt, yes, it was a disappointment, but it was not a gut punch. I put a pretty good face on it, and moved on, but I think it may have worked its way into my brain and manifested itself in some of my negativity over the last two weeks of posting here.

So, there's still a full out there, with a fantastic agent, which will hit the three-month mark on Wednesday. There are still seven unanswered queries hanging around agent inboxes, and in the next few days they will be joined by another batch. One of them will hit the right person at the right time. As Bob Dylan said, "the only thing I knew how to do was to keep on keeping on like a bird that flew".

Enjoy the week. And thanks, Nancy, for the awards! I'll really think about doing them, really!

This Just In

I have been informed by Matt at The Quintessentially Questionable Query Experiment that my query for Parallel Lives is up for review. So light your torches, sharpen up your pitchforks, and get your red and blue pencils ready. Read it today, tear it up tomorrow. That will give me all weekend to lick my wounds and recover. Except that the Magpie graduates high school this weekend, so I'll be even more of an emotional wreck. Thanks in advance, I'll be back tomorrow with my regularly-scheduled bit of nonsense!

Information Overload

"Too much of everything is just enough" -- I Need A Miracle, John Perry Barlow/Bob Weir

At some point in the latter stages of the last century--and trust me, though we are now a decade into the twenty-first century, I still think of 'the last century' as meaning the 1800's--we entered THE INFORMATION AGE. It is largely great. When I hit the 'publish' button at the top of this page, my thoughts and ramblings will be available to anyone with access to a computer and the internet. If I want to find out more about haberdashers in Victorian England, I can do it without having to leave the comforts of home, without getting buried by a pile of books in my local library, or without having to wait weeks for my library to get those books on inter-library loan. I can get real-time information on stocks, watch a solar eclipse as it happens--in Australia! Check my credit score. I can access nearly any newspaper, check out the traffic at Exit 45 on the Long Island Expressway, or see just what business is  on the corner of Chestnut and Main in Sheboygan.

For writers in my particular stage of development, the Information Age is awesome not just because of what it brings to our work, but because of the speed it allows us to query at, and the window it gives us into the process. But sometimes I have to wonder: Is it too much?

The web giveth, and the web giveth some more. In the case of querying agents, the web giveth uth specific information on each agent. "Send a query and five pages," says Agent X on her agency website. "Submit your query by e-mail along with a synopsis and three chapters embedded in the e-mail," says another. "Attachments are fine," says a third. Great information to have, easily found, and we tailor our queries to give each agent what she wants.

But the web giveth more. The web giveth uth (right, I'll stop that now) pages upon pages on how to write a good query. And the web giveth us sites like Query Shark and The Quintessentially Questionable Query Experiment (where yours truly is likely to end up some time soon) and Absolute Write's Query Letter Hell, where your query can be deconstructed like it's Dickens in a literature class, ripped apart for you to rebuild into the Six Million Dollar Query, able to stop any agent or editor in their tracks. The web gives us contests to post our queries and first two-fifty, all in the name of helping us get better, helping us get published. And you have myriad sites where you can discuss the craft ad infinitum, where you can ask if prologues are bad and how long your chapters should be, and whether you should use 'that' or 'which'. And while I've wondered before if all this information makes us lazy, the fact is, it's a great thing. But again, is it too much?

Earlier in the week I found myself poking around on Query Tracker, looking at the comments posted about Agents I've Queried and Agents I Plan on Querying. Generally, querying is a 'Fire and Forget' exercise. There are some who are insanely fast (two minutes! My personal record for a rejection was five hours), but by and large, the best thing you can do is send the query, move on to the next one, and when you're done with this batch, get back to writing something new. I've gotten mostly good at doing this, but I've also found myself checking agent blogs and Twitter feeds, trying to see where they are ('status: read all queries through 4/15; if you sent before that and haven't heard anything, resend'), trying to figure out where my little old query is in the process. No doubt, you've seen these kinds of things on boards that deal with this sort of thing: "Oh, no! This person submitted after me and got a request for partial! What does that mean?" Or "SuperAgent's response time to fulls is X weeks and I'm at X weeks + 1 day--should I nudge?"

By and large, the thing to do is chill out. Write the letter, send the letter, log it in your little spreadsheet or notebook or whatever. Fire and forget.

Yeah, right.

Have a great weekend, all!

Monday Musing: The "I's" Have It

The kids needed a ride into school this morning. On the way I tortured them by listening to NPR. Depending on the show, I can get away without too much eye-rolling. Car Talk sometimes makes the Catbird laugh, because those guys just have so much fun. Neither of them likes Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, and NOBODY but me likes A Prairie Home Companion. Anyway, I heard something this morning and kept turning it up to hear over my increasingly-loud car, because I thought it was interesting. To my surprise, the kids thought so, too.

They interviewed James Pennebaker, author of The Secret Life of Pronouns, What Our Words Say About Us. The part that interested me in particular was Pennebaker's discussion of language related to positions of power. In short, people in the power position use the word "I" less. Pennebaker quoted some of his e-mails in which a grad student approached him (or responded to his approach to her) about working on a project. In a forty-word e-mail, she used "I" or "me" 5 times. In Pennebaker's response? None. Similarly, Pennebaker's e-mail to an esteemed colleague used "I" as many times as his grad student. The Famous Professor used "us" once, but no "I".

Now, it could be that in both cases, the 'underling' was trying to sell something. The grad student was trying to sell her services, Pennebaker was selling a colleague on a conference. It's sort of like a cover letter for a job, where you have to talk about yourself, thus you are going to use "I" more frequently. Pennebaker's website, The Secret Life ofPronouns, includes an I-Test. I scored a four, even after hearing this story on NPR. It was an interesting story for a Monday morning, and may well be something to think about while writing.

On another note, I took a bit of a slap over at An Agent's Inbox contest on Mother. Write. (Repeat.) last week. One of comedy's great set-up lines is, "What's the worst that can happen?" Well, for me, the worst that can happen did happen, as Ms. Shea wrote, "This query didn't engage me further than the first paragraph."

Ouch!

Actually, the worst that can happen would have been for Ms. Shea to say, "I didn't even have to read your query to know you are the worst writer ever! Do us all a favor and cut off your hands so you can never type another word!" Even in my worst nightmares, I didn't expect that to happen, but this was pretty bad, at face value.

But then again, how bad can it be? Had I queried Ms. Shea through normal channels, what would I have gotten? Either a no reply or a form rejection, neither of which would have told me anything. Once the initial sting wore off, I realized even a tough, blunt response like Ms. Shea's is better than a standard rejection, because it does help me understand where I messed up. So, yes, it stings, but it's part of the great learning experience, and I will be the better for it. Thanks again to Krista for running the contest, and for Ms. Shea for participating. That's about it for now, see you at the end of the week.

Be Careful What You Wish For and Flash Friday

So I'm once again skipping over a follow-up to last Friday's post. I had it in my head what I was going to do as an encore while writing that one, but it feels too shaky to see the light of day right now. Instead I'll muse over some things that have happened this week.

Be Careful What You Wish For. The query process is underway, finally. On the initial bout of queries I've gotten responses from about half so far. I figured I'd wait and see how this went before hitting the next batch, because I might want to alter my query. Given stated response times from some of the agents in question (of those that do respond on a negative) I figure I should have a pretty good idea in the next two weeks what my next move is.

A couple of weeks ago I saw that Krista of Mother. Write. (Repeat.) was running her monthly An Agent's Inbox for April, and her agent of the month was Katie Shea of Donald Maass Agency. That made me go all like this, as Ms. Shea is definitely on my list of Agents I'd Like to Work With. So I prepped my e-mail to Krista and sat with my cursor poised over the 'Send' button, endured a moment of panic when, at 9:59:49, I discovered the last line was in a different font than the rest, hustled to try to fix it (not thinking that Krista would take care of it), was sure I was going to get frozen out, like trying to be the ninth caller at random to win concert tickets from the radio station, because no one ever wins those. You know how it is: Busy. Redial. Busy. Redial. "Sorry, the contest is closed." Click. Commence cursing.

Last-second fumbling notwithstanding, I made it (as entry #1, no less). Be careful what you wish for. And I sweated out until Wednesday when I saw it posted, and read the first comment, and decided not to read anymore until, I don't know, when I have built up the required intestinal fortitude. The dream, of course, is that Ms. Shea will say, "Oh. My. God. I must sign this man. NOW." All based on a query and 250 (260, actually, I ran over in the name of sentence integrity) words. Yeah, not gonna happen, I know, but a man can dream.

What I expect to happen, and the real reason I'm in it, is because it's a rare chance to get an inside look at the thought process of an agent. I've gotten four rejects so far, all form rejects, so it could be the query, it could be the pages, it could be any number of things. Yes, it's possible Ms. Shea will love my work, but if she doesn't, I'll know why, and that's worth any potential embarrassment at being flayed publicly.

It has also been a very instructive process to critique some of the other entries (I just can't do all 19 others, though). This is not Query Letter Hell on Absolute Write.  These are letters and pages that have been polished, polished, polished, carefully crafted and agonized over. I'm not saying the ones on AW aren't, but I think what we see there tend to be in a much rougher stage. I've learned a lot from being in this contest, and even if I don't 'win', I'll still have won. Thanks, Krista, for running 'An Agent's Inbox', and thanks to Ms. Shea for giving her time and experience. Thanks also to the other contestants and commenters.

Flash Friday. I'm posting a link to a newsletter for The Smithy Center for the Arts, a great, community-based arts center in my area. This is where I go for my Writer's Circle every Sunday. The Director of the Smithy (who also participates in the group) asked if we'd be willing to put work in the newsletter from time-to-time, so I've got a short piece in there this month, called The Prophet.

The story came about at the end of Writer's Circle, after a frustrating free writing period where I just could not concentrate, and came up with nothing (it might have been one of those days where things were so bad I mused over the weight of my pen). At the end of the day, with a few minutes to spare, we decided to do a three-minute speed write, and The Prophet just came to me. I didn't spend as much time editing as I should have, there are a few things wrong, but that's okay. Take a surf over there, I hope you enjoy it, and have a nice weekend.

And On I Go

One step done and another begun
And I wonder how many miles? - Robert Hunter/Jerry Garcia, New Speedway Boogie

Do you play video games? I'm talking about the relatively simple ones where your objective is to clear the screen, a game like Bejeweled or Zuma, or, going way back, Space Invaders or Pac Man. Those games start out easy enough. But each time you complete a level by clearing the screen, the next level gets harder. The music becomes more obnoxious, there's less time, the bad things move faster. Writing - rather, becoming published - is like this. Who knew?

This week I finally joined the ranks of the queriers (is that even a word? eh, it is now). I thought writing the book was hard. Don't get me wrong, it was hard. There were plenty of times I quite literally banged my forehead against my desk or exploded out of my chair and stomped around the house, indiscriminately dropping F-bombs as I went. But it was cake, it was level 1, compared to the query.

I've been trying to prepare for this stage since last summer. From time-to-time I would draft a query letter or two, play around with it a bit, before forgetting about it and getting back to the task at hand: finishing the damn book. But I finally got to the point where I said, "I've taken this book as far as I can go. I'm comfortable with sending this out now," and it was on to the query, which has become a full-time job in itself. How do you condense your 93,000-word masterpiece into three paragraphs? It's hard. Or maybe it's just me over-analyzing it, that's quite possible, maybe even likely. I started a fresh document with the best query. Each time I revised, I added the newer query at the bottom of the document. That document reached 44 pages before I finally decided I had it. Then I started a new one and did the same thing. That one hit 11 pages before I said "I've got it! This is good!"

Of course, now it's time to send it, and that means it's time to personalize the letter. And doesn't that lead to all kinds of crazy head-games? There are several agents out there that I'd really love to work with - how do you say that without sounding like a total suck-up? It's funny, I have gotten to the point where I actually AM confident about my writing, where I've thought I can shed this Doubting Writer label - now the query is setting me back to square one.

Well, it's done, the first few are out the door. By the end of the week I should have all of my 'first round' out, and then we play the waiting game. If my query is good, I'll advance to the next level, and we'll see how much harder it gets. And so, because I am now in the waiting stage, here's some Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. I don't think I've played this one before; if I have, forgive me. Have a great weekend, all.

Sleep Deprivation

Image by Arndt Nollau

That about sums up how I’m feeling right now. On several occasions in my life I’ve had the pleasure of working the Graveyard Shift. Working overnights can really screw around with your body, and there are some interesting physiological reactions that occur in the depths of the night when your body’s natural clock is telling you to go into shut-down mode and your brain is saying “Must. Stay. Awake!”

But the body can get used to it, and if you can go home in the morning and get some solid sleep you’re usually good to go. It’s the interrupted sleep that’s the problem.

Last night the Catbird went to see the premiere of The Hunger Games with a friend. Showtime: 12:01 AM Friday morning (right, she left last night. Technically the movie was this morning). Her friend’s mother gave her a ride and sat in the car in the parking lot reading, snoozing, whatever-ing. I went to bed shortly after 11, read for about half an hour (current read: The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen) and set the alarm for 2:30. I figured I’d get up, wait for the Catbird, then get back to bed.

At the appointed hour I woke and stumbled downstairs to find The Wife up (still) watching TV. “I didn’t know you were planning to stay up,” I said, because I didn’t think she could stay up that late. “I wasn’t intending to,” she said. “Want to wait with me?”

I’ve been married long enough to know that the correct answer to this question is “yes”, but I also know that, as The One Who Gets Up First the only logical answer was “no.” There was a time when I would have stayed up, but she had it covered. I went back to bed. About thirty minutes later The Wife came to bed, I asked her if the Catbird liked the movie, and I went back to sleep.

That interruption, all of ten, fifteen minutes in the middle of my sleep cycle, was enough to leave me a bleary mess this morning. The honest truth is I felt a lot like I did when I had a hangover: stuffy, headachy, slow of finger and thought. The only good thing is I didn’t have the extra stinky breath or the spins. I think that Sleep, Interrupted is worse than No Sleep. Meanwhile, the Catbird got up much easier than expected this morning. It will be interesting to see how she looks at the end of the day, after a full day of school and track practice on all of 4 hours of sleep. It will be more interesting to hear what she thought of the movie. She didn’t have too much to say about it this morning, but she’s glad she went. Any of you see it yet?

On a writing note I’ve spent all week working on the Hydra: the dreaded combination of Agent Lists, query development and synopsizing. As Tom Petty said (in Yer So Bad), “I can’t decide which is worse.” I’ve worked on all three at different times as I wrote, but now things are serious. The good thing is I’ve got my top ten agents down for the first batch of queries. Now I’m wrestling with the requirements: “Query + synopsis” says one agent. “Submit your query via the online form” says another. “Submit a cover letter plus first three chapters.” Wow, what a chore, and very critical to get right.

Of all the steps involved in getting published, this may be the toughest (at least so far, hah hah). I thought writing the book was hard. At times it was. At other times it was glorious, exhilarating, a thrill ride. But now? The synopsis is tough, possibly tougher than the query letter. I’ve found it’s easier to boil my novel down into three paragraphs and maintain a shred of Voice in a query letter than it is to summarize what happens for the synopsis and not have it sound like The Epic (you remember me writing about The Epic, don’t you?). Something about the synopsis just seems to suck the soul right out of my writing. I’d be tempted to skip it altogether and submit to agents who don’t ask for one, but there are two problems with this approach: first, some of the agents I really like ask for one. Second, you know I’d get at least one asking for me to submit a synopsis. And then I’d have to do it anyway, under extreme pressure. Then again, maybe extreme pressure is the way to go with this…..

That’s about it for me, hope you all have a good weekend.