Walking Dead Apocalypse

Now that you've experienced that awesome, a quick update -- sent the finished manuscript to an agent to review, and, so I don't gnaw my fingernails off in the meantime, I have been studiously working on my new project and it is shaping up nicely. Well, I think so, anyway. Insecure, thy name is author.

Agent asked for a list of comparables, which I didn't really know what it was. Happily, when I was researching agents to submit to, I looked at the books they represented -- I found some new favorites, so a definite win -- and after some research, realized this list of similar books was the comparables, so I already did it without realizing. Whew. This entire process has been a great learning experience, so if this book doesn't make it, I'll be able to use these lessons for the next one.

Sorta want to talk about something I think is counterproductive -- talking smack on published authors. I don't understand why people do this. Yeah, I don't like every book I've ever read. There are some books I don't like. If someone asks me about the book, I'll say, "this didn't work for me, because XYZ reason."

I don't think people should pretend to like books they don't like or decline to say why something didn't catch their imagination. Everyone likes different things. If I am ever lucky enough to have my book published, I know everyone won't like it. Some people will hate it. I will pretend it doesn't hurt my feelings that people called my "baby" ugly.

However, saying things like "All books being published now are crap," or "How did so many bad authors get published?" Or "How did so-and-so's crap get published?" I doubt publishing companies invest in books they don't think will sell. Every book that gets published had to touch a cord with some pretty smart people. And popular books do the same thing -- they have an idea or character that touches people. They might not be polished. They might not be your cup of tea. You might not think they are very good.

But complaining about it will only make people angry. Maybe the wrong people. It's easy to complain on the Internet, but hard to erase all traces of it.

It is hard enough to break into publishing. Why hurt your chances by doing what is pretty much frustrated venting? 

I have become addicted to both Twitter and to entering author contests for copies of newly released books.

Because these things help me procrastinate.

(Speaking of procrastinating, you can enter to win mandyhubbard's YOU WISH at sjmaas's journal.)

Also, I have signed up for Library Thing. I haven't explored all the nooks and cranies, but you can find information on new books, review books as part of your virtual library and sign up for drawings for review copies. Also, if you're a published author, you can give away review copies of your own books. Very cool.

I've also made a list of bloggers that (in the case I ever get published) I'd like to send review copies to:

Monsters & Critics
Vampire Genre
Bitten by Books
Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Book Reviews
Blood of the Muse
The SF Site: The Best in Science Fiction and Fantasy
SF Crow's Nest
Vampire Book Club

I chose these sites mostly because I liked them and found interesting recommendations on them.

So, I guess I've procrastinated enough ...

I am hooking up with some books to review and am very excited. One fiction, one essay -- when they come in I'll let you know what we have.

Also, just a quick note that the agent who is looking at my ms asked for a biography. I happened to have one on hand for the website my lovely friend is building for me, but I had no idea a literary agent would ask for one. So, an fyi for those of you who don't have a biography and are getting ready to start the query process -- it wouldn't hurt to whip up a short one.

Also, have written a couple thousand words on a new project I am very excited about!

I watch a lot of publishing blogs and find myself very interested in some of the issues, especially regarding the dismal lack of People of Color and LGBTQ people represented in the genres in which I am interested. Also, I read many, many books in an attempt to avoid querying and working on my synopsis.

In short, even I find a blog all about myself and my writing dead dull boring. Maybe I will make a list of some blogs I follow. I don't know. All I know is I would like to make this more about writing in general than my writing in particular.

We'll see.

Because I feel like its a word that too dramatic and personal. I am not being rejected, my manuscript is not being rejected, the agent is passing on reading it. And it's okay.

I look at it like this: Every person who walks into a book store doesn't pick up and love every book there. Some people pick up some, and other people pick up others. Some people pick one up, put it down and pick up something else. No one expects everyone to pick up the exact same book.

Same thing with agents and manuscripts. I am calling them passes, because the agent is passing on reading more. It's like they read the cover blurb and decided it wasn't for them.

I do find myself falling into the pit of picking some agents because they have a fast turn around ... I do the research, make sure they rep the genre, but if it's a choice between one with a week turnaround and another with a six-week turnaround ... I pick the faster one. I blame growing up in our instant-gratification culture.

I'll eventually get around to the longer turnarounds. I do need to work on getting more queries out. I need to find that agent who wants to walk out of the store with my book (to continue a metaphor that is getting a little clunky).

My partial is still at an agency, where it is being read, but it seems silly to make assumptions or not to continue working on querying it elsewhere. They know I am; they asked and I told them so.

Things I keep in mind when an agent passes on reading my manuscript:
* Many agents pick up approximately 3-5 new clients a year ... and read roughly 24,000 queries. The odds are not high I'm going to be one of the ones they pick. (I'd do the math, but maths are not my strong point.)
* Agents spend a lot of time working with existing clients. Should I ever get an agent, I would like for them to spend some of their time working on my project, but the more clients they pick up, the less time they have -- easy to see why they are so selective. If you're gonna take your work home with you, you'd better enjoy it.
* Some agents pass on a manuscript, even if they know it's salable, because they don't think they are the right agent to sell it. This is very sensible and generous of them. They know they can't get the best deal for you, so they pass so you are free to seek out an agent who is perfect to sell it.
* It's subjective; agents can't sell what they don't love. This is also smart -- an agent needs to be your advocate with the publishing house. How much of an advocate can they be if they aren't passionate about your manuscript?

I find myself being rather lazy with it, either that or the children's activities have swallowed my life outside of the workplace. Let's go with that.

I have submitted five queries, mostly because I have not completed my synopsis yet, although I have finally found a place where I can look at examples and find advice -- Absolute Write's Water Cooler. Excuse my laziness in not putting a helpful link, but I am posting a quick entry before running off to dose myself with more cold medicine. Yes, I am sick again. Honestly, I have zero immunity. I get sick and no one else in the house does. Well, enough of that whining.

So five queries have thus far resulted in three very kind and encouraging form rejections -- isn't it nice how agents want to be encouraging? -- one no-reply (as of YET) and one request for pages.

I sent them off, but it inspired new questions. Do you send it as an attachment? If not, how do you get your e-mail to do double-spacing? What if I do it wrong? Will the agent think I'm an imbecile? Do I really want to be published? Do I really want to put this book out there for other people to read and maybe hate -- or worse, dismiss?

In a strange mood tonight; my throat hurts.

The agent has requested more pages. I have not sent them yet, as I need moral support from the BFF and the Sibling, but I expected to receive their encouragement by tomorrow and send the pages. And I am excited about it. If nothing else, this gives me the confidence to continue querying, if this agent passes. If I am lucky, then I may receive some constructive criticism. Those are things to look forward to.

Took a short vacation with the Beloved Spouse to Niagara Falls as a second honeymoon to celebrate nine years of marriage and a dozen years of togetherness. I told Spouse that next year's celebration would have to be really fabulous to top this year.

The son's Little League team has made the playoffs, which is a new thing for us. He has been improving steadily, as Spouse and I have both been working with him, but his exceptionalities sometimes make it difficult to concentrate. We're working through it and developing strategies to address it.

The daughter begins middle school next fall. I am not ready. She and the other kids in her class will be in a wing separate from the older kids, so it makes it bearable.

Received a promotion at work which means a lot more responsibility, a ton more public exposure (which I hate) and a little more money. I'm not overly excited, but I am okay with it.

In querying news, I have sent out three more queries. I am trying to do one a day, but sometimes, life makes that difficult. No news yet, but it's a bit early to receive responses. Query Tracker has been an excellent help in pinpointing agents who represent my genre and it is free. It has lots of good information, such as agent blogs. I really, really love agents' blogs. I like the insight into what they want and into the industry.

I am working on a synopsis, which I SHOULD have done prior to querying. It is very hard. I want to choose the right wording, give a sense of my voice, set the scene, establish characterization and outline the plot -- all in two to five pages. Thank God for editing DEAD a gazillion times. It taught me so much about avoiding wordiness. Something I have noticed, though, is that there is a LOT of sites to help you with query letters, but synopsis ... not so much.

Does anyone know good sites for synopsis help?

Everyone's got to have a first time, right? So I thought about it and I decided on Nathan Bransford. I really didn't think I had a chance with him -- he's more literary than genre, but I really like his blog and he seems funny and nice.

He is nice. And he's fast. I went from query to rejection in less than 12 hours. Nathan Bransford is a query-reading machine, people.

It was relatively painless. I thought I would be a lot more upset at the rejection. I mean, no one likes to be rejected, right? I braced myself for disappointment ... and I wasn't disappointed. I was thrilled that he'd actually read my letter and picked out something personal to include in his letter. I appreciated the time he took to do that.

Here's the rejection for your inspection:

Dear (redacted),  

Thank you for your recent e-mail and for reading my blog, I appreciate it.  I regret to say that I don’t feel that I’m the most appropriate agent for your work.

However, opinions vary considerably in this business, and I wish you the best of luck in your search for representation.

Best wishes,

Nathan

So now, I'm going to the next agent on my list, Michelle Brower. She represented S.B. Browne's Breathers, which I think has a similar concept to DEAD, so maybe I'll get a request for a partial. Or maybe not.

Someone on one of the boards I lurk at said she has a two-day turnaround, but her Web page says four to six weeks, which seems more reasonable.

Anyway, this whole experience will teach me patience and give me a thick skin, I am sure.

I have been horrible at updating this, but every spare minute is devoted to doing JUST ONE MORE draft of Dead ... so the blog has suffered.

However, I want to recommend a new Web site -- www.querytest.com. You can get a lot of feedback on queries, and it is great for developing a thick skin for rejection.

Hopefully, SOON I will be done with this umpteenth re-write and have a query. One that will actually make people want to read pages. And then I can start that crazy carousel of queries ...

Got an e-mail from Janet Reid this morning and I was over the moon, which is silly, because it was a form notification to let me know that she had received the query letter I'd sent to her for critique on her blog Query Shark (which, if you haven't visited yet, you really should; amazing advice). Some people speculate she may also be Miss Snark. I was all googly-eyed: A real life literary agent sent me an e-mail. ON PURPOSE.

On one hand, I know that the likelihood of having my query chosen for critique in probably no better than one in ten, and IF it is chosen, she'll probably (rightfully) slice and dice it. But on the other, there's that lizard part of my brain that says my query will charm her so completely she'll want to see my manuscript immediately. Shut up, lizard-brain. You're setting me up for disappointment. Besides, the manuscript isn't ready yet. I'm just getting the query ready as a procrastination technique.

However, Ms. Reid is funny and smart, and I enjoy reading both (all three?) of her blogs. If I am so excited over this, getting a form rejection from a variety of real life literary agents will be cool, too.

I have researched and made a short list of agents I plan to query. This is my "A-list" of people whose blogs I admire and who represent authors whose work I love. There are six or seven of them, and I know I probably won't get an offer of representation from them, but I can wait six weeks for them to tell me no. I am patient, and if I am lucky, maybe someone will offer me a little piece of advice.
 
In addition to polishing my query, I have edited the first thirteen chapters of DEAD. I didn't think I'd enjoy editing this much. I thought I'd be too attached to my words to hack and slash my way through this manuscript. But I have found it enjoyable; really enjoyable. I also have found that I use the passive voice a lot more than I dreamed I did, even being aware its use is problematic.

Other writing news, I wrote and submitted an essay for a humorist contest. Winners will be announced in March. We'll see how it goes. I'm up against 750 other essays, so odds are not in my favor.

Lastly, I asked for feedback on WOLF LAKE through my reading group ... and got nothing. I just wish that people would think less about hurting my feelings themselves and more about how badly I'll feel if it gets eviscerated by someone who doesn't love me. I'm not sure if I'm that good or if I'm so bad that people are afraid to tell me. I'm a big old ball of quivering insecurities, I guess.