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Yes Thank You, I Think I WILL Skip Query Letter Hell

June 16, 2009 in acceptance, agents, awesomeness, books, champagne, my book, short fiction, short fiction rejections, short fiction submissions | 10 comments

The Torture Continues Header YES! postable

So, instead of having to go through the horrible process of sending out massive amounts of query letters to agents for my novel (and likely receiving massive amounts of rejections) I got incredibly lucky and had two excellent agents from big agencies competing for my book over the last week.

I’m not going to go into specifics here for a variety of reasons but basically one agent came to me via a query I actually sent last year (long crazy story that worked out beautifully) and one agent came to me through a connection.  It was a brutal decision (one I never imagined I’d have to make) deciding between these two fantastic individuals, but I finally did make a decision this week and I’m proud to say that I’m officially working exclusively with one of the agents on my book.

We’ll be doing revisions for the foreseeable future – I have no idea how long, but I hope I can get it done quickly so we can continue moving forward – but I thought you’d all like to know about this great moment of happiness and success in the deluge that is usually REJECTION!

Please pause of a moment of pure happiness:

:)

Now if only I can get some of these damn short fiction pieces published.  In fact, just to keep my ego in check…let’s do a status update on those.  It’s not looking pretty folks…

Phase III Updated Stats:  6 of 10 Rejected.  4 still out there.

Sidenote:  this is tagged ‘champagne’ because I will be drinking an entire bottle of it on my own tonight.  Whee!

It’s Done.

April 26, 2009 in acceptance, agents, awesomeness, being made of win!, query letters, writing | 6 comments

jumping-for-joy1

Thank the gods.  The novel is finally done.

I do have do a final edit and proofread tomorrow but the novel is officially done.  It’s clocking in at a massive 440 pages (119,743 words).  I’m hoping to cut that down a little bit tomorrow, getting it closer to 400 pages, but done is done is done.  Right?

It goes on Monday to my writing group and an agent that has been waiting for it for months (and by waiting for it I mean he probably has forgotten all about it – but technically I have an email telling me to send it on through when it’s done – so I’ll be sending it).

Monday will be Adam’s and my “big day of celebration that we cannot afford” which will include at least the following things:  An afternoon showing of Duplicity in our neighborhood theater (movies on a weekday!  this is what unemployment should be about!).  Dinner out (probably at a seafood restaurant we like on the West Side).  And when we come home we’ll probably watch another movie and just hang out while I drink an entire bottle of champagne, already purchased and chilling in the fridge for the last two months waiting for me to hurry up and finish.

I also already placed an order on Amazon for a few things I’ve desperately wanted but told myself I wouldn’t buy until I finished.  I bought them about thirty minutes after declaring it complete :)

Tuesday a small selection of queries (six maybe?) will go out to agents.

And on Wednesday, glorious Wednesday I’ll move on to new projects, which include posting good posts more frequently, working on Jilted League, building my website, drawing some sample Shiksa pages, and hopefully finding a super talented artist to work on another graphic novel project I have up my sleeve – I’ve actually already found the artist I want for this  – but she’s playing hard to get – read: not returning my email :(

Man it feels good to move on to something new.  I just wish I’d managed it before it turned 85 degrees outside.  I hate New York in the summer…and that’s not supposed to mean late April, but apparently this year, it does.

UPDATE:  It took an extra day, but the final revisions are done.  I wasn’t able to cut as much as I wanted, but font changes alone saved me 50 pages.  Final draft is 388 pages (approximately 118,000 words).

Query Update…

June 16, 2008 in agents, publishing, query letters, rejection, writing | 3 comments

Another rejection. Sigh. These things seem to come in groups, so I’m steeling myself for a few more.

This was an official rejection from the smallish literary agency that had a partial of my book (since January). I was optimistic (until recently) on this one because they’re a small house that seemed to have a lot in common with me, and my work, but alas it is not to be. For the record the rejection was quite nice, though it is likely their form rejection as it doesn’t even have “Dear Ms. Thompson” on it. It’s nice that they have a “nice” form rejection, but after two personal emails to me and keeping my 50 page partial for almost five months it would have been nice to get something at least SLIGHTLY personalized.

Oh well, onto the next. Here’s the summary for those keeping track.

#1. Partial Requested and Rejected. Took about seven weeks from receipt of partial. Door left open to submit future work.

#2. Never heard back on regular mail Query. Over six months ago, considered Rejected.

#3. Never heard back on email Query. Almost six months ago, considered Rejected.

#4. Partial Requested and Rejected. Took five months from receipt of partial.

#5. Full Requested. Full Sent. Manuscript sent four months ago. Emailed three weeks ago as follow up, no response as yet.

#6. No response to email query. Almost five months out, considered a Rejection at this point.

#7. Rejection to regular mail query from huge agency, about a ten week turnaround.

#8. Rejected Query, about a 30 hour turnaround.

So, five rejected queries; two rejected partials; one requested full. And no more queries living in oblivion. Time to slam my nose into the grindstone again it seems. Oy.

#57 Comic of the Day

January 11, 2008 in agents, comic of the day, comics, publishing, query letters, rejection, writing | 8 comments

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Ack. I think we, and by we I mean the insanely talented but tortured writers out there (joke), all feel this way about the query letter process. I don’t know about many other actual personal experiences outside of my own (except what I read about on my best friend ‘the interwebs’) but for me I can’t decide if I’ve been blessed or cursed.

I had the advantage/disadvantage of having my very first agent query letter (to the agent I researched and really really thought I wanted) come back within a week with an email request for a partial (the first 50 pages). JOY! This partial was rejected by email about 2 months later with some helpful (and some less than helpful) notes. Less than joy.

I have sent two queries since – one has been out there for almost three months with no response and the other for three weeks with no response. I completely recognize that this is not exactly a “wide net” to cast. I also recognize that I already have great statistics considering what I’ve actually put out there and the response I’ve gotten. It it still a completely frustrating and self destructive process. Also, I felt good initially that though my first agent didn’t want me or my book he apparently thought I had a good query letter. Good right? A good query letter is almost as good as a good novel…yet no response to my new queries, which though tailored to the specific agents, were largely the same as the first. *SIGH* Apparently my query letter was not made of magic.

I often wish I could be one of those writers that is totally convinced they are brilliant – and that their novel is the best novel ever written. Although agents, and agent assistants, and really everyone, hates those kind of people and nine times out of ten (okay ten times out of ten) they’re delusional anyway, it still must be nice to just feel so confident in your work. I have doubts about my work every moment…actually that’s a lie, I vacillate wildly (especially when I’m actually writing) between “I AM A GOLDEN GOD! I AM A GENIUS!” to ten minutes later “I AM THE WORST OF HACKS. I AM THE HACKIEST HACKY HACK HACK THAT EVER DARED SIT AT A COMPUTER”. These two thoughts can be about the exact same sentence, plot, arc, character, or even title, merely ten minutes apart.

I think I’m also pretty realistic about the state of ‘the process’ and the state of publishing in general. The reality is that you CAN actually have written a great book and that STILL does not mean you are ever getting published…so what hope is there for those of us that maybe have a great book idea that is maybe well written or is maybe timely…it’s pretty debilitating.

I am making a concerted effort this weekend though, no excuses and “sad pile of low self-esteem and mania” be damned, to cast a wide net of query letters. Look out world…a mediocre bi-polar mess is comin’ out…