For those of you who don’t go in for such self-flagellation, I’m talking about submitting to literary agents, entreating them to represent me and my book.
If you’re not an aspiring author, don’t back-arrow just yet–these lessons learned can be applied to many facets of our writing lives. (And, bloggers are writers, I say over and over and over.)
First, because everybody loves query results in hard-and-fast numbers, here you go: cycle one of querying, I submitted a total of 20 queries. Of those, I had:
1 request for a partial (first three chapters); and
1 request for the full manuscript (after the agent read the partial).
Not bad, really: some action from 10 percent. I feel confident I’ll do better next query cycle, beginning this fall, knowing what I now know…
Lake Erie, iced. One of the Lake Erie Islands (Green Island), is in the distance. (Thanks for the pic, Dad!)
Hold up, wait a minute. Hold up, wait a minute…
Nope, you haven’t stumbled on a 90s music blog (but if you now have that old club song in your head, you’re welcome!)
Here at Rust Belt Girl, I promised a new thread this new year: a journey into the terrifying abyss that is the world of book publishing. That’s agent querying, novel synopses, novel submitting, etc.
How’s it going so far?
Um. Yeah, that.
Let’s just say, like so much of the Rust Belt at present, this Rust Belt Girl is on ice–at least as far as that project.
What happened?
Shall I add another metaphor into the mix? Well, I got the cart before the horse (ie: the agent query letter, synopsis, etc.) before the manuscript itself. And, really, the horse is a little bit lame. Not so much that it has to be put down or even put out to pasture. (Yep, I’m just running with this metaphor.) But maybe re-shod, rested, exercised–certainly made stronger. Race horse strong.
Who says?
A former writing teacher of mine, an author and editor whose feedback I trust wholeheartedly.
What now?
Thaw out? Get back on the horse? (Can I stop talking about ice and horses?)
Really though, I’m revising my novel manuscript (yet again) because I only get one chance with agents, and I don’t want to blow it. I’m really trying to “re-see” this story that’s been with me for years; these characters that I’ve known longer than I’ve known my own kids, which is a little crazy. It’s not an easy task to really re-envision an 86,000-word manuscript, and so I can’t rush it.
“Time is a great editor,” said my editor friend.
So, bear with me if this thread takes its time.
I mean, there’s an order to things–like seasons and horse-drawn things, right?
Rust Belt Girl 