Writing query letters

At my writer's group last week, we decided that we were each going to challenge ourselves this month: one woman is going to do the NaNoWriMo challenge, and two of us are going to (gulp) actually try to query real agents.

I know I did this once before and had modest success (a request for a partial and full manuscript)--but I haven't heard anything from them since and I'm also realizing how unusual that experience is.

So, over the last couple of days I've been polishing my query letter, my one-page synopsis, and the first chapter of my novel. And today--just now, actually--I sent the first of those letters off into the great abyss.

To be honest, it's terrifying. You'd think the process would be more hopeful. After all, what if one of those agents loves me? But right now, I can't find hope anywhere. Not in my cold fingers. Not in my tight stomach. And certainly not in my head--which, while it knows I've written the best story I can (for now), is pretty sure that the story isn't good enough.

But I still have to try.

It's been a long time since I tried to do something that I could potentially fail at. Usually I'm pretty good about hedging my bets. Still, I think it's good for me to stretch a little. And I did (do) enjoy the process of writing the story. I've learned a lot. (I'm also learning a little about how my students must feel when they turn a paper in.)

I'm almost positive one of those emails will be a swift "no" (I was trying to change some formatting and gmail read that as "send" before I was finished with the email so I had to send a very unprofessional apology). The others will probably be no as well. (And, for the record, I'm not looking for sympathy here. Just stating a fact. Publishing is notoriously competitive).

If something good happens, I'm sure you'll hear about it.

If you don't hear anything more from me here for months and months, you'll know how to interpret my silence.

If I feel anything at all right now, it's a little bit of relief. I've taken that first hurdle and survived. Now I just have to wait.

Loglines

So, as many of you know, I'm relatively new to the whole idea of writing and publishing. (The one attempt as a teenager to send my manuscript to Tor books--yes, directly--did not pan out so well).

Right now, I'm trying to finish up revisions so I can enter Miss Snark's Baker's Dozen in a week and a half. (Self: you can do this!)

However, there's a slight catch. I need a logline. I hate writing good loglines. I have a good paragraph pitch, but the one sentence thing trips me up.

Luckily, I found this great post by Nathan Bransford, on writing great loglines. Now I just have to follow through.

Writing Conference

Today I had the chance to attend a writing conference with Mette Ivie Harrison and Rick Walton, both relatively well-known authors in children's publishing.

I'd forgotten how invigorating conferences can be. There's something about meeting with other people who share my passion and learning lots of good ideas about writing that gets me inspired to write more. (Of course, the same thing happens to me at academic conferences--and I'm going to one next weekend--so we'll see if I wind up with conflicting goals afterward!)

Mette and Rick both talked to us for a bit before and after the critique sessions, then we broke into groups for first-chapter or picture-book manuscript critiques. I was in the novel session, with Mette. It's always interesting to me how much I learn from the critique of other people's work--I learn what works in an intro, and what doesn't work as well.

And of course, the critique of my first chapter was really gratifying for me. I've looked at that chapter and revised it lots of times (I think I'm up to 7 or 8 now) and it's hard for me to see it clearly anymore. I always feel like my own writing isn't quite as good as I think it is. Mette had us read our chapter out loud (well, as much as we could read in 10 minutes). I kept thinking as I read that I just sounded silly (I suppose this is why I identify with my MC so well)--and then, miraculously, people started laughing at the right spots and I realized I'd done something right. Better yet, the only criticisms I got were minor suggestions (mostly about wording), which means I finally have the shape of the chapter down--and Mette even told me that it was ready to send out. (It's not--I mean, the first chapter may be, but I'm in a revision mess in the middle right now that I will start sorting out as soon as I sign off here). But. But. It was nice to finally realize that *maybe* this is something I can do, if I work at it hard enough.

I also realized that I'm a lousy judge of my own work. That's why I have a critique group--right?

Anyway, enough about me. I really wanted to record some of the things that stood out to me from the conference.

Rick and Mette both stressed that you need to write because you love writing--not because you want to be published. Or because you want to make money at it. If you write for those reasons, you won't find the process satisfying. If, however, you write because you love it, you'll be more motivated to keep writing (which, in turn, ironically makes you more likely to get published). I'm trying to do this. I would like to get published (wouldn't we all?), but it's true that there's a gratifying feeling to finally putting together a piece in the way that I want it to read.

Mette also said: don't quit your day job.

In our break-out session, Mette stressed the idea that every story has an inner and outer journey. That's probably old news to people who have been writing for a long time, but her comment clarified for me something that I've sensed intuitively.

When we got back together again with Rick's group, Rick and Mette took questions from the group. The questions included finding an agent (most of that was familiar to me, which made me realize how much I've learned in the last six months) and self-publishing (Mette's recommendation was: don't do it, unless you have a specific reason for doing it. Most self-published writers--but not all--self-publish because they can't get published in traditional routes, which means they have short-changed themselves, ultimately, in never learning how to take that final leap as a writer.)

I asked: how do you know if you're ready to send your manuscript out? My current hope is to send out my manuscript after I finish the revision I'm working on, but I'm not sure if that's polished enough. Mette's response? "If you're asking, you're probably delaying sending it out." (In other words, you're probably ready. She may have been under the misapprehension that the rest of my draft was as polished as the first chapter. It's not, unfortunately).

Rick's answer was my favorite, though: when in doubt, send it out!

And finally, probably the day's best advice on becoming a writer, from Rick: Read a lot and write a lot and get good at it.

Learning about failure

at Segullah today. Come stop by!

Nobody tells this to beginners

I've been having a little (okay, not so little) crisis of faith this week regarding writing.

I entered a little writing competition (query and first 250 words of a manuscript) on a blog this week. I didn't win--but that didn't surprise me, particularly after getting some great feedback and seeing the strength of some of the other submissions. Losing didn't even particularly depress me. No, what depressed me was seeing the gap between what I recognize as quality writing and my own writing.

Now, I realize that, while I've been writing for years (and teaching writing for 10+ years), this creative writing thing is a more recent development. It doesn't help that I feel like the world's biggest cliche--how many English profs do you think there are out there who are secretly nursing a novel? Thousands.

Anyway, I'm getting off my point. My point was that it takes years of work to get good at something--even (especially) at writing.

I've found some comfort in a quote that made the Facebook rounds last week, attributed to Ira Glass:

What nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish someone had told this to me . . . is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.

Sometimes I wish there were an easier way around this (and I know my students wish this!). The truth is, there isn't. You just have to slog through. And believe in yourself, which is easier said than done.

After hitting a particularly low point last night (just ask my husband), I sat down with my husband to watch Castle. Now, Castle is not usually particularly high-brow, but we're big fans of Nathan Fillion. This particular episode was so apropos that I had to laugh. At the end of the episode, Richard Castle's daughter Alexis asks him about the framed rejection letter he has in his office. He tells her that rejection is not a sign of failure: quitting is.

I think I need to take the Castle quote and the Ira Glass quote and put them up in big letters where I can see them. And then I need to stop complaining and start revising.

(After I dig myself out of my pile of papers that need to be graded, that is!)

A cautionary tale

Nothing like a cautionary tale to revive a stale blog, right?

My cautionary tale actually starts a couple of months ago. See, I went to the WIFYR conference in the spring (I've mentioned it before, I know), and in a fury of inspiration managed to write the novel over the summer. The first draft, anyway. And as any writer worth her salt knows, drafts need revision. Usually lots of revision.

Sometime in early August I was looking over my notes from the conference and saw that one of the agents had suggested that we might get a faster response from her if we submitted before school started. I don't know why I thought that meant I should actually submit something to her then (I blame it on the fact that I was pregnant at the time--but I'm not anymore), but that's what I did. I suppose I expected that I wouldn't hear back for some time and that the answer was likely to be negative. About a week later, my sister gave me her feedback on the novel and said, "I think this should be first person." Unfortunately, she was right. So I started revising to first person, got about two chapters in, and the agent's assistant wrote back: she wanted to see the next fifty pages.

I panicked and called my sister. She said, "See, this is why you don't submit stuff to query that isn't ready to query." Her suggestion? Celebrate for half a second and then revise like crazy. Which I did. I got the first fifty pages revised over the weekend and then, with a little more of a clue this time, started working on the revision whenever I had time. Between kids and a new semester of teaching, this wasn't as often as I'd like (I did, however, finally start a writer's group!).

I was about 100 pages through the revision (and in the middle of adding some new scenes) when I got another response from the same woman: she wanted to see the whole manuscript. This normally would be good news--but for me it meant that I had about 100 pages to revise over the weekend. Again, I did it. It wasn't fun. (For me or my neglected family). I'm trying to caution myself against getting too hopeful because a) a request for a full manuscript does not always lead to an offer and b) I'm still new at this and I am probably not that lucky. But at least it means that someone, someday, might want to publish my book.

In any case, I learned a valuable lesson: do not query something until you're ready to submit the whole manuscript. It can be a painful experience!

I did have one of the neighbor girls read it (she's in the target audience) and she told me she liked it. (Her mom told me she read it in less than two days). She also told me that where most of my adult readers thought the characters sounded too old, she thought they sounded about right, except at the beginning, where they sounded too young. She reminded me that we often tend to underestimate younger readers. I hope I won't do that too often.

At Segullah today.

Please stop by for a visit! You can see my post here.