Friday, March 27, 2009

Let the games BEGI---er...CONTINUE!

So I'm rewriting my query. AGAIN. Looking back, my other queries were too detailed, too long, then too short, too boring, and too vague. I've never had so many issues writing a letter before in my life. I feel like I'm advertising not my manuscript, but myself. And I know that that's partly true. I'm pitching my voice, my fluency, my ease of grammar and sentence structure...yeah. You get the point. Then it's on to selling my characters, but all the while not mentioning more than two characters' names (or else it's way too confusing for the agent). Then it's showing off my unique story line, my interesting plot twist, and a hook to keep an agent asking for more. Oh yeah, and this all has to be done in just a few sentences.

So, I'm off to work on the query again before I bring my kid to get some fresh air for her cold to forget about said query. But just before I go, I'll mention that I've become a huge fan off all the blogs I've been following, and their followers, too. I have been talking [corresponding] with many new authors, some published, some unpublished, that just want the same thing I have wanted all my life. And that's just for someone to enjoy the words I have on paper. Not for the money-I figured out VERY quickly in the game that if you're doing this for the money, you're a)out of your mind and b) need to find another job FAST, but really, just to have someone say, "Damn! I'm glad I read that! That was a good story!" Because isn't that what we all need right now? Just a good story? Mine even has a happy ending. (Okay, kind of.....not without some sacrifice, of course....) Anyway, I'm just thankful to have met some very cool people in the past few months.

I should say to Rosemary Harris and to Meredith Cole that I am extremely bummed I missed you at the New Canaan Library yesterday. I went and purchased an autographed copy of Harris' Pushing Up Daisies book to make up for it (I still need to get The Big Dirt Nap, but I need to get Cole's book still. I meant to get it yesterday before I met her, but my daughter was a handful. I try to catch Cole before she settles down to work on her next book after her Posed for Murder.

That's it for now. I'll be writing more next week because I've decided that my experience with rejections and queries now will be something to blog about. Not in a complaining way, though. (Although there certainly might be a leakage of it...) I'm just going to post what to do and what not to do. It'll serve as a reminder for not only myself when I look back on this crazy ride, but to anybody who just needs a blatant list of the shit you cannot pull with literary agents. They are a wild bunch. Very picky.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Finally A Reason!!!!!!!!!

See? An answer to one question that my mother keeps asking me: Do you have to curse so much? Well, ma, yeah. I do. And: This is my excuse.

Friday, March 13, 2009

The Best Remedy

Wanna know what the best remedy to rejection is? Dancing with your kid. And not some little hop-hop-hopping around the room to some Raffi. I'm talking The Asteroids Galaxy Tour blasting off the biggest speakers in the house and screaming and twirling and spinning around while your kid jumps to the beat, squealing with delight, thinking it's the coolest new game that mommy is playing, all the while you try to fight back tears when an agent says you're not good enough.

So I'm gonna get back to dancing with my kid who think I'm good enough for her. Later.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Flu and Failure and F*ck You, Oh My!

So after contracting some sort of mysterious stomach bug, I'm back on track. It turns out every time I sat down at the computer to write about my current agent submissions, my stomach bug (that was finally gone last week) mysteriously reappeared. I guess when I tried typing "rejection", my stomach would flip-flop back into nausea and my palms would sweat and my mouth would run dry. So I gave up on blogging for a week or so.

So yeah, I'm back to discussing what a pain in the ass this whole process is. I was sent a form letter rejection in the mail the other day, claiming "as you know, fiction is extremely difficult to sell these days," (no shit, Sherlock), and although I enjoyed your story (I'm sure you only read 2 pages), I'm afraid (they're all afraid-why are they afraid? That I'm gonna go ape-shit on their ass after they reject me?) that I'm not the best representative for your work. I wish you luck (yeah, yeah. No, you don't. You won't even remember me after you put the postage on the envelope) in your career. (Career? CAREER? If I had a career I wouldn't need you to be my frickin' agent!)

You know, I gotta say, that for all the work that I put into my own queries that are sent to these agents, choosing my words carefully, placing that stamp on my SASE so meticulously, making sure the mailing is done just right- these agents sure as hell don't spend a lot of time choosing their words carefully for struggling writers.

GRRRRRR!!!!! I'm over it. Don't worry. It only took 3 glasses of wine for that rejection not to sting anymore. But I'm cool. I still have a partial out, and I still have 6 other queries on peoples' desks. And after those avenues are exhausted, I still have other contacts. I'm just getting tired of it. And besides, I'm having more fun working on manuscript #2. It's reminding me that my writing is what I love. Not needing other people to tell me that they love my writing. I love it. And that's plenty enough for me.

Stay tuned for more agent bashing (too bad I'm not on Twitter-can anyone say "#query postings are MEAN?"). To all those agents who now think it's fun to real-time reject and make fun of the queries that they receieve and post it for the world to see, a big F YOU.