It’s February 2025

~ Grace ~ 1 Comment

Because it needs to be said: I am not okay with anything happening in the U.S. right now. I support minorities and women and trans people. I am scared.

But this blog is about me trying to get my silly little book published, so that’s what I will continue to write about in this space.

And—I know it’s not silly. To me, it is crushingly important. But. I don’t know. Call your heartsong your “silly little book” if that’s the thing that lets you keep working on it in the midst of uncertain and impossible times. And call your senators!!! But keep making your silly little art, in any way you can.

At a recent gathering, my friend said they were procrastinating on an important task. Another friend cut in and said firmly, almost defiantly: “You mean gathering your energy.”

Isn’t that beautiful?

I’ve been gathering my energy to query again. I’ve also been healing from a difficult critique session. I think it’s very frustrating and unfair that someone who was rude to me about my work and my identity was also correct about some things! Mostly, I feel let down by my own brain. How DARE I feel discouraged when I knew most of the advice was wrong, and kind of mean, even as I was hearing it?

But the correct thing is this: your chances of finding representation for a debut novel are higher if your wordcount is lower. I’ve spoken to an actual agent who said that needing to be below 100k for a debut is a myth, and it all depends. And (according to my research) up to 120k is fine for sci-fi/fantasy anyway. All of which is true! But so is the first thing. And I thought I’d been through my novel more times than I could count, I thought I’d done everything I possibly could—but I hadn’t gone through specifically focused on lowering my wordcount. I was wrong. And my novel is getting better for it.

It’s tedious. To spice it up, I’ve made a beautiful new spreadsheet—it’s got columns and metrics and a sexy toggle that goes green when I delete the correct amount of words per chapter as pro-rated to the chapter’s starting length. So I can tell you with devastating accuracy that I am 83.92% percent of the way down from 112k words to my goal of 100k. It’s going well, in fits and bursts and long weeks of procrastinating gathering my energy. I have deleted very few scenes, but every sentence is getting tighter and better. And I started listening to The Shit About Writing podcast again the other day, which is the first time I’ve been able to stomach even a second-hand query critique in about half a year. I’m not quite back in the game yet, but I’m making progress, and moving in the right direction.

Hang in there, y’all.

Summer Updates

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Querying: I still don’t have a lot of data from round 2. I’ve only received 1 response (a form rejection) out of 8 queries, and it’s been 10 weeks. I’ve heard from a lot of sources that the publishing industry slows down during the summer months, and maybe I just happened to choose agents with slower response times (or with “no response means no” philosophies). Regardless, I got back at it this week with two new queries. I think sending one or two every few weeks as I’m able will be more sustainable at this point than grouping them into larger rounds. And for now I’ll just keep trying!

Health: I fell while running and broke my elbow a few weeks ago. Which sounds dire, I know, but it’s just a hairline fracture and I only needed to wear a cast/splint for about a week. At three weeks out I already have almost my full range of motion back, and it only hurts when I move my arm wrong or forget to be careful with it. I’m actually back to running and signed up for the Beach to Beacon 10k in August. B2B was the first race I ever did, so it seems fitting as the first race I run in five years—hopefully. If nothing else goes wrong.

Right after falling I said, “It’s okay, I didn’t hit my head!” But I did hit the ground with enough force to fracture a bone, and I think my brain got a teensy bit of whiplash. At any rate, I’ve been having headaches with screentime. Not as bad as my last concussion, and I seem to be okay when I’m driving and up and about doing things, but it’s making work more taxing than usual and I’m trying to avoid screens in my downtime. You may note that drafting a new writing project tends to be a screen-heavy activity. Sooo…

Making New Art: …I’ve been writing longhand! I’m trying very hard to not get excited since everything I’ve started recently has fizzled out before it began—but I do think writing on paper helps circumvent some of the overthinking that’s been getting in the way of my creativity. And I got to buy a new notebook, so, you know, can’t complain.

I also finally did some painting while on vacation in June! I’m hoping to paint some more during this week’s 4-day holiday weekend. See my 3 paintings from the other week below. I focused on getting back into things rather than meeting any particular artistic goals, but they do make me happy.

Gouache on paper, 12″ x 9″
Gouache on paper, approx. 5″ x 8″
Oil on acrylic panel, 10″ x 8″

Anxiety and the Query Trenches

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I sent out a second batch of query letters last month, and waiting to hear back has been harder than I expected. It’s not that I didn’t think querying would be stressful! But I was so focused on getting to this point at all, and so terrified of quitting before I got here, that waiting for someone else to tell me yes or no sounded positively breezy.

Except I really do want to be traditionally published. And at the end of the day that’s not up to me. Unless, actually, it is? Unless my query letter (350 words, 20+ drafts, countless hours of my life) is conveying the wrong things about my story. Unless my synopsis is bad. Unless the beginning of my book isn’t hooky/funny/good enough to keep agents reading. Unless readers just aren’t interested in a human/alien romance, or an alien invasion in a contemporary setting. Unless I haven’t done enough to convince someone that my full manuscript might be a worth a read.

Publishing is subjective. It’s a numbers game. It’s down to luck. It has to be the right agent, the right book, the right time. It’s subjective. Rejections are inevitable. Every single writer gets rejections. A rejection doesn’t mean that your work isn’t valuable, or that it isn’t good.

I can, and often do, believe all of that. I think my work is good. I think it’s funny and sincere, and since it’s something I’d want to read I even think it might be marketable. And publishing really, really is subjective—but I don’t think it follows that all writing is equally polished, or equally publishable. And I know that agents DO receive low-quality submissions. So my great and terrible fear is that my rejected submission has been chucked onto an “Oof, yikes, immediate no” garbage heap, rather than placed gently in a recycling bin labeled “Cool idea, well-written, not for me.” Of course, in order to believe the garbage heap theory, I’d have to discount quite a bit of positive feedback from very trusted sources. Which would make me kind of a lousy friend and partner, right? But then my brain goes, yes but what if they were just being nice/are actually delusional/had a brief psychotic break for the exact amount of time it took them to read my novel????

So that’s all exhausting! But I’m not gonna stop querying, at least not for a while, so I’ll get used to it. I’ve got a lot of questions about next steps—at how many form rejections should I completely rethink my materials? At what number should I shelve this project and hope for the next one? How many times should I blog about something that might end in failure?—but I’m hoping I’ll have the answers by the time I need them. I also think having another project will help. I can’t seem to get a new novel started just yet, but I keep saying I’d like to get back into painting and maybe this is my week!

This is me at the Kamelot VIP Meet and Greet in Boston a few weeks ago. Look at me standing right next to Tommy Karevik!!!! I caught COVID at the show, but it was totally worth it!

A Year of Writing

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Tomorrow is my one-year book-iversary! On April 5th, 2023, I casually exceeded the daily goal for National Novel Writing Month while telling myself to not get excited, and that it would likely amount to nothing. I then proceeded to write 50,000 words in the next 19 days, and I’ve continued to work on this project consistently and obsessively ever since.

I’m interested in the way we are things, and the way we are not things, and the way what we are changes while staying exactly the same. In 2022 and early 2023 I was pretty seriously pursuing painting, and landscape painting, and trying to figure out what my art business might look like after a shift to traditional media. And if you go back a few years in this blog, you’ll find entries written by someone whose self-worth was measured by how many miles she ran that week. I can look back ten—heck, even twenty, or twenty-five—years and see the full writing journey, hundreds of thousands of words, so many manuscripts and ideas that I’ve learned from and left behind. I’ve never not come back to it. But I also know there were entire years, or longer, when I barely wrote anything. And I’m thinking about this now because I haven’t done a painting in a while, and every time I think my body might let me be a runner again one of my injuries will flare up, or something else will go wrong. And I’m wondering if I should try for 50,000+ words again this month since I did it last year, but I’m also working on finalizing some post-workshop revisions, and hoping to get my next round of query letters out ASAP, and maybe that’s too many things! And when am I going to paint??

I don’t have answers. I never do—I mean, except that capitalism doesn’t leave us enough time for our own stuff if we wanna, like, pay rent and eat and go to the doctor occasionally, but there’s nothing I can do about that. I will say that I really enjoyed the Futurescapes Spring Workshop, and I think that the tweaks I am making to the first two chapters based on feedback are good edits. And I’m just going to keep trying. Happy Solar Eclipse!

A view of the sun rising above the clouds on a recent flight out of Jacksonville Florida on my way home to Maine.

February Update

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I’ve now submitted seven queries total, and I’ve already received three form letter rejections. It has been amazing and unexpected to hear back so quickly! But I’d also, like, hyped myself up for weeks of endless waiting, you know? I only had all seven agents in the “submitted” column for four days!!!!

Current query tracker (names redacted)

Last week, I was accepted to the online Futurescapes Spring Workshop in March. I’ll be workshopping my query letter, my synopsis, and the the first 3,500 words of my novel with a faculty of three literary agents and a small cohort of six fellow students—and my faculty group leader is an agent who represents some of my very favorite books. She has been at the top of my agent list since I started making the list!

Timing-wise, I suppose it would have been ideal to workshop my stuff before submitting to the first round of agents (including my faculty lead, haha), but it WILL be nicely timed for my second round of submissions. And no regrets—it was important to me for personal/existential dread reasons to start querying before my 35th birthday. The workshop does guarantee that I’ll receive some personalized feedback from one of the agents I’ve queried, and this is such a win in itself even if the response to my query is no.

Otherwise, I am trying to slow down. I am trying to stop obsessively rereading my 3,500 word excerpt and panicking about whether the people in my workshop will like it. I am trying to accept that there isn’t any work to do right now on any of my submission materials. I am trying to take a break. I am wondering if anyone actually feels well-rested when they wake up in the morning. I am hoping to get back into painting. I am thinking about what to write next, and I am asking strategy questions I’ve never had to ask before. For instance: Should I start writing my half-baked sequel idea even though I’m not sure it will turn into anything? Wouldn’t it be smarter to start something new, so I’ll have something to query next year if this one doesn’t work out? And…am I a romance writer now? What if I don’t have another SFF romance in me? What if, for me, last year’s struck-by-lightning writing experience is the best it’s ever going to get?

So, nothing is new. Everything is terrifying, and you gotta do it anyway. I do think it’s important to celebrate the milestones when you hit them. We got lo mein and crab rangoons from China Taste in Yarmouth on the day I submitted to the 7th agent, which has become a ritual—we got the same lo mein when I finished the first draft, and when I finished revisions and let people read it for the first time. I can’t seem to find a good closing line for this blog post, because, like, everything feels like it’s still in process? But, you know, I’m processing. I’m waiting. I’m resting. I’m looking ahead. I’m doing my best.

First Query Letters

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Yesterday I sent my first three queries to literary agents. Eep! While I haven’t entirely quelled the fantasy that I’ll get signed by one of my dream agents immediately, I do think I have realistic expectations about how long this is going to take and how many rejections I’m likely to receive. And three is just a start—general wisdom is to send about 5 to 8 queries at a time. So I’ll send more this week, and with a better estimate of the time involved now that I know I will spend an hour+ before sending each submission re-reading my materials in terror that I have somehow spelled the agent’s name wrong, spelled my own name wrong, or used the wrong draft. 😂

I hired a total of three editors to look at my query letter—one full submission package edit from an editing agency, and two query-letter edits from Fiverr. I didn’t agree with every suggestion, but I took something from every edit that improved the letter. There are twelve query letter drafts in my folder, and that doesn’t even include all the work I did before I started saving each draft as a separate document! One of the Fiverr packages included two passes, and when the editor read the final and said, “I think this is ready to send out,” I decided to believe her. I could spend literally forever making tweaks and wording adjustments, but at some point you just have to give it a go. Right? And this was my Big Goal. “Querying agents” was the destination for ten months of obsessive work and focus, and I did it. I know this is just the first step in a long process, and gosh I’ve had some help along the way, but I’m proud that I made it this far.

This is a photo of the ✨fun✨ agent tracker that now lives on a wall in my living room (names redacted). I’m hoping that the galaxy stickies and butterfly pushpins will remind me to celebrate the entire journey, rejections and all.

January 2024 – A Whole New Year

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2023 was a banner year for me. I still can’t believe that I wrote an entire novel in four months! And that I’ve stuck with it through revisions, feedback, and endless query/synopsis drafts. I am wildly grateful to the alchemy of inspiration, obsession, and terror that has gotten me this far.

Last week, I started listening to the podcast The Shit No One Tells You About Writing. I’ve found the query/first pages critiques at the beginning of each episode to be very educational, and it is so interesting to hear about the guest authors’ various journeys to publication. Yesterday I listened to the 11/9/23 episode, “Encouragement from NYT Bestselling Author, Jean Kwok,” and I found the interview with Kwok incredibly inspiring. She spoke about her debut novel’s initial rejection and eventual success, and she also spoke about fear, and doing the scary things anyway. This resonated—I’ve noticed that when I write about writing I am almost always writing about fear. She also spoke about her determination following the first rejection to continue submitting her manuscript, and collecting rejections, for as long as it takes. Every episode of the podcast closes with the host, Bianca Marais, saying, “Keep at it. Remember, it just takes one ‘Yes.’”

I’m dedicating the first few weeks of January to more novel revisions and query/synopsis edits, and I am deadly determined to submit my novel to an initial round of literary agents before my 35th birthday in February. My New Year’s Intention is to actively query agents on a rolling basis for the entire calendar year of 2024. And obviously I would hope to reassess and keep trying into 2025 and beyond, with this book and with future projects, for as long it takes. But “as long as it takes” is an ethereal measure of time, while “a year” is solid, definite, and a good place to start. And if I plan for a year, then those first few rejections, or non-responses, are all part of the plan. Right? At the very least, I am determined to stop telling myself “No” by not even asking for a “Yes.”

Yes, we still have our Christmas tree up.

Update – November 2023

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Once again I’ve drafted multiple blog posts about writing that I haven’t posted because—well, because I’m doing the actual work, and I don’t want to jinx it by saying too much or by setting goals here that I can’t promise I’ll keep. And I’ve got my personal journal for all the endless doubts and affirmations that are part of sustaining belief in a project (and myself) over the long-term. (A note: I do think daily long-hand journaling has been an important part of my workflow. Even if you’re not saying anything new, repeating how badly you want something, day after day, keeps it fresh in your mind.)

I’ve finished a second round of revisions on my book, and I’m trying to stay out of the manuscript for a month while a few more readers take a look at it. I think I did a good job? I invigorated the sedentary language of the first two chapters, wrote new scenes to weave an antagonist more securely into the narrative, accidentally (and I’m low-key furious about this) inserted a new background character who might be the main character in a sequel, and confronted all of the sentences that felt clunky or cringey. I’m sure I’ll wince at more sentences the next time through, and I know there will be more, even major, edits in the future, but I think I did my best?

I started this month with plans to attempt NaNoWriMo, but I also promised myself that I wouldn’t finish it just for the sake of finishing if the story wasn’t coming together. And boy did that story NOT come together! At almost 9,000 words the characters weren’t speaking to me yet, and I hadn’t found a plot. It has some elements I love, but it just wasn’t happening, not for me, not right now. I also realized that the aforementioned revisions were not coming as quickly as I’d hoped, and I needed to prioritize the book I’d already written. Still, failing NaNoWriMo has not helped with my fear that I will never again be as inspired by a story as I was by this story, the story for my existing book, earlier this year. It wasn’t easy—I’ve put in so many hours—but I didn’t need to struggle for the story. I just showed up. But it’s also given me so much more confidence in my ability to show up, which can only be a good thing for the next one. 

For now, I plan to spend a few weeks wrestling with a synopsis and other submission materials. The synopsis, so far, has absolutely kicked my ass. I know what my book is about, but summarizing in 500 or so words with enough—but not too much—detail, while also conveying a sense of tone, feels like the most difficult writing assignment I’ve ever had. Wish me luck!

Query Letters, Man

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I had this idea to get back to a spot where I’m blogging more regularly, and I’ve actually drafted a couple of posts about my writing process and what’s actually worked for me, but I haven’t posted them because I’m just SO TIRED of writing about writing. As electrifying as a wordcount tracker is for me when I’m in the zone with a project, I am finding my own words about my own process incredibly boring right now. At the end of the day you’re either writing or you’re not, you know? You either did the thing or you didn’t. You either finish your book or you don’t.

I don’t actually believe anything is that absolute, but I have a headache and I am impatient with my own prevaricating—and my impatience is running up against the lack of a clear step forward for the novel that has been commandeering every extra iota of brain space since the idea first hit me over the head back in April. Because from here on out, there isn’t a right answer, is there? Like, there’s no one out there to tell you which edits and changes are correct. No one’s going to give you an A and say, “Good job, you’re ready to start querying agents!” So…how do you know? Can you trust your own assessment? If people are telling you it’s already really good, do you believe them? How much time do you spend trying to make it even better? How do you know if it shines?

I’m still collecting some feedback before diving into manuscript edits, so I’ve been trying to get a head-start on query letters. I’m hoping to hire some professional advice for my submission materials and would like them to be as polished as possible before then, and at this point I’m not expecting to make any major plot changes. And that’s wild, right? Like, borderline delusional, to feel so confident about a first-ish draft that I’m not expecting any major plot changes??? But query letters, man. Holy heck. The whole time I was writing this book, I was like, “This is the most marketable book I’ve ever written! It’s going to fit right into this queer sci-fi/fantasy niche, right next to Everina Maxwell and Freya Marske and Rainbow Rowell!” But actually writing that sales pitch, actually distilling four months of your life (200 single-spaced pages, 110,000 words) into a 2 – 3 paragraph summary—it’s grueling. It’s exhausting. It’s impossible. You’re endlessly twisting and polishing and rearranging, trying to hone and reshape the sentences so that you can see through them to the gold beneath, with no way to know if you’ve gotten it right, or if what’s beneath is even really made of gold.

The view from Wolfe’s Neck Campground in Freeport ME after last Saturday’s hurricane.

Writing Again

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It was bedtime on April 4th, 2023. I closed the book I was reading, placed it on my nightstand, and turned off the light. I’ve been reading a lot of queer romance lately, mostly in the sci-fi/fantasy genre, and as I started drifting I asked myself: if I wrote a genre romance following the basic formula of my favorite books, what book would I write? The rough story elements appeared immediately: modern earth, an alien invasion, a gremlin of a main character who can’t believe he still has to go to work during the slow-roll apocalypse. I wondered who the other guy would be, and then it was so obvious: the other guy was an alien.

I started writing the next day and plugged my progress into a NaNoWriMo-style word-count tracking spreadsheet. A week later I had over 20,000 words. 104 days later I had a finished first draft of 112,000 words.

I don’t know what to say except that sometimes the universe, like, throws you a bone? This book just started happening to me, and it didn’t stop. I spent hours writing frantically just trying to get all my thoughts down before I lost them. I could barely keep up. And I eventually had to slow the pace—there’s a reason NaNoWriMo is only once a year—but I kept going. Even at 300 words a day. I continued writing daily until I finished that first rough draft. After a day off to celebrate, I set up a different type of tracking spreadsheet and jumped straight into editing mode. Another month later I had a real, complete first draft that I liked enough to share with a select few other humans.

A huge motivating factor in all of this was the absolute terror of leaving another project unfinished. I’m so proud, but I’m still afraid, because I won’t really be done until I finish the next draft, or two, or however many it takes, and hone my submission materials, and send my first query letters to literary agents. And even that is only the beginning of a long, nerve-wracking process of queries and rejections and revisions that has absolutely zero guarantee of success. Still—I like this book, and I want to try.