Tag: Literary agents

Anxiety and the Query Trenches

~ Grace ~ Leave a comment

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!

February Update

~ Grace ~ Leave a comment

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.