Summer Updates

July 1, 2024 ~ Grace ~ 1 Comment

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.

Anxiety and the Query Trenches

May 16, 2024May 16, 2024 ~ 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!

A Year of Writing

April 4, 2024 ~ Grace ~ Leave a comment

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

February 14, 2024 ~ 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!!!!

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.