HAPpy New Year

Have any of you ever seen Showboat? (The old movie version with Katherine Grayson, not the theater version.) Well, the subject of today's post is a nod to Joe E. Brown's memorable New Year's line in that movie. I love that scene, and that character, and heck, I just love Joe E. Brown.

But that's not what the post is about.

Yesterday, I spent a large chunk of the morning writing a post wherein I waxed philosophic about the total bleh of 2008. Truth be told, it wasn't a bad year, but it wasn't a great year either. Wrapped into one big ball of twelve months, it was mostly unmemorable - at least on a personal level.

Anyway, I wrote most of the post before I had to go run my morning errands. Of course, my daughter wasn't ready to go when I was, so I left her and just got donuts while she finished getting ready. Donuts in hand, I arrived home to find her putting her coat on, so it was all good. And just before we stepped out the door, I checked my email - because it never fails... I get home from errands to find one of my used books sold or something, and then I have to go back out again. I didn't sell a used book yesterday morning, but I did have a different happy email in my inbox.

I got a request for full.

So much for nothing important happening in 2008. (Okay, so I also got a full request in May, but since nothing ever came of that, I wasn't thinking of it during my bleh moments yesterday.)

Since the partial was sent back in October, I was pretty certain the whole thing was dead. When the request came, at first I thought it was another rejection. I'm standing over the desk thinking as soon as I open the email and verify I've been dumped again, we can go finish our errands. I even read the first few words and thought 'rejection'... and then came the words '...I enjoyed reading what you sent so much. I would love to read the full manuscript...' My daughter squee'd when I read it aloud, and she ran over to give me a hug. I just stood there with my mouth open, not quite believing what I was reading.

Let's be honest... Lately, I've been feeling like a BFFF (and I don't mean Best Friends For Friggin'ever - think more along the lines of Big Fat Frickin' Failure, with 'frickin' being replaced with its less PC version). The first couple years it wasn't too bad, but these past couple... Well, when New Year's rolled around and I looked back over the previous twelve months - with no measureable progress to show for my efforts - it's not hard to feel like a BFFF. This year was worst than the last, of course, and not only were the previous months bleh, but the next twelve looked like more of the same. Bleh, bleh and more bleh. A never-ending, ever-winding road of bleh.

And then I got a full request from a big agent who actually sounded like she loved the first three chapters. Here's hoping she loves the rest.

I'm trying really hard to not get my hopes up, but since I lay in bed last night envisioning what having an agent would be like, that endeavor is failing big time. If nothing else, though, that one glimmer of hope is going a long way toward pulling me out of my funk. Thank you, Ms. Agent Person. Even if you ultimately decide not to take me, you've given me enough rope so I can climb up and get back to work.

So, here's to a Happy New Year for all of us. May we all see good things in the coming twelve months.

:HUGS:

Good Rejections

*yawn* :blink: :blink:

I feel like Rip Van Winkle this morning. Not that I spent yesterday sleeping or anything, I just feel like I did. In fact, I probably should've, but that's a whole nother story. After the weekend writing marathon, I was just bleh. To combat the blehs, I sat on the couch and watched TV, and I read most of a book. I also played some poker, but that went badly so I'm trying not to think about it.

Now about that oxymoron of a subject...

In the midst of my bleh-defeating day, I received a rejection letter from a partial of RTL I sent back in May. And yay, it found me, since it was sent before I knew I would have to move and therefore the SASE had the old address. On the rejection scale it was a really nice letter. She said she really liked my writing, but... 1) with the economy sucking like it does, she has to be extra super selective, 2) the synopsis didn't wow her, 3) from said synopsis, the bad guys all seemed one-dimensional, and 4) she was concerned the politics of the plot would overwhelm the suspense.

I'm hanging on to the 'really liked my writing' part. I'm also cursing the economy and the people who got us in this mess. As for the synopsis thing, I'm going to have to take a look at it and see where it fell apart, because it obviously wasn't doing its job.

For instance, I really don't think my villains are one-dimensional. Sure, they're all evil (because I don't do diet evil) but each of them has many layers to their personality. Perhaps that's not quite apparent in the first few chapters, and obviously not in the synopsis, but the layers are there.

There's nothing I can do about the politics. They're integral to the plot, but IMO they don't overwhelm the suspense of the book. I purposefully wrote the novel in such a way that the politics are an undercurrent, but not the main thrust of the plot. *shrug* I guess my synopsis didn't tell that tale very well.

So anyway, I'm taking that one as a positive letter. Have to take the positives where you can. I'm also calling another RTL rejection positive (I got this one back in November from a partial sent in September). In that one, the agent said she liked the premise but she thought it was more suited to the SF market, with which she wasn't familiar. *shrug* Miss Snark always said : Query Widely. Since RTL is one of those stories that crosses genre, I was trying everyone who represented any of the three genres it touches.

Anyway, as I approach the end of the year, and the end of another novel, I'm starting to think about the query process again. I'm taking the lessons learned, and working to apply them to the next round.

Oh, and speaking of rounds... Karin Tabke is getting ready to host another First Line Contest. I think I'm entering RTL this year. Here's hoping my first lines make the cut. I could really use some good news this month.

Your turn: Any thoughts on my rejections? I'm trying to stay positive about it, but I don't want to turn into Pollyanna. Have you ever gotten a good rejection, or is the oxymoron just too much?

Happy Morning

Nothing like getting a partial request first thing in the morning. What a wonderful way to start the day. =o)

Wading Into the Ocean Again

Okay, I've only ever waded into the actual ocean once, but I'm trying to be literary here. ;o)

To put it a more straightforward way, I'm querying again. I sent out the first small batch this afternoon for Dying Embers (aka Manhunter). Keep your fingers crossed that I did everything right this time, and the agents getting it are in the right frame of mind, and they're also looking for this particular genre right now, and... Well, you probably know the drill. So many things are out of my hands that sometimes the query business drives me batty.

Like, how much to you divulge about your affinity for a particular agent before it comes off as insincere gushing? On the other hand, how little is too little? Here's hoping I hit just the right balance, and that if I didn't the blurb about the story is enough to make them forget I missed the mark on personalization. *shrug*

Truth be told, I've been querying so long, my personalized paragraphs are all beginning to sound the same. I mean, if I've queried the same agent for each of my previous books, plus this one, she's definitely heard the sentiment before. Chances are there really isn't much I can say in the presonalization that a hundred other writers haven't said before. And they always say, it's the story that counts. Right?

If that's so, then why does the personalization even matter? *shrug* I dunno why, it just does.

Some people advise that one should mention the agent's authors and how your book compares or contrasts. Other say not to do that because they probably know their authors' work better than you could anyway, and saying it's like Patterson - because you think it is - could just piss them off because they don't think you're anything like Patterson. (Or Brennan or St. Claire or Follett or... pick a name.)

Personally, I think Manhunter is a little like Patterson (but happier) and Brennan / St. Claire (with less romance) and Follett (but less harsh). Hell, I can even say I'm like Crichton, but less technical, with more suspense and less thrill. When it all boils down to it, I am myself. I think readers of suspense and romantic suspense will enjoy Manhunter.

But I'll just have to wait and see.

If you could compare your writing to any author (or authors), who would it be?

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Query Tips and Other Helpful Stuff

Since I haven't secured an agent myself, I'm not really the most qualified person to shell out advice on this topic. I am, however, skilled in surfing the web and finding information that may or may not be helpful to my blog visitors.

The most recent awesome query tips come from Lucienne Diver (of The Knight Agency) in her post: Query Dos and Donts. Some of her suggestions seem fairly obvious, but they're there for a reason - and you don't want to be one of the people who become an example of what NOT to do.

Another interesting discussion on a big query don't (at least for Ms. Faust) is over at BookEnds in her follow-up post: Thank You For Your Time. Apparently this whole issue has drawn a shit-storm for her, but I think what it boils down to is: 1) Research each agent and follow their preferences in addition to their guidelines, 2) Don't obsess over every little word. She doesn't like being thanked for her time (at least not upfront), but she's not going drag you out and shoot you for it either. I get her point: Don't grovel. I also get Janet Reid's point: You can look forward to hearing from someone, but telling them 'soon' puts a level of expectation you don't need in your query letter and one an agent doesn't want to deal with. They'll get to you when they get to you. My experiences with Ms. Reid show that she will get back to you soon, but don't give her the impression you're standing over her shoulder tapping your foot.

Personally, my own query letter is now the best it can be. In October (I really thought it was September but the date on the letter says otherwise), I'll be looking at the four year anniversary of my first query letter (and it's subsequent rejection). I've learned a lot since that unfortunate attempt. Now, in honor of everything I've learned, and the subject of this post, I present to you the first query letter I ever wrote. It sucks... HARD. Let's look at it as a lesson in what NOT to do.

Recently I completed work on my first novel, Spectacle, and am now looking for an agent to represent me. After careful consideration and research, of the dozen or so to whom I am considering sending submissions, yours is the agency that I chose to contact first. I was especially interested in your agency after reading the interview you gave for an article in the book Agents, Editors and You. Once you read the materials I have enclosed, I believe that you will be as interested in representing my work, as I am in having your agency represent me.

Spectacle is a literary novel about fighting for the truth against popular opinion and against deliberate ignorance in a world controlled by misinformation. It is a novel about fighting and winning.

When the human race is told it has just four months to live, only Dr. Michael Montgomery has the knowledge that will save mankind—not from impending doom but from itself. A comet is hurdling towards Earth and the scientific community has issued a death sentence to the world. Dr. Montgomery, however, knows the truth about comets and he knows that the scientific community is wrong, but when he tries to make that truth known he is thwarted at every turn. It seems that Dr. Kingsley Hall has other ideas. If the truth were known, Dr. Hall would lose his chance for prestige, his chance for notoriety, and ultimately, his chance for control. While Dr. Montgomery and his allies work to make the truth public, Dr. Hall and his lackeys work to hide it from the world—as civilization slowly decays around them all.

Mr. Maass, I began writing stories twenty years ago but until recently I had neither the time nor the drive necessary to consider writing as a career. I now have both and I am committed to the achievement of this goal. In addition to Spectacle, I am currently working on my second novel and am in the planning stages for several others.

For your consideration I have embedded a synopsis of this novel as well as the first five pages, per your submission parameters. I am prepared to submit the entirety of my novel (MS Word count: approximately 137,000 words) at your request. If you require any further information, please contact me at your earliest convenience. I look forward to hearing from you.

I was actually pretty proud of this sucker. On it's face there's nothing tragically wrong with it, but that's only if you look at it from outside the industry as a standard business letter. Obviously, the first agent I queried was Donald Maass. (Sorry, Mr. Maass.) Needless to say, I didn't even get a rejection - since Mr. Maass only replies to equeries he's interested in.

Don't worry, folks, I've completely fixed these problems (including the inclination to write 137K word novels). Spectacle is now a much shorter book, and my query letters don't suck. This is a learning process. I hope that by giving you these links, and showing you my own foibles, you can learn to make your own queries that much better. And win an agent of your own.

So, if you have an agent, what advice do you have for querying writers? If you're still searching, like me, what mistakes have you learned from along the way?

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Life, The Writing and Everything

You know, I thought about blogging this weekend, but I just couldn't think of anything worth talking about. Of course, it didn't help that I got next to no sleep due to various life issues - which I won't bore you with.

On the writing front, I'm making some headway with editing Manhunter. Things are coming together, and the biggest change is that I'm weaving more of a burgeoning relationship between the heroine and the hero. I still don't think this is going to be the sweeping romance of the century, but more along the lines of suspense with romance elements. He's attractive in a Bruce Willis sort of way. She sort of reminds me of Mary in that new USA Network show 'In Plain Sight'. (Or rather the other way around since I wrote my heroine before the show even existed.) They'll get together and fall in love, but probably not so much on the pages of Manhunter. After all, they've got other things on their minds right now - like catching a killer.

I'm also making some real strides with Nano. Last night I didn't get much work done on either book, but the little lightbulb went off over my head and I figured out a significant plot twist - which I then had to go back and rewrite the end of a scene for. It only added about 150 words to the chapter before last, but it'll be so much better with what's to come next, it still feels like an accomplishment. The book is shaping into something I really love and unlike Manhunter, I think this one will be equal parts romance and suspense. Although, as with everything when you don't plot, that could change by the end of the book.

Now I must go work on some querying things so I can get RTL sold. With the help of my awesome CP and the wonderful Jackie Barbosa (who I won a query critique from), I really think I can get some more agent interest. To recap, I have a full out and a partial out - with the lead times for both being sometime toward the end of the summer. Of course, I feel really great about my chances with both of those, but you know the drill. If you expect something to happen, you have to work to make it happen. So, I'm wading back into the query world again with my next round of letters. (After spending another couple hours doing research and updating my agent info post on the blog and my personal database.)

Oh, and just because I'm still squeeing over the full request, I'd like to tell you that the agent in question said my premise was interesting and my writing was engaging. SQUEE!

Okay, enough about me. Tell me what's up in your life.

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Updated Info

I just finished adding a bunch of information to Agents, Sites, Blogs, Etc.

In case you hadn't heard, Deborah Grosvenor closed her offices and moved in with an agency called Kneerim & Williams at Fish & Richardson. (A lit agency within a law firm.)

Lucienne Diver moved to The Knight Agency from Spectrum Literary Agency. Adjust your queries accordingly.

Folio Literary Management started their own blog.

ETA: Also, Jeff Gerecke left JCA and moved to Gina Maccoby Literary Agency.

If you have anything to add, please leave a comment. The more information we have on literary agents, the better off we all are. =oD

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Full Blast Excitement

See now, yesterday I wrote a post about my excitement level being dimmed, and today, it's back on bright. I just got a request for FULL! Yay!

Now, if you'll pardon me, I must run around the house like an idiot. (I already jumped up and down with my daughter while we both squealed like those girls you see old footage of The Beatles concerts.)

Feel free to SQUEE along in the comments.

Update 10:42am: I just hit SEND. Now I think I just might either pass out or barf.

Persistence or Pestiness?

You may recall back in April I wrote a SQUEE post about a request for partial I received. Now it's been two months without a word and I'm wondering if this agent even received the email I sent her.

Oh, I know some agents take months on partials, and I'm willing to wait if I have to. But see, here's the thing... On a popular writerly forum, several people talk about her quick lead times. It seems that usually this particular person usually responds to a partial in 4-6 weeks. And I'm at 2 months.

Last year... or was it the year before?... I got a request for partial on Caldera from an agent with a stated 4 month lead time. I was patient. I waited. The four months went by with no word and I began to wonder if my partial disappeared into whatever black hole the USPS uses to lighten their bags. (Ever watch Seinfeld? Newman stowed mail in a storage garage so he wouldn't have to carry it.) After five months, I sent said agent a polite nudge via email and within a week, my SASE came back with a rejection in it.

My first thought was that somehow my submission materials got lost in a stack somewhere, and the nudge prompted her to dig out my SASE for the rejection that was waiting all along. My second thought was that my nudge pissed her off. That somehow she was sitting on the fence about my manuscript and my email pushed her over to the rejection side. (I mean, who wants to work with a pest?)

This morning I sent a polite nudge to the agent who requested a partial on RTL. We'll see what happens from this one.

The question in my mind, even as I was hitting the SEND button, is when does persistence cross the line into pestiness? If an agent has a stated lead time of 4 months, is it appropriate to send a nudge after 5 months? If an agent has no stated lead time, but other writers are saying she's gotten back to them in 4-6 weeks, is sending a note after 2 months being pesty?

Pardon me while I slip into the paranoia phase of my writing life. Yes, I know I should just chill out, but the thought of my stuff being lost somewhere in cyberspace makes it hard to relax.

PS. If you haven't seen it yet, Jessica Faust wrote a blog post about this very thing on Friday: The Art of Persistence. Scoot on over and check it out.

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What to Do?

As RTL floats out in the query sea, and Blink sits quietly (or not so quietly as the case may be) waiting for its turn, and Manhunter nears completion of its first draft, I've been wondering about something. How many books can you have in query mode at one time? If you can query more than one at a time, should you?

I write fast. (And before you worry that speed means lower quality, check out Allison Brennan's post today at Murder She Writes.) I can't help it. Sometimes the ideas just pour out of me. I write fast, but the industry moves slow. When it takes months (years?) to get from initial query letter to partial to full to eventual acceptance, sometimes I'm writing faster than the query process can bear. Which leaves me with a quandary.

Lately, I've been thinking about asking one of the many blogging agents about what they suggest for writers like me. This morning, I found my question had already been asked and kinda answered on agent Jonathan Lyons' blog. Unfortunately, the answers are coming from commenters, and not from the agent himself, so I'm still stuck in my quandary.

Let's backpedal a bit here. At the beginning of the year, I completed Blink. I love the book, and I think it will have an audience when (if?) it gets published. Around that same time, I finished the first draft of RTL. RTL is hot. To use an old phrase: "It's hip, it's happenin', it's now, it's wow." And unfortunately for Blink, it was a pushy story. After sending out five queries, I set Blink aside to work on RTL. Now RTL is done, and I'm querying for it. But I never really gave Blink a chance, and lately it's been popping into my head demanding I give it the submission attention it deserves. I keep telling it NO, but it keeps me awake at night, mentally writing query letters and blurbs and synopses in my head.

Frankly, it's driving me nuts.

And then there's Manhunter (working title only), which should be ready for submissions by the end of the summer. This book is very commercial, and I can imagine it sitting on the racks of my grocery store next to Allison Brennan and Roxanne St. Claire and that new Jordan Dane.

So here I am with potentially three books waiting for submission. They all deserve their shot, and they all could potentially win me an agent and then a publishing contract. The two that are ready now are both ready for publication.

I know, I know... Everyone should have such horrible problems to deal with.

Anyway, one suggestion was to pick the strongest work and focus on that. Ummm, yeah. Blink and RTL are both strong in their own ways. Blink is literary leaning toward commercial; RTL is commercial leaning toward literary. Both are speculative, both are suspenseful. They're completely different stories, of course, but each would help the other sell.

For now, I'll stick with RTL. Maybe while I'm waiting, I'll work on the submission materials for Blink - you know, just in case someone asks what else I have for them to look at. Meanwhile I'll keep my fingers crossed that something breaks before Manhunter is ready to jump into the fray.

What are your thoughts on this? Have you ever been in this situation, and if so, what did you do?

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Weather? I'm under it.

I feel gross, so don't expect great things from me today.

Instead, check out:

Why Do You Blog? - where Jessica over at BookEnds, LLC. talks about why she blogs.

Some interesting, if a little old, information on agents at Literary Agent News.

And if you haven't seen it yet, agent Janet Reid is gracing the world with her knowledge of good query letters with her creation of a new endeavor: QueryShark. If you read all that and still can't write a good query letter, heaven help you. (I seriously don't know how she does everything she does, but thank goodness she does.)

If you have any good agent links or blogs to share, please leave them in the comments. That's all from me. I'm going to collapse on the couch and watch reruns of shows I've already seen a million times.

To Snail or E-query

That is the question.

Personally, I prefer the equery method. It saves time, and as much as we've moved in the last four years, it saves my SASEs from getting lost. (And as much as the USPS has changed rates, it saves the darned envelopes from being returned for insufficient postage. Bastages.)

However, some agents don't allow for equeries. There are a bunch of those I'd like to submit to, but I'm leery for the aforementioned reasons. *sigh* What to do, what to do? For now, I'll just have to hold my breath and hope for the best. My poor little SASEs will have to fly out into the great beyond and find their ways home when the time is right.

Of course, the same can be said for equeries. Since my e-mail program seems to be having problems delivering my replies to the appropriate people, I'm freaking out about whether my requested partial made it and whether emailing her to make sure it's not floating lost in cyberspace is a breach of etiquette. (Don't worry. If I don't hear from her after her typical 4-6 week lead time, I'll send her a polite note to check if the partial is indeed in her capable hands.) I'm fine with new mail, but replies are shooting off into the ether, never to be heard from again. First it was my CP, and now my niece. Gah!

So each method has its pitfalls. That's also why I put both my email addresses in my signature. I figure if they can't get my private email to me, they can catch me at my gmail address. That seems to be working fine. (If it weren't such a pain to compose mail there, I'd have sent everything out through that addy to begin with, but cutting and pasting into gmail changes the layout, and what a PITA. I'm all about ease of use.)

I really do understand why some folks don't accept e-mail queries. For one thing, they're too easy. No printing, no line at the post office, no paying the every-increasing postage rates. And too easy means anyone can shoot off a query without having to think about it too hard. Which also means even those people who really shouldn't be querying are sending out queries, flooding the poor agents with loads of poorly worded, misspelled and just basically unprofessional queries. I might quit accepting them, too, if I were faced with the flood. (It also makes it so much easier for rejected writers to reply with more vitriol than is either proper or necessary - like this letter some moron sent to a friend of agent Colleen Lindsay. Sheesh.)

However, some of us poor wretches need email. Sure, I'd like to own a house, have a concrete foundation underneath me for years at a time, but my life doesn't work that way right now. (Personally, I'd like about 100 acres with a lake and trees and cute furry critters that will learn to eat out of my hand, but wish in one hand, if you know what I mean.) No matter where I live, though, my email follows me around. If not my private addy, then my gmail is forever.

On the other hand, some agents who accept e-mail as well as snail have different guidelines for each. Often you can shoot more pages with a snail query than with an equery. More pages is always good, right? Of course it is. I'd love to print off fifty pages and send them out today to an agent who just informed me they stopped taking equeries and invited me to resubmit via snail*. But it isn't always prudent to do so. (See above reasons, and feel the fear of orphaned envelopes.)

*heavy sigh* I guess I'll just keeping doing it both ways, and hoping for the best. Right now, though, the equeries go out first, and the hardcopies will follow at a later date. As much as I love my computer, sometimes there are things it just can't do.

What's your mode of preference? Do you snail or e-query?

*Don't worry, I'm getting the packet together to send out tomorrow.

Dis, Dat and De Udder Ting

My tenth days don't last nearly as long as they used to, thank goodness. At first, they lasted months. I got over this most recent one in 24 hours. Yay.

Last night I got out 1800 words again. It seems to be a pattern with me and this book. 1800 words and I'm spent. Of course, it might have to do with the fact that I start writing at 8pm and by the time I get those 1800 out, I'm ready for bed. (Yes, folks, if that means 90 minutes of writing, I'm in bed by 9:30ish. I'm a night writer, not a night owl.)

In other news, I got some lovely link-love from my blog-buddy JenWriter when she listed the best places to find agent info and listed my post Agent Sites, Blogs, Etc. (ETA 3:44pm: I just finished updating it) as one of them. I'm glad someone is finding that post useful besides me. I really did put it up so other writers could have one page of links to traipse through. Plus, when I want to visit a site, I no longer have to wade through my favorites folder. I just go there, find the alphabetical listing and I'm looking at the site.

On my own query front, I thought about putting my stats on the blog somewhere, but decided against it. Why advertise a rejection rate? It just puts up a big sign that says: My work failed with x-number of agents. Any agent researching me is just going to be turned off, no matter what those rejections ultimately meant. (And in this case, it says more about the subject matter of the book than the quality of the writing itself. I knew going in that this was going to be a touchy subject, and I'll take my chances with it.) So, while I have been submitting, I won't be sharing the results of those submissions. Let's just say, I've had two requests for partials, and leave it at that.

A vulture just flew over my house. I wonder if that has any hidden meaning. Which reminds me, for a fun look at superstitions, read Deborah LeBlanc's post over at Murder She Writes. Stop by and contribute some superstitions you've heard about.

Now for the question of the day... Notice the subject of this post is written in dialect. As a reader, how do you feel about reading dialects in novels? Do they irritate you, or do they help you get a sense of the character? Or if the author gets the dialect wrong, do you just want to throw the book against the wall?

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Mistakes Are OK

Agent Janet Reid has an awesome post I think my fellow writers should check out:

Make More Mistakes Not Fewer

Which is good considering how badly I screwed up in my query to her. Learn from my mistakes, folks. I know I did.

Information Updated

I spent a large chunk of the day doing agent research and now I'm passing some of that work onto my fellow pre-published authors. (Which basically means I updated my old post: Agent Sites, Blogs, Etc.)

Have fun. I'm going to go collapse somewhere. ;o)

Check, Recheck, Double-check, Fail

To quote Robert Burns: "The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley." (You know the translation there, folks.)

I sent my query letter out on Monday. I admit, it was a longshot, but the agent in question says she'll look at works that aren't on her preferred genre list, if they grab her. So I took a shot.

Mine didn't grab her.

She was very nice about it. She's trying to keep her focus on her main genres right now... yada yada yada... It was a form letter, which is just fine with me. However, as a PS at the bottom of the letter, she was extremely helpful by pointing out a gaff I made in my query letter. I misspelled a name I used as a reference point. Specifically I spelled the Roe in 'Roe vs Wade' as ROWE.

ACK!

and arrgghh.

Good thing I only sent one letter out with that on it, but one was enough. I don't think that one mistake was enough to kick me to the reject pile, but it couldn't have helped. (Which sucks because I think this particular agent and I could've been awesome together.)

Truth be told, I honestly thought it was Rowe. I was absolutely positive it was Rowe, which made me absolutely positive I didn't need to verify my spelling. I had several people look the letter over, and all of them must have thought it was right because no one said anything about it. (Including my very detail-oriented husband - I don't know who feels worse about screwing that up, me or him.)

If you were one of the many people who looked it over and missed it, don't feel bad. I googled Rowe vs Wade and came up with +20K hits. A whole bunch of people are in the same boat. (And now if someone else googles the phrase, this'll make one more hit.)

I guess the point I'm trying to make is you can check and recheck and double-check. You can have a dozen eyes look at your stuff. And you can still fail to catch it. Until the one pair of eyes that matters catches it and kicks it back to you.

If that one agent is somehow reading this post, thank you. You've done me a very great service by pointing that bone-head play out. (And she didn't even point out how stupid it was. Like I said, she was very nice - even though she didn't have to be.) Now I can move forward sans misspelling, and hopefully not booby-trap myself into a rejection.

Live and learn. (And if you can learn from my mistake, that'll make two of us.) ;o)

Now, I'm off to do some agent research and see if I can get this puppy sold.

Sincerity vs Sucking Up

Everybody likes compliments, but nobody likes a brown-noser.

There's a fine line between Sincerity and Sucking Up, but if you think about it, it's only on the part of the person receiving the compliments. The person giving the compliment generally knows exactly where that line is, and it's a wide one. So what do you do when you are trying to give a sincere compliment and the perception is that you're a brown-noser?

Let's step back for a second. Agents like to hear good things about themselves (who doesn't?) in your query letter. It shows you've done your research and that you're paying attention. Additionally, these good things have to be specific to the agent you're addressing, so obviously 'love you, love your blog/website/articles' isn't going to cut it.

On the other hand, agents don't like to hear things that obviously aren't true. For example, agent Colleen Lindsay of FinePrint Literary Management recently pointed out a gaff in a query she received: "Your years of experience in YA book sales make me feel that you are the perfect agent for me", which is unfortunate since she's a new agent and hasn't got years of sales under her belt yet (watch her, though - she's going to bust it out). She gives the sender the benefit of the doubt by assuming this person used copy/paste for sending out multiple e-mails without checking their facts. I think she's probably right, but to me, this is a case of blatant sucking-up.

So, where's the line?

I think the line lays between making a sincere effort to let the other person know you appreciate them and spewing out things you don't really believe (but that you're sure the other person wants to hear). Like telling an acquaintance how much you love her new haircut when in reality, you think it makes her look like her head went through a blender.

My mother always told me "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." Wise words. I'd add a corollary to that: If you don't mean what you're going to say, don't say it.

If I compliment you on something, you can be certain I mean it. If I include a compliment in my query letter, it's sincere. I really do think a certain agent is kick-ass (although I wouldn't put it quite that way in my letter to her), and I'd like to buy her a drink (also something not meant for query letter copy), and I really do believe that a partnership between us will bring us both lots of money with minimal drama (I hate drama, and so, apparently, does she). I occasionally leave compliments in the comments of people's blogs (yes, Allison Brennan rocks and I worship the desk she writes on, I wish I had half of Karin Tabke's chutzpah and a quarter of Kristen Painter's style), and I mean what I say. I don't suck-up.

What's all this mean? Mean what you say and say what you mean, and try not to gush when you're talking (writing a query) to someone who makes you want to squeal with glee at the thought you're having contact with them. I think that last part is the real issue with me. Sometimes I get to feeling like there are so few competent people left in the world, I gush over them when I find them. (Like the story of the incredibly competent gas station attendent and how I freaked her out when I told how much I appreciated her ability. What can I say, she was so good at her job, I still remember her a decade later.)

How do you handle compliments? Do you give them? Do you accept them well, or do they embarass you?

Following Directions

If you haven't noticed, BookEnds Literary Agency is having a contest (open until tomorrow morning). This rules are simple: 100 words (or less depending on where your sentence ends) from a mystery book. Please note how simple these guidelines are.

100 words. My entry ended up being 99 (per MS Word - not including title). I'm lucky my first paragraph fit the 100 word requirement. If you look at the entries though, it seems like a few people decided to fudge. (Nerd and snot that I am, I checked the word counts by coping them and then pasting them into Word. And don't worry if you're a contestant - they're all deleted now.) Really folks, don't you think BookEnds is doing the same thing to see who's following the rules? It's not rocket science for christsakes.

Mystery. I'll say it slow for you in case you have trouble with big words. MYS-TER-Y. You know where something bad happens and someone has to figure out who did it. Not romance. Not thriller. Not paranormal. Mystery. It says right on the blog what they're looking for. Follow the rules. Again, not brain surgery. Simple stuff.

So, why is it so hard for people to follow simple rules? Are they really that thick? Or is it simply that they don't feel the rules apply to them? Maybe they're so awesome, they think they'll be able to skate by.

I've read about this kind of slippage on different agent sites when it comes to queries. Now while it may be true not every rule is set in stone. Some agents even say they'll let a few things slip if the writing is good enough, but when the guidelines are fairly simple, it would behoove the writer to follow them. At least I would think so, but then again, I'm pretty big on following the rules - especially when my career is depending on it.

Tell me, what do you think BookEnds should do the rule fudgers? Be kind, or be strict? Personally, I think they should be booted and if they screw up again, they can't submit to the rest of these new contests with BookEnds. But that's me. After all, I'm female and I was born in the year of the dog. ;o)

BTW, my entry is for the first in my JA Mystery series - Cut and Dried. Hop on over and, while rooting for me is probably considered rude, think happy thoughts for me to win.

Deep Breath

Tonight I took a deep breath, plugged my nose and plunged into querying. I've been working on my query letter all day, and I went through numerous drafts (and all of my CP's patience, no doubt) until finally I was inspired. Now I just hope the agent I sent it out to likes it as much as I do.

Time will tell. Wish me luck (or better yet, wish me success - luck is too ephemeral).

(ETA: Woke up the next morning a little nauseous about the whole thing, but that's typical.)

What I Do - Agent Hunting

Bait them with lost masterpieces from Steinbeck?? Catch and release?

But seriously...

I thought I might start a series of 'What I Do' posts just to give everyone an idea of how I approach this whole crazy business of writing. (We'll see if it really turns into a series or if I totally blow it off by next week.)

This week, since I'm getting prepped for submitting Blink, I thought I'd talk about the process I go through when I'm agent hunting.

1) Write the book to completion. It sounds silly to say it, but from what I hear there are folks out there who query agents before their work is done. That may be fine for some people. It doesn't work for me. I can't even show my CP my books before they're as close to completion as I can get without outside input. (As in, I've edited it so much I can no longer be objective, so I pass it off to her to shred.) If you're sending out work you'd be ashamed to have your high-school English teacher read, then why in the name of all that's good would you send out a query for it. Even if the agent is interested, he's going to want to see more, and you don't have a polished piece to send him.

2) Decide what genre your book is. If you're a long time visitor to The Writing Spectacle, you may have already heard me grouse about this subject. I am horrible at deciding what genre my books fit under. Of course, it probably would be easier if I wrote straight genre of some kind, but most of my work swings on several sides of the street at once (and no, I don't write that kind of fiction - it's a metaphor). But in order to target the right agents, you have to know what it is you're sending them. Take Blink, for instance. It could be considered soft SF. It could be considered 'speculative fiction'. It could be considered literary. So who do I send to??? The short anwer is everyone who represents any of those three genres. The long answer is...

3) Do a boatload of research. For example, today I spent a large portion of the day on AgentQuery.com (which if you haven't used it, is an awesome first research source). I waded through the listings for agents who represent SF. 8 pages worth of listings, or 64 total agent names to read through. And read through them, I did. As I read each listing, I ignored any agent listing who, other than checking some box for SF, didn't actually say anything about SF in their listing. I also dismissed any agent who only talks about hard SF. I paid special attention to those people who said they were looking for future SF and social SF, as well as those few who specifically said 'speculative'. I looked through their client lists and picked agents whose clients styles seemed similar to my own, or their subject matter was closely related. (For instance, I printed off the listing for Ray Bradbury's agent, even though Blink only resembles Fahrenheit 451 in the dystopia aspect, it's worth a shot.) Additionally, I went a step farther for the ones I liked.

4) I looked at their websites, if one was available. I read their individual agent bios. I looked at their philosophies. I tried to see if they were a good match not only for my work, but also for my personality and beliefs. As much as I'd like to get an agent, I don't want to go through all that work only to reach the point where I can't stand them and they can't stand me on some personal level. This is only business, but we still have to work together. An example of this is one agency that looked particularly yummy until I went to their website and learned they are very environmentally conscious (treehuggers or if not, borderline ones). One look at Caldera, and we'd come to blows. It's not worth the effort only to have the relationship dissolve eventually.

5) The next thing I do before I send out any queries is I take each of the potential matches and run an internet search on them. I read whatever articles they've written, any news pertaining to them, any warnings or cautions. I figure this'll keep me away from the scammers out there. So far, so good. Part of this process is checking them out at Preditors and Editors. P&E keeps up with all the scuttlebutt about agents, they tell writers who's good and who's bad, and they keep our butts out of the fire. Another place I go is Writers Beware. Those gals are the best watchers for scam agents and schisters.

6) Finally, before even start creating query packets, I plug all of the keepers into a database program so I can keep track of who has what, when I sent it, and what their reaction was. Personally, I use an antiquated contact management program (for DOS). It works for me most of the time and when it doesn't, it takes ten minutes to reload. I can use it to generate letters, too, but the letter template looks hokey, so I don't bother. I highly recommend using some tracking system to keep yourself in the loop on your own submissions. Mine not only helps me stay on track, but it also prevents me from sending things to people who've already rejected them. When I sent out queries for Spectacle (back in 2004 when I was still a neophyte), I didn't keep track of anything. I even threw out the rejections. Then my computer crashed and I lost the names of everyone I had already queried. If any agents reading this got multiple submissions on Spectacle after that, please forgive me for my stupidity. Now, not only do I have everything backed up and protected, but I also have hard copies of everything.

7) Now that I'm ready to query, I have to go through the business of writing and perfecting a query letter, a synopsis, an outline, and making sure I'm ready if anyone requests a partial or a full. I won't go over all that here. Plenty of sites online help with creating those things, and making sure your manuscript is polished. You'll get much better information there than I can provide at this time.

And then I sit back and wait.

Okay, I don't really sit back and wait. I keep working on my other books and wait. Sitting back is not allowed. Even after you get a contract, there's no sitting back in writing.

I'll be starting querying again after I'm sure my manuscript is polished, and I still have to write that darned synopsis. Keep a happy thought for me.

Now, what're YOU waiting for?