Category Archives: Dirty work

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From SASE to Body of Email… Overnight

My first round of queries went out, mostly via US Mail, in late ’09. One page query letter plus SASE was the formula for 90% of the agents I queried. Lots of paper, lots of stamps. It seemed so archaic and wasteful, but who was I to complain?

Exactly two years later, I started querying again. This time, 90% of agents want a query letter (and maybe first pages or synopsis) in the body of an email.

Okay, so two years isn’t exactly overnight. But what changed in two years? Email hasn’t changed much since 2009. Maybe if we’re talkin’ 1994 to 1996, yes, I’d understand.

Now I’m querying again. At the end of 2012, email preference remains. I just visited an agency website that says “we only accept email queries only.” And it’s not the first I’ve seen.

Will the year 2010 be remembered for the year all literary agents went green? What sparked it, and why was it so effective?

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Taking Comfort in the Failure of Others

To any writer who’s in the process of querying, you might find comfort and good company at the site below. There’s also a voyeuristic quality that–admit it–we all love.

Meanwhile, my query machine chugs away. Maybe I should trade it in for a new one with push-button start and other upgrades, like, faster returning rejections that are better aimed for my face. It’s just so anticlimactic when they miss.

The thing is, they miss a lot. Because when your fingers are bruised nubs from years of revising, when your beta readers say nothing but “Can I read the next book? Now?”, when you know deep in your subconscious that your manuscript is polished to a shine and finally ready for the next step toward publishing, those rejections aren’t so bad. Each “not right for me” is another mile-marker blurring past your query machine headed for Destination YES.

Wait. Did I say blurring? I meant crawling.

Check it out: Literary Rejections on Display

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Can a Writer Ever Relax?

Can a writer sleep without dreaming dialogue of a current work in progress?

Can a writer enjoy a sunset without thinking of different ways to describe it in words?

Can a writer listen to a song without imagining which scene of the work in progress it would best fit into?

Can a writer concentrate on a day job without thinking when can I go home and write when can I go home and write when can I go home and write?

Can a writer go anywhere without a laptop, smartphone, or notebook and pen?

Can a writer read a published novel written by another writer without noticing every unnecessary adverb, every extraneous dialogue tag, every POV slip, every echoed word, and every cliché?

Can a writer watch a movie without judging which actor would best play the hero?

Can a writer ever stop writing?

“If I don’t write to empty my mind, I go mad.”
–Lord Byron

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Don’t Do the Math

I probably shouldn’t post this. The numbers aren’t pretty. But at least it can explain why your fabulous manuscript is getting rejected. You just need to query more! A lot more.

Rotten Rejections

So it may not be you. It’s just your bad luck. But! You can’t win the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket, right?

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How to Land an Agent and a Book Deal

From Tahereh Mafi. Her novel SHATTER ME comes out in November. She’s 23. Which makes me think: what was I doing when I was 23? Nothing.

Okay maybe it was kind of something. Something stupid fun interesting. Something called a Money Pit.

Tahereh explains her process. Which worked.

How to Land an Agent and a Book Deal

She has another entertaining blog here. It’s addictive. I can’t stop clicking “Next”.

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Blog Skim Query Push

I just got lost in a maze of writer’s blogs. Blogs linking to blogs linking to blogs.

Have you mastered the art of the Blog Skim? You skim a blog. You think, “There’s a lot of useful info here. I need to read this. Oh, what’s this link? Let me click. Lots of useful info here too. I need to come back and read this. Wait, another link. Let me click.”

An endless maze. You never learn anything useful. All you learn is there’s a lot of useful info out there, if you could just stop being distracted long enough maybe you could read it.

That being said, I need to read these later:

I’m intrigued by the idea of “transparent narrative.” I understand the concept (and have applied it), but I didn’t know there was a term for it. I’d like to go through my whole MS again to find areas where I could apply more transparency.

From cmichaelfontes.com:

Transparent Narrative is what happens when your reader stops reading and start seeing. They no longer read word by word, sentence by sentence, or paragraph by paragraph. Rather, they mindlessly flip pages, absorbing the story into their heads, unaware of the outside world and are completely immersed in the movie that is playing in their minds eye. This one thing, above all else, should be the goal of every writer. I know that I made comments about how POV affects transparency, but that is only one piece of the puzzle. Every thing else… I mean everything (character, plot, motivation, word craft, voice, pacing and rhythm, etc etc etc) will determine how transparent your story is. Once again, watch for a post about transparent narrative coming up.

Once I get through the other links, I’ll post some useful tips.

I also found two more books I want to read before I query:

Every time I finish one book on writing, I find TWO more books to read. Every time I finish editing my MS for one issue/idea, I find TWO more things to edit for.

Q: At what point are you ready to query?
A: When you die NEVER

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Writing Status

The query letter is written. I’ve put it away to fester. We’ll see how I feel about it when I drag it out of confinement.

Believe what everyone says about a query letter. It is impossible to write. Here’s what I’ve learned (which is basically what all writers websites tell you).

  1. Write your query letter
  2. Read every single post on Query Shark
  3. Put your query letter away for a year
  4. Throw away your original query letter and write a new one
  5. Buy a wig because you will have ripped out all of your hair
  6. Buy a new family because they will all hate you