So after my first rejection, I turned around and won a query critique from the fine folks at Writer Therapy!
For my non-writing readers, a query is a bare bones (250-300 word) summary of your book designed to 'hook' an agent and get them to read your book. Think of the back cover blurbs of all the books you see on the shelves. A query reads a lot like that back cover copy. You make a decision on a new book at least in part because of what is written there and the agent makes the same decision by reading a query.
Agents see hundreds of queries a week, so making a query stand out is vitally important. You can write the next Great American Novel, but it doesn't get published if you can't find an agent or editor who can make a decision to read it. To do that, you need a great query.
Quite frankly, queries are often harder than writing the book. As I mentioned in previous posts, a typical novel is between 70k and 120k words. Trying to distill that down to 300 and convey all the humor, suspense, and enough plot to hook a reader -- not to mention a professional reader -- is really frikken hard.
That is why I am so psyched to have won this contest. To have someone look at the query and give their input is a leg up on thousands of other writers that I didn't have yesterday. So, yeah, I have perma-grin on my face today!
By the way, a quick editing update: 48,900 words, 180 pages. Halfway home!
And a shout out to my friend Jamie over at This isn't Rocket Science!, who was also one of the ten winners and without whom, I would have never known about the contest. Thanks, Jamie!
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Saturday, September 22, 2012
First Rejection - I became chum!
I got my first rejection today!
Yay! Almost a rite of passage, from what I understand. The good thing is that it was entirely expected. Janet Reid is a well-known literary agent and offers a once a week "Chum Bucket" where she answers queries with a personal note, eschewing a form letter reply. It is quite nice of her to think of the minnows out there.
Quite frankly, she doesn't represent work in my genre and I knew that. However, some of her fellow agents in her agency do and, at best, I was hoping for a "hey, why don't you try [agent X]". Instead, I got a very nice reply stating that zombies weren't her thing.
But, she didn't tear apart my query and she didn't tell me I sucked royally (and she would, if not quite so bluntly...or, well, yeah, she would put it bluntly). Neither did she refer me to remedial query school, which is good, considering I have read the entirety of the QueryShark website. I would have been quite humbled if I had fouled up that bad.
So, I am happy with "It's not my thing."
To use a baseball analogy, I didn't strike out. Then again, I didn't even get a bunt single, much less a double off the wall. But I put the ball solidly into play. I like to think it was a liner to left field.
The lesson learned? I can face the pitchers in this league. It may have been my first at-bat, but I am going to keep swinging.
Yay! Almost a rite of passage, from what I understand. The good thing is that it was entirely expected. Janet Reid is a well-known literary agent and offers a once a week "Chum Bucket" where she answers queries with a personal note, eschewing a form letter reply. It is quite nice of her to think of the minnows out there.
Quite frankly, she doesn't represent work in my genre and I knew that. However, some of her fellow agents in her agency do and, at best, I was hoping for a "hey, why don't you try [agent X]". Instead, I got a very nice reply stating that zombies weren't her thing.
But, she didn't tear apart my query and she didn't tell me I sucked royally (and she would, if not quite so bluntly...or, well, yeah, she would put it bluntly). Neither did she refer me to remedial query school, which is good, considering I have read the entirety of the QueryShark website. I would have been quite humbled if I had fouled up that bad.
So, I am happy with "It's not my thing."
To use a baseball analogy, I didn't strike out. Then again, I didn't even get a bunt single, much less a double off the wall. But I put the ball solidly into play. I like to think it was a liner to left field.
The lesson learned? I can face the pitchers in this league. It may have been my first at-bat, but I am going to keep swinging.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Editing update
Just a quick note to say that my editing continues, much to the chagrin of Loving Wife. Heh, she thought my online gaming was bad, now she has me sitting at a computer editing away for hours.
So, the update:
15 chapters
125 pages
33,000 words
These middle chapters originally did not have one of the main three characters and are taking a little longer as I fit him back in, but I am one-third of the way through the book. I can also see my writing improving. It was right around this point that the writing picked up steam again and it is cleaner, less muddled. Let's hope the rest of this goes a little faster.
I have also been polishing my query and trying to win various writing contests advertised through Twitter (follow me @ DavHalt). The agent list is also being whittled down to the dozen or so likely candidates with a few 'first choice' folks who rep the same genre as me.
I will check back in with another update down the road! Back to the dungeon for more writing/editing.
Cheers.
-AA
So, the update:
15 chapters
125 pages
33,000 words
These middle chapters originally did not have one of the main three characters and are taking a little longer as I fit him back in, but I am one-third of the way through the book. I can also see my writing improving. It was right around this point that the writing picked up steam again and it is cleaner, less muddled. Let's hope the rest of this goes a little faster.
I have also been polishing my query and trying to win various writing contests advertised through Twitter (follow me @ DavHalt). The agent list is also being whittled down to the dozen or so likely candidates with a few 'first choice' folks who rep the same genre as me.
I will check back in with another update down the road! Back to the dungeon for more writing/editing.
Cheers.
-AA
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
First Page Contest at Writers Therapy!
Very cool!
In a down low bluesy sort of way.
Not the cold macaroni salad sort...
A First Page Contest sponsored by Writer Therapy. Check it out! I am entering. You should, too!
You know, if you have a book. That you've written. Not one off your shelf. That wouldn't be fair.
--Cheers! AA
In a down low bluesy sort of way.
Not the cold macaroni salad sort...
A First Page Contest sponsored by Writer Therapy. Check it out! I am entering. You should, too!
You know, if you have a book. That you've written. Not one off your shelf. That wouldn't be fair.
--Cheers! AA
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Scribophile
So in perusing the interwebs the other evening, I came across a website called Scribophile. It is a website where you can sign up to critique other people's work and have your own critiqued. While I have always had vague worries of posting my writing on websites, it wasn't the worries you would think. I don't worry about someone stealing my work or ideas as the chances of that happening are almost non-existent. What I did worry about was losing publishing rights because the work would be posted to the website.
Scribophile eased my fears of that since a) when you sign up, they have some legal documents you must electronically agree to that basically says 'you get to keep all rights to your stuff', and b) they have a section that highlights and trumptes published work by the authors that are members of the website.
Pretty cool stuff. So I jumped on, earned some karma points for critiquing some other work, and posted my first chapter of the book.
Holy guacamole! Talk about invigorating. This is copied verbatim from one of the critiquers:
Now, I know what you are thinking. There are a bunch of critiquers on there that just post shit to make you feel good or they say the same damn thing about everyone. I thought the same thing. The cool thing about Scribophile? You can't hide what you have done. I was able to go back and review more than a dozen of this person's critiques. It turns out, she's an English teacher. And she spares nothing on many of the works she critiques, slicing and dicing many manuscripts from top to bottom. In other words, she had no reason to say what she did about mine, but she did anyway. Cuz she liked it.
I got three more critiques on that first chapter that all had extremely positive things to say. While I have had some very smart and helpful people help me edit that first chapter into its current incarnation (thanks Loving Wife and Space Cadet 570 and Angela James!), I can't tell you how rewarding it is to have complete strangers write things like what you see above.
So the vim and vigor is back in Aspiring Author's typing fingers. The earlier rewrites I mentioned are complete and after tonight, I have the first 100 pages and close to 25,000 words edited and I can't wait to keep going.
If you have been dying to see my first chapter (and chapters 2 and 3), I invite you to head on over to Scribophile. It's free to sign up, the people are friendly and even if you never critique or have any writing to post, it's fascinating to see people going through the process. If you do go over, look me up. I am listed under Dave Halter and my avatar is the familiar Jack-o-lantern you see off to the left of this blog.
By the way, many thanks to the folks that let me know after my last post either here in the comments or via Facebook or in person (hi Loving Wife!) that you get the feeds from the blog and support me by reading. It is very encouraging and I am glad these words aren't drifting in cyberspace like pixelated chaff.
Cheers!
Scribophile eased my fears of that since a) when you sign up, they have some legal documents you must electronically agree to that basically says 'you get to keep all rights to your stuff', and b) they have a section that highlights and trumptes published work by the authors that are members of the website.
Pretty cool stuff. So I jumped on, earned some karma points for critiquing some other work, and posted my first chapter of the book.
Holy guacamole! Talk about invigorating. This is copied verbatim from one of the critiquers:
I can't find anything to criticize in this. If it were a book on the shelves, I would buy it. If the rest of the novel were as good/entertaining/awesome as this first chapter, I would buy copies for my friends. This was terribly interesting, with great characters and characterizations. Any question I had while reading was answered in seconds. I can't wait to read more! Good job!
Now, I know what you are thinking. There are a bunch of critiquers on there that just post shit to make you feel good or they say the same damn thing about everyone. I thought the same thing. The cool thing about Scribophile? You can't hide what you have done. I was able to go back and review more than a dozen of this person's critiques. It turns out, she's an English teacher. And she spares nothing on many of the works she critiques, slicing and dicing many manuscripts from top to bottom. In other words, she had no reason to say what she did about mine, but she did anyway. Cuz she liked it.
I got three more critiques on that first chapter that all had extremely positive things to say. While I have had some very smart and helpful people help me edit that first chapter into its current incarnation (thanks Loving Wife and Space Cadet 570 and Angela James!), I can't tell you how rewarding it is to have complete strangers write things like what you see above.
So the vim and vigor is back in Aspiring Author's typing fingers. The earlier rewrites I mentioned are complete and after tonight, I have the first 100 pages and close to 25,000 words edited and I can't wait to keep going.
If you have been dying to see my first chapter (and chapters 2 and 3), I invite you to head on over to Scribophile. It's free to sign up, the people are friendly and even if you never critique or have any writing to post, it's fascinating to see people going through the process. If you do go over, look me up. I am listed under Dave Halter and my avatar is the familiar Jack-o-lantern you see off to the left of this blog.
By the way, many thanks to the folks that let me know after my last post either here in the comments or via Facebook or in person (hi Loving Wife!) that you get the feeds from the blog and support me by reading. It is very encouraging and I am glad these words aren't drifting in cyberspace like pixelated chaff.
Cheers!
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Catching up
So, yeah, it's been a while. Again.
So many things going on as the summer winds down around Aspiring Author's household. Unfortunately, most of these things are not typical summer activities. I still have the Feds showing up at work to check out the hospital every few weeks. Thankfully, they seemed to have accepted my plans of correction for all their niggling issues, so even though they may be back in other areas, the pharmacy should be just about clear. But it is still friggin exhausting.
On the writing front, I finished up the Before You Hit Send self-editing workshop this past week. It was phenomenal. I find myself with a much better eye for the fluff and garbage now, which is -- or will be -- invaluable come submission time.
As for the book itself, the editing process is going well, but has slowed down. The first nine chapters were flowing along nicely, but with the aid of the workshop, I could tell the next three to four chapters were a big black hole of unnecessary description. It wasn't hard to see this, especially since this is where the book originally bogged down when I first latched onto the idea. I struggled with these chapters for several months to almost a year before inspiration took hold and the rest of the book basically flowed from my fingers into the keyboard like a dam had broken.
Unfortunately, it was not as simple as slicing those chapters out. To get to the point where the story 'works' again, I would have had to rewrite before and after so much, that it made sense just to rework those pesky chapters. Thankfully, there was a glaring plot hole that needed to be filled and I am in the process of writing that section now. In the long run, I think it will turn out to be one to two longer chapters, but chapters that build a much cleaner foundation for the ending events in the book.
Alas, this also means that I have to hold off on editing down the line until I get these two other chapters written and, quite frankly, I have been completely exhausted in the evenings until the last day or two.
So, for those of you still reading the ramblings, thanks for your patience. It's still a little wierd not getting many comments back so I feel these words are being set free into cyberspace with very little support, but since the primary goal of this blog is to keep me writing, mission accomplished. At least for tonight.
So many things going on as the summer winds down around Aspiring Author's household. Unfortunately, most of these things are not typical summer activities. I still have the Feds showing up at work to check out the hospital every few weeks. Thankfully, they seemed to have accepted my plans of correction for all their niggling issues, so even though they may be back in other areas, the pharmacy should be just about clear. But it is still friggin exhausting.
On the writing front, I finished up the Before You Hit Send self-editing workshop this past week. It was phenomenal. I find myself with a much better eye for the fluff and garbage now, which is -- or will be -- invaluable come submission time.
As for the book itself, the editing process is going well, but has slowed down. The first nine chapters were flowing along nicely, but with the aid of the workshop, I could tell the next three to four chapters were a big black hole of unnecessary description. It wasn't hard to see this, especially since this is where the book originally bogged down when I first latched onto the idea. I struggled with these chapters for several months to almost a year before inspiration took hold and the rest of the book basically flowed from my fingers into the keyboard like a dam had broken.
Unfortunately, it was not as simple as slicing those chapters out. To get to the point where the story 'works' again, I would have had to rewrite before and after so much, that it made sense just to rework those pesky chapters. Thankfully, there was a glaring plot hole that needed to be filled and I am in the process of writing that section now. In the long run, I think it will turn out to be one to two longer chapters, but chapters that build a much cleaner foundation for the ending events in the book.
Alas, this also means that I have to hold off on editing down the line until I get these two other chapters written and, quite frankly, I have been completely exhausted in the evenings until the last day or two.
So, for those of you still reading the ramblings, thanks for your patience. It's still a little wierd not getting many comments back so I feel these words are being set free into cyberspace with very little support, but since the primary goal of this blog is to keep me writing, mission accomplished. At least for tonight.
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