Saturday, February 2, 2013

Query Time Again

It's query time again for my novel.  I have rewritten, edited and re-edited my work, searched for agents who represent my genre at Query Tracker and Agent Query, completed due diligence via Preditors and Editors and Writers Beware, and honed my query letter and synopsis. Now, I am hopeful that an agent may become excited about the story I have written.

After sending queries out two weeks, ago, I have received one standard rejection out of ten. In my book, that's nine more chances to land one of many fabulous agents.  The glass is always half full, never half empty.

If you are a writer and submit to magazines, agents, and/or publishers, you will get rejected. I doubt any writer has had a one hundred percent acceptance rate.  If you have never gotten rejected, please share how you did it.

At the writing forums I frequent, many writers want to know while they have their work on submission. The best advice I have seen, which I also follow, is to work on something else.

My something else is my second novel.  I started this one about six or seven years ago, but never got past the first chapter until last year.  I now have written twelve chapters and between 20 and 30 thousand words. I keep a running synopsis so I don't forget an important plot point or a thread that needs follow through.

I am also writing some short stories and editing the newsletter for the Redwood Writers Club. This year, I would like to submit some of my short stories as well as look into other areas of writing.

I could be stressing over the what ifs while waiting for agent responses, or beating myself when I receive a rejection, but I am choosing to stay neutral and to work on those other projects. Besides writing, my job is to put my best work out there without expectation of the outcome.



Hello, Everyone! I am throwing out a reminder to followers of this blog that I have launched a new website which I am now maintaining at w...