Lest anyone think you’ve been forgotten, I wanted to stop in and give a little update. I’m still submitting. Got requests for partials from a couple more agents, which is great. I have started working on a new book which I will talk about when I’m a little further into it. So pretty much status quo around here.
At the risk of embarrassing myself
I feel compelled to share something with you. You should understand that sharing this information could lead to potentially huge embarrassment for me. I say this because I include my website address in all of my queries. If you are an agent checking me out with the possibility of being a potential client please disregard the rest of this post. Okay? Thank you.
Remember that post about the email I got from Deidre Knight and how thrilled I was? Yeah, I carry that email around in my back pocket. I also have it posted downstairs above my writing area and on the board above my desk at work. Why? I don’t know really. It’s not as if it was gushing praise of my superior writing ability. It was two sentences that amounted to I really like what I’ve read so far, send me the rest.
But here’s the thing…in this process of trying to get past an assistant to an agent and hopefully get anything other than a form rejection, to have someone, an important someone, tell you they get it is an awesome feeling. When I view it, it’s a reminder that maybe I am kind of good at this writing thing after all. When I get frustrated, I read it again and realize that I can do this.
Is there going to be a lot more work ahead? Of course. I get that. I understand that Deidre asking for more doesn’t mean I’m not going to get another form rejection to add to my pile. But for a moment, just for a moment, I can pretend my book is something great and that I’m not the only one that sees that.
More good news!!
Just thought I’d pop in and let you know that I have received notification of my final placement for the FF&P contest. I took First!!! I’m so incredibly surprised and thrilled. I will also receive a shiny new banner to display here on my site. Yay me! It’s been a good week. 🙂
Sorry for the delay….
The fact is, I haven’t updated the blog lately because I was a little bummed about this whole process. I was getting rejection after rejection on my queries. And I got two more rejections on partials, not only were they rejections, they were form rejections. No real feedback at all. ugh. It really makes you second guess yourself.
But then I got some totally awesome news just when I needed it. You remember my very first blog post way back when about Deidre Knight? (if not you should totally go read it. I’ll wait here. Done? Okay, then…) Anyway, here’s the thing about Deidre, and I have to be honest here, I had already crossed her off the list of potential agents in my brain. Not because I didn’t want her as an agent, quite the opposite in fact, but because I considered her unattainable. There was no way she was going to want me.
Well, guess what? She liked what I sent her enough to ask for the full manuscript! This is huge! I’m thrilled and overwhelmed and all that stuff. This is the first time this has happened to me cuz I’m still pretty new at all this submission stuff, and it’s impossible to describe. The feeling you get when an agent reads part of your book and wants to read more is this heady combination of absolute terror and total elation. As usual, I’ll let y’all know how it goes.
Oh, and the contest? Still haven’t heard anything about the final placements. grrr. will let you know when I do though!
Lots of news
First and foremost, I want to share that I have finaled in the FF&P contest I entered! I am so excited and completely overwhelmed. Only the top three entries final so I know I’m no lower than 3rd. Now the finalists have been sent on to an agent from Curtis Brown who will do the final round of judging. I should know how I place around the 1st of December or so.
Second, an update on the querying process. I received another request for a partial, but it’s been rejected already and got 5 or so more rejections on the query itself. So no good news there, but I’m still plugging along. Besides now in my query letter I can say I was a finalist in a contest. 🙂
An update
Just a quick update to everyone following along on my journey. Several queries have been sent. I have received 3 rejections total thus far and 2 requests for partials. Yay! For the requests not the rejections. Just clarifying.
Also that doesn’t include the submissions I already had out. So the count right now: 3 rejections, 3 partials and 1 full. I’ll take that count.
Entering another Contest
So one of my friends suggested I enter this contest. It’s sponsered by the Guide to Literary Agents. All that’s required is entering your first 150-200 words. If you win an agent critiques your first ten pages and you get a subscription to Writer’s Digest.
If any of you write paranormal romance or urban fantasy, click the link and enter!
I’ll let you know how it goes.
On rejection
Okay, so here’s the thing….rejection sucks.
What’s that? You were expecting some big eloquent blog post about the trials and tribulations of rejection in the writer’s life? Yeah, sorry. Not going to happen. Mainly because despite the multitude of resources, blogs, writer’s handbooks, etc with all their differing takes on the subject, they all boil down to the fact that rejection sucks.
See, even though my idea was enough to get me a request for a partial from a prestigious agent and a full from an editor with Kensington books, one form rejection on a query makes me doubt everything. And why should it? I mean Kensington freaking books wants to read my manuscript people! This is huge. Over the moon outstanding even.
But until I actually have an agent, I will keep querying. I will keep putting myself out there and taking the risk. And I will keep getting rejected. Okay, maybe not. Maybe today’s lightning fast rejection (it came back in less than 12 hours) was a fluke. Maybe everyone else will read my query and think it sounds awesome and ask for multitudes of pages. Maybe.
And part of me knows that the rejections that come after pages are read, after a full has been requested and rejected will be so much harder. I mean, how can they not like this thing that I poured a year of my life into? How dare they tell me it’s not for them? Then I’ll look back over it and think “oh, my god. This is horrible. How could I write such crap?” And my friends will smack me on the back of the head and tell me to get over it, because I rock, my book rocks, and my main character can kick your ass on any given day of the week.
You see that little niggling thread of doubt that has woven its way through this post? That is why rejection sucks. Writers doubt themselves constantly. We agonize, we analyze. And no matter how many people tell you what you do is awesome, that one rejection from someone who probably skimmed your letter and said, no kick ass heroines for me today, will always make you wonder if you can do this.
I know I can, and I’m not going to quit trying even if every query and all the pages I have out right now come back saying ‘not for me.’ So I guess you got the long post you were after even if it’s not very eloquent. But it still all boils down to…Rejection sucks.
I am literally floating…
I had the opportunity through my Futuristic, Fantasy and Paranormal RWA group to pitch to an editor Megan Records with Kensington books today. She has requested my full manuscript! I am blown away and so thrilled. It will be a couple of months before I hear back but I wanted to share the good news!
This writing thing
I write constantly. I mean you might think I’m looking up information in the computer at work or shopping for groceries, but really I’m writing. My brain is always processing information, storing it away to be used later. I don’t even get a break when I’m sleeping. I keep a database of book ideas to refer to later, I’d say roughly 75% of those came from dreams.
Yeah, I have odd dreams. I actually had a friend who told me once that it wasn’t what I wrote that bothered her, it was the fact it was in my head before I wrote it. What can I say. She had a point.
There are times actually when I have a new idea or a new character beating against my brain. I think about it constantly, all the time, no matter what. Even if I’m working on a different project at the time. I have found when this happens that I have to sit down and get the idea down.
That doesn’t mean I have to write the whole book, or even a whole story. I just have to get enough of it down that I don’t need to keep it in my brain any longer. Once I do that, the voices are subdued enough I can work on other things.
Before you comment on the voices thing, I should mention I’m not the only person I know that hears voices. Several of my writer friends do as well. Yes, there’s a whole group of us. Scary thought, huh?
The whole point of this post? I’m one of those people who can not not write. Yes that’s a double negative. Get over it. What I mean is that I am incapable of not writing. I’ve tried it, it doesn’t work. I’ve written in some form or another consistently since middle school. The only time I went for any prolonged period without writing was when I was pregnant and I think that’s because my brain was mush for about 7 months of that time. So this writing thing, isn’t a cute little hobby of mine. It isn’t something I picked up to fill my free time. I have no free time. It’s not even something I have a choice about doing. I have to write or I’ll go insane. Of that I have no doubt.
Kathleen Collins 