Q is for Query Tracker

So I've used Query Tracker to find agents who might be appropriate, but I've never used it for.... you know... tracking... And I'm not sure I'm using it optimally to find agents... I mean I generate names of people who take my genres but still have to look into every person individually to see what they really like (And I believe I have not been particularly good at this).

Some trackers are hotter than others...

So nimble readers...

What tricks can YOU make Query Tracker do?

Have you had any big successes using it?

Are there any shortcuts in this process?

How is the system better than an Excel spreadsheet?

Is there some competing system you like better?

I'm Schrodinger's Cat

Welcome to Digressuary 6

What the heck am I on about Schrodinger's Cat for? Because of course it is first Wednesday, and therefore the day we have Insecure Writers Support Group. And I'm feeling... perhaps insecure...


See, it's like this...

No, lemme back up. What is Schrodinger's Cat?

Schrodinger was a mean rotten scientist that liked to make people imagine horrible things for the purpose of stretching their wee brains philosophically.

It goes something like this:

There is a cat in a box with some radio active something something poison something and there is exactly equal likelihood that the poison has or has NOT released and killed the cat... well philosophically, instead of saying there was equal probability, this nut wants us to think BECAUSE WE DON'T KNOW, the cat is alive and dead at the same time. Both possibilities exist.

What does that have to do with me?

One word: ABNA. Okay, that's an acronym. Five words: Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest.

Right now we are ONE WEEK away from hearing if our pitches passed us to the next round. Chances are my pitch has been read... I am both alive and dead right now.

Of course in the grand scheme of the contest, only 5 of 10,000 get prizes, so probably I am headed for certain death, but I might live a little longer yet... long enough to go for a walk...

ALSO this week: I sent 5 queries... those are on top of the 7 I think I still have 'out there'. Most likely am dead on those. Odds aren't nearly as good as living another week in the ABNA contest...

But see... the thing of it is, unlike Schrodinger's poor cat, we can play this thing over and over and over... until we live!!!

So LIVE friends! LIVE! Even if you have to die a bunch of times first! Erm...

First Impressions

So I am ALSO at Burrowers, Books and Balderdash today talking about... among other things... BIRTHDAYS! (also the Summer Solstice and Harry Potter), but HERE, I wanted to share some of my observations from the last few weeks of hiring.

For the record, I think we've found our man... ironically, literally a man... (I say ironically, as men are pretty rare in the position which is functionally a secretary.)

But in screening letters and resumes I noticed a couple things that I thought fit the WRITING thing, too...

HOLY COW DO FIRST IMPRESSIONS MATTER!?

A cover letter and a resume... bio... anything that goes the first time you contact someone has to be ABSOLUTELY typo free. No misspellings, no formatting SNAFUs.... Heck, I rejected TWO different letters for misusing WHOM. I don't need to say it HERE, but there are definitely people who missed the WHO is a subject, WHOM is an object part of the lesson.

On that formatting thing, I had a letter that was single spaced for ONE paragraph and double for the rest... (for the record, business letters are single spaced within paragraph and double between)

MAKE CRUCIAL INFO EASY TO FIND

Now in a resume this CAN be tricky because you aren't quite sure what they want and you definitely need to be inclusive, BUT there are a few tricks. And they apply to the writing contacts as well.

Read what they are LOOKING FOR! Reinforce these points, even if they are already there—especially if they are not absolutely clear. This is especially important if your credentials don't speak for themselves. Mention the keywords in their description. If they say they like edgy, reiterate what is edgy about your work. If they say they like character growth, doesn't hurt to point out the lessons your character learns as part of your hook.

Make it easy to LOOK at. Sounds simple enough, but paragraphs have sort of a sweet length... three to six lines, maybe... more than that and you might lose the point. Less than that, and they might think you are me (I am lousy for short paragraphs)

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

I had a letter from someone wanting to work for my FIRM. Hello, large academic department of a university. I do NOT represent a firm. It's disrespectful to not edit your standard letter with the tiny details for each and EVERY specific case. This isn't as bad as 'dear agent' but SHEESH... if you are bothering to apply... take the extra time to not get shoved to the 'yeahno' pile right off.

I mean in MY case, I GET 'dear hiring manager' or some such thing, because the specific contact is not available, but for pete's sake, you can mention the DEPARTMENT.


So there you have it... Advice a la Tart.

Keep in mind the lighter hearted blog IS linked above

And just because it was sorta serious, it does NOT mean it is not ALL NAKED, ALL the TIME this week. It's BIRTHDAY WEEK!

REAL Query Help from Raquel Byrnes!

So yibus know how I love yibus, ne? (that is tart speak for you all know how I love all of you, for the uninitiated)... and how I don't really KNOW all that much, but I want to help yibus out ANYWAY... and you're in LUCK, because I have some REALLY smart friends.

Raquel is a long-time blog buddy and has the REMARKABLE skill of being able to put things in terms that even my thick head can absorb. I am inclined to KNOW when I see good advice, but not really GET what they mean... show don't tell... yeah, whatever... But Raquel, through her TERRIFIC posts has taught me such things as how to write a synopsis, how to ensure a strong premise, and what a media kit needs.

So when I learned she was doing her blog book tour for the release of her Romantic Suspense novel, Purple Knot, I thought, WE want some of that!!! (Holy COW is she organized!?) She had suggested blog topics and said we could pick or make a special request...

I went with a topic I thought we ALL need at some point, and I am VASTLY insufficient to help anybody on... (might as well ask the expert where I have no expertise, eh?) And she's come through fabulously, so Welcome Raquel!

Five Query No-No’s to Avoid

We all talk about agents as the gatekeepers to publication. Well, your query letter is your key to that kingdom. With so much riding on first impressions, here are five query no-no’s to avoid.

• You query someone who doesn’t represent your genre. Make sure to research the agent you send your query to. Websites like Query Tracker and books like Writer’s Market all list the genre agents represent. Do your homework so you don’t waste your time.
• You don’t talk about your book. I know it sounds crazy, but a lot of people do this. Queries are pitch letters for your book. So make the bulk of your one-page allotment about the manuscript. Don’t go off on what inspired you or how you researched it. Sell the idea of the book.
• You have grammar mistakes. This one is a biggie because it represents you as a writer. Do you have a grasp on the craft? Can you get to the point? Have you heard of a comma? Queries reveal a lot about you as a writer. Make sure you shine.
• You come off as arrogant, clueless, or both. Yes, you want to show confidence. Of course you are proud of your book. But telling the agent that your manuscript is the next Twilight or whatever your genre’s superstar is makes you look terrible. And don’t announce that it’s recently finished – otherwise known as unedited.
• You don’t wait long enough. One thing you don’t want to do is annoy the agent. Don’t call five times to see if they got it. Don’t call them at all, actually. An email after a month is acceptable for follow up.

What are some things you should do?

• Write it in the voice of your book. Is your novel fast-paced? Then convey energy in your pitch. Show them that you pack a punch in your writing.
• Hit all three biggies: Who is it about? What is the conflict? What happens if they don’t stop it?
• Give the vitals: What is the word count? What is the genre? Give them specifics that will help them visualize who they’d pitch your book to.
• Mention you’ve gone social: Don’t refer them to your website to read more…they don’t do that. But do mention you feel comfortable using social media to promote your book. List a blog address or a Twitter account, but remember—those are NOT for the agent to go searching for information they need.
• Send the right format: Some agents have gone paperless and only accept email queries. Some only want the query as the body of the email and not as an attachment. Don’t knock yourself out of the running before you even start by not sending what they want.

With a little research and attention to detail, your query can catch the attention you deserve. Take the time to do it right and you’ll give yourself a fighting chance to snag that dream agent.

Raquel Byrnes lives in Southern, California with her husband of sixteen years and their six children. She considers inspirational fiction a wonderful way to minister to others. She writes romantic suspense with an edge-your-seat pace. Her first book the Shades of Hope Series, Purple Knot, releases on June 3rd from White Rose Publishing. You can visit her at her website: www.raquelbyrnes.com and her writing blog, Edge of Your Seat Romance.

[Doesn't she have a great face? I love her cheek bones, eyes, and the mischief playing under the elegance.]

And a little tart trivia... because I CAN... when I took Spanish in High School (and 8th grade) my Spanish teacher gave me the name Raquel (Raquel Corazón--Heart). She said it was because Raquels are smart. I thought it might also be because they are spicy.  Thanks so much Raquel!

P is for Query

Erm... Okay, so maybe it's not, but in the spirit of Ps and Qs being largely interchangeable, except not so many Qs are needed (since they're twice as big and all), and because of my FOMS (fear of missing something), I thought it was best just to swap them out and call it good.

I suppose it's possible I should explain the origin of the statement 'Mind your Ps and Qs'... when I was a kid I was under the impression it meant peace and quiet, or some such nonsense... NONSENSE! This is DRINKING SLANG! Mind your Ps and Qs means mind your Pints and Quarts (or watch how much you drink--oh, if my mother only knew! She used to say this a lot). The pub I worked at in Portland had a sign, written backward, posted behind the bar so the customer could see it the right way in the mirror. I liked that... clever beer pushers...

Anyway... back to the post...

You see there is a Query Blogfest today, whereby we can get some FEEDBACK on our Queries... and I thought... it's just ONE DAY. What harm can there be? I've never been one to follow rules to the letter ANYWAY (get it? To the letter? That's clever, eh? *cough*)

So the query I'm working with here is for my second book, currently waiting for 5th (6th?) revision. I've gotten great feedback from several great friends, but I do have my work cut out for me. My biggest problem with this book will probably be the genre waffling (it is about tweens and teens but for adults--and NO, I don't want to make any characters older to make it for upper teen, or mellow the content to make it appealing to younger kids... I believe the adults are the market for the match of character and story here--it is the story that needed to be told)... that said, let me try to sell it...

*****

Don't let my gorgeous cover influence you

Sometimes the only thing more dangerous for a teen than life on the streets, is life staying at home. Athena Garnett, thirteen, has to bash her mother's drug dealer over the head to escape; she sees her mother passed out on the floor, having not raised a finger to protect her daughter. Athena knows in the moment all she needs is out. Unfortunately, after not very many blocks of running, she realizes she has nowhere to go. Nowhere.

Across town, Peter Popescue, age ten, hides as his father is executed. When he relays events to his brother and sister they know it is time to do what they've been trained to do—disappear. They hide in secret rooms of their home, going out rarely, never coming or going in daylight, and sticking to parts of town where no one would know them. They keep hoping their mother will return, but it looks more and more like she was abducted before their father was killed.

A chance encounter and some observed coincidences bring these children together in downtown Portland, and a familiar name alerts them to a shared history that began before they were born. The children dive into the mystery, looking for clues about the missing mother. They encounter stolen art, thieves, a treasure hunt, kidnappers, and a tapestry of treachery and espionage where they cannot trust anyone but each other.

Legacy, an adult novel of family-based suspense, is complete at 100,000 words. It is about survival, street smarts, and loyalty, but ultimately, is about what happens to children left holding the explosive pieces of their parents chaotic lives.

*****

So there you have it. I would LOVE totally honest feedback. If you want to pick it apart line by line, it might be better to email me: hartjohnson23(at)gmail(dot)com, though I'm not shy if you want to do it here.

And come back tomorrow for a doover on P!


Gorgeous cover designed by Joris Ammerlaan

Comparable Books

What?

So I have heard tell agents like you, in your query, to say something along the lines of:

“Readers of   [successful but not wildly popular because we know you aren't that good book] will love this, as will people who loved ['nother-- somewhat dissimilar but still like yours] and [movie here to be different].

And I've always ignored that part.

You see... if my books were like OTHER books, I wouldn't have needed to WRITE them!!! I thought this was an agent insecurity... or maybe I just figured I had NO HOPE so why stress about it. This is not a deal breaker. Agents SAY they like it but don't say no for not having it...

But it is ALSO something they'd like in the ABNA pitches... and there I am more hesitant to just... you know... blow off that part...

SO I NEED YOUR HELP!!!

Helen comes from a world very like One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. No problem.

But my delinquency associations are The Outsiders (where the bad guys are good and the rich guys are bad), the movie The Warriors (which just doesn't really fit)...

HELP ME!!!

One of my characters is reminiscent of 'Cut' but I need HELP finding appropriate books to bring to the REFORM SCHOOL table! The list has things like Holes (which I LOVE, but which my book is NOT like...)  and the EROTICA, which my book ALSO is not...


So two things from you, Blogger friends...


Do you know of any reform school books or movies where MOST of the residents are actually pretty bad rather than sympathetic?


And...


How do you approach this part? Do you have appropriate comparisons in mind all along, or do you madly scramble finding something?


Okay, so short, as I am writing from the Sleep Lab (about which I will tell you TOMORROW!)

All content by Hart Johnson except the two book covers, which should be obvious... and published at Confessions of a Watery Tart

Pslushpile

That P is because it is only a Pseudo Slushpile, but PseudoPslush seemed like overkill... Oh, yeah, I get that if I have to explain the title, it's a fail, but too much seemed worse than clever followed by an explanation... erm... or did at the time.

So what am I talking about?

I had to go through a pile of mostly COMPLETELY incompatible MUCK this week for the first time in two years. You see, in my DAY JOB, I am the supervisor... Now y'all don't need to laugh that somebody put me in charge... I get the irony. But the STORY of it THAT MATTERS, is I FELT for a moment like an agent wading through slush.

Michigan has been in the bottom three economies in the US for going on 10 years now. It has NEVER ranked better than 48 (pretty bad, when you consider they measure these things every month... that is 120 TIMES we've been in the bottom 3). It's bad—lotta people unemployed. But on top of that, 2 years ago, at UM, my employer, a hiring freeze went into effect. NO NEW JOBS. NONE. NADA. ZILCH. ZIPPO. That means the ONLY HIRING DONE is to replace people who leave (100% grant funded positions aside, but don't even get me STARTED on how much harder it has gotten to get grant money—since about 2002 in fact, because the Bush Administration didn't believe in science, and Obama came into this financial MESS). So for my measly Admin/Research position, in a week of posting, there were 81 applicants.

Guess who got to weed them?

If you guessed me, you wouldn't be too far off. Pretty much I had to go through ALL, and I put them in three piles: “Good God, no.” “Possibly, if I've interpreted what my boss wants wrong.” and “Now we're getting somewhere.”

Then I take piles 2 and 3 to my boss so SHE can determine whether she agrees with me or not, and we decide who to interview. (she liked 7 of my 12 yes ones and 1 of my 20 maybes: not too bad for agreement) Might be worth it to note SOME of my Yes's she didn't like had to do with things like odd font changes—you see, the person will be sending correspondence in her name, and so she wants them to have good aesthetic judgment. The reason I am telling YOU, is you never know when somebody might get picky on you for ODD stuff. It ALL needs to be right, so the only thing they have to evaluate on is YOUR WORK.


But the point of this POST (yes, there is a point)... strike that... there are TWO points...

[note: this is a Debbie Ohi cartoon]

1) I felt like an agent weeding through a slushpile... SO MANY PEOPLE either didn't read what we were looking for, or were just desperately grasping at straws when we were NOT THE JOB FOR THEM.

Among these were people who couldn't even be bothered to personalize the darned letter—this REALLY stuck out to me. How bad could they possibly want the job if they couldn't change the sentence from 'a position in human resources' to 'a position as an administrative assistant'. For Pete's sake! At LEAST individualize it to the right freaking JOB LISTING!

This is TOTALLY something I can see causing an auto reject in an agent pile... Querying for genres they don't pub, calling them the wrong name... saying 'to whom it may concern'. If you are serious, you have to be a professional, which means bothering to do a little darned homework! Find out who you are sending the Query to!

2) The other thing I noticed is I have become a rather bitchy person where letter writing skills are concerned. If someone wasn't professional? NO. If someone had poor grammar? NO. And no small number of people were moved UP a pile (no to maybe or maybe to yes) strictly for their ability to communicate well in letter form. I've become a prose junky. So it is worth it to spend the time on writing the query WELL. And it is REALLY REALLY worth it to spend the time making sure you haven't made a BONEHEAD of yourself by thoughtlessly firing off impersonal sludge. Know your audience, personalize and then POLISH.



BONUS CONTENT! Getting to Know you *shifty*

This is going around, but I copied it from Rosie, one of my new friends via the Burrowers, Books & Balderdash where there is a new IMAGE up today if you want to participate in the Drabble contest (I think it is one of Rayna's photographs, which are ALWAYS cool, though I am writing before it is posted, so if I am wrong, don't sue me...).

Anyway... More about ME! *cough*These are the questions...

1.What is YOUR definition of sexy?
2.Would you rather clean up puke or change a poopy diaper?
3. Are you an introvert or an extrovert?
4. If you had to give up one of your 5 senses for a year..which one would you give up?
5. Cake or Pie?
6. If you could play any character on TV (old or current) who would you play?
7. My favorite website is.....?
8. The highlight of my day is....?

1) Sexy is this mind meld thing that happens with a direct stare in which you and the other person really GET each other. It can be as purely sexual as what I get looking at Captain Jack (his eyes HAVE that look that somehow don't require bi-directional contact) or as personal as truly and deeply knowing somebody. It can appear instantly in a person you've known for years because you've had a strange dream, or learned something, whereby you touched their soul for an instance. It is typically playful, sometimes a little dangerous, and ALWAYS makes me feel naked.

2)  Poopy diaper. I'm not a huge fan of poop, but everybody poops, even when healthy. Puke is a sign of illness, and so adds fright (and a smell that turns my stomach, instead of just one that is unpleasant) to the task at hand. And a poopy diaper is CONTAINED... (usually, there was an exploding diaper or two when my kids were small) Puke is almost always somewhere it shouldn't BE. *ponders why firefox doesn't like the word poopy*

3)  Introvert. I really LIKE people, but I am not particularly SKILLED with them in a real world setting. And I need a TON of down time. I like being alone.(well... with my characters, I mean) I guess the deciding factor comes with the question, if you had to ALWAYS be with people (no alone time) or NEVER be with people, which which you choose. Yeah... I'm a never. (though the middle ground is preferable)

4)  Probably taste. Much of it can be made up for with smell, and maybe if I couldn't taste much, I'd be less tempted to overdo it. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE tasty stuff, but it is where my biggest control problem lies, so giving it up for a year might be good for me.

5)  Pie. I LIKE cake, but I like pie better.

6)  Sidney Bristow. Oh, sure... lots of parental drama, but she kicked butt, was gorgeous, got to do REALLY cool stuff, and married Michael Vaughn in the end... I could be Sidney.

7)  Probably Blogger, possibly Facebook... used to be HPANA... where my friends are, basically.

8)  WRITING TIME. At about 8:30 each day, I GET NAKED, run a bath, fix a drink, do a Sudoku, and then I WRITE. LOVE that time.

So there we have it. Now you know me!  Well not Biblically... but pretty well anyway...


AND THIS JUST IN:  July 18 is National Ice Cream Day.  Eat some.  And that's an order!

Doubt

(Just a brief one today. It's Sunday, and somehow I still have a lot to do, so I feel entitled)

I'm not sure if I am a masochist, or if I just didn't think things through.

I am in the process of revising the Cozy Mystery audition chapters and sent them to several members of my writer's group this week... and then there was a SHORT amount of down time (before the feedback would start coming back) so I decided it was about the right amount of time to craft a PITCH. I sent the PITCH to a handful of my ABNA friends, as they have a lot of pitch experience (much more than my writer's group, actually) and so I wanted expert advice.

The PROBLEM? Well a pitch is relatively QUICK to turn around feedback on, where chapters are a little slower, so yesterday I got a fairly solid dose of   “What the hell are you thinking?!” Okay, so EVERYONE was nicer and more encouraging than that, and feedback is productive, but I seem to have scheduled myself for an unintentional overdose.

And then there is the fact that the recommended changes NEVER go together all that well, so I step back and try to see what is what, and usually decide (in my infinite madness) that if one person thinks THIS, and another thinks THAT, then maybe this THIRD thing would please both of them! I get all excited and try it and it ALWAYS pleases NEITHER—ACK! I just need to decide WHO seems to share my vision, eh?

At the moment I am feeling like I have missed it right and left and have no talent whatsoever, so I am headed out for a power walk to get the juices flowing, and then I will get to my date with my cozy chapters and hopefully address the spirit and specifics of what the editor wanted changed.

Only way past it sometimes is working THROUGH it, eh?

Queriversary

One year ago I began my attempts at getting CONFLUENCE published. I sent out seven query letters, opened my facebook AUTHOR profile, and started to think seriously about publishing. I was SURE I would find an agent, then a publisher in a matter of months, and worried what I would do for insurance, because obviously I would want to quit my day job and writer full time after I was offered some $50K for my book.

Oh, MAN, was I in for a series of shocks.

My seven queries led to six rejections and an echoing silence. One of those rejections came within half an hour (a woman I would STILL love for an agent—we are soul mates; I KNOW IT. I just wish she did, too, but apparently I am not communicating adequately...

So after I excitedly peed myself, sending these early queries, I met a woman, though a neighbor of mine, who is a local writer. I asked her to look at my query and she quickly spotted the sticking point.

-----> 200,000 words.

Did you see it, or was it too subtle for you? Never mind that I happen to prefer my books upward of 500 page. Apparently debut authors have about the probability of a snowballs chance in HELL of publishing that long a book. I quietly stuffed the knowledge that one of the successful people at this, Elizabeth Kostova, shares my city limits. It doesn't happen to REAL PEOPLE. Because HONESTLY, The Historian hit that Vampire wave before it really even started, so someone with LITERARY fiction skills (and I say that in both the positive and the negative—The Historian was a GREAT book, and VERY dense, in my opinion—I have a hard time believing all the Americans who bought it were actually capable of reading it *cough* Sorry—snob moment there). So my cult of nuts isn't apparently the next vampire wave... No 200K book for me.


I spent the summer shortening the book, got it down to 150K and in August tried again. I sent fifteen, I think, ONE of which resulted in a request for 20 pages. Two got responses that were “no thanks we're not taking ANYBODY” (though websites had not said that)--I think I got 10 or 11 rejections and a few no response... hmph.


But near the end of August, when the queries were out, I went on my wild ride of writing LEGACY in just six weeks, then began ILLUSIONS, then took a brief break for NaNo and wrote DENIABILITY, then FINISHED ILLUSIONS in December... in 4 months I wrote 3 books. None of them is yet POLISHED to querying point, but it is NUTS how fast that all went.

In December and January, I then turned to a further polish of CONFLUENCE so I could enter the Amazon contest (had to be under 150K)--and got it down to 137K. In January I queried once again. THIS TIME, I had three interactions where agents wanted to see more, one of them 75 pages. It was a MUCH better ratio. But I have decided since that time, that while I love CONFLUENCE, I think it is really complex enough that it is a hard sell as a first book. It is the kind of book someone will say is their favorite one day, but it is too hard to describe to get a reader to pick up when they've never heard of me. I want to sell (maybe two) other books of mine before trying with CONFLUENCE again. I want an established success record.

So on this queriversary, I want YOUR opinion on which book I should polish first. The following descriptions are not polished pitches—that will come and will take time, but I would love to hear where you think I would be best off dedicating my next round of editing time.

LEGACY: Nine year old Peter hides and watches as his father is executed by invaders. Thirteen year old Athena narrowly escapes the drug dealer her mother has traded her to for a heroine high. Peter and his siblings hide in the attic of their family home as Athena takes to the streets of Portland. A chance meeting at Pioneer Square brings these children together, only to find that the Legacies they've inherited from their parents are intertwined and include spying, smuggling, and the politics of a country on the other side of the world. They decide unraveling this legacy is the only way to shake off the criminals who are now after them, and might lead the Popescu children to their missing mother. Sometimes though, you get more answers than you've bargained for. (this is the first of my trilogy)

DENIABILITY: Liza Dahlmer works for a super secret branch of the CIA charged with keeping operatives paranoid by exposing their vulnerabilities. She is a Watcher.. She tracks, photographs, steals from, and entraps the best and the brightest in American intelligence. Unfortunately, nobody knows—and she's not telling. When she is arrested for murder and taken before the intelligence committee to determine where she ought to be tried, she has nothing to say for herself, but psychiatrist, Philip Landauer believes there is more to the story. He begins an investigation, sometimes with Liza's cooperation, though usually without, as she is convinced her life will end if he unravels the wrong thread. The two play a game, he determined to save her, she determined to just go to prison and bide her time, until the powers that be decide she has shared anyway, and the two have to run for her life. This psychological thriller explores how nothing is ever really buried for good, and how sometimes the best way to get away, is to confront the thing you are running from.


For the former, I've been reading art theft tales. For the latter, I've been watching back episodes of Alias and La Femme Nikita. I think I am ready to dive into the next iteration of either one, but I'd LOVE to choose the one you think has the best shot of MAKING IT as a debut novel.

So THANK YOU for any help or insight you can give on where I ought to start! Happy Queriversary!

Rings of Hell

Though Milton and I are in disagreement on which rings are filled with whom, and he never once mentions bad drivers—MotoTards, as I learned from my friend FooDaddy (a term that has made me popular among my daughter's friends), AND because at work we descended yesterday into GRANT hell (if there really is a hell, this is what they would make me do there—a fate to be avoided at all cost) I thought I would post for your perusal and entertainment, the rings of QUERY HELL.

Ring 1: The Confident

These people have just finished their first manuscript and are SURE it is fabulous (their mother thought so!). They have done a proofread, but think terms like 'rewrite' are for people without their natural talent. They are about to receive the taunting of their lives.

Ring 2: The Timid

This person drafts a query letter, follows the rules, picks their favorite agent... and waits. When the rejection comes (if the agent sends them) they then choose another, and send. They are destined to do this for forty-five years. It is its own punishment.

Ring 3: The Enthusiast

These people download a list of all four hundred agents who represent their genre, put them in a listserve and send the query to ALL of them (at once, headed 'Dear Agent'.) This approach gets them put on a black list and they are forced to take on a pen name, or never work in the industry again.

Ring 4: The Doubter

These people have received a ton of form rejections and are thinking they suck and they ought to just hang it up now. They've decided that though their manuscript was PERFECT six months ago, now it should line a ferret cage and they don't deserve the title 'writer'. This wallowing in self-pity ring is one everyone is required to pass through, usually several times.

Ring 5: The Rapid Responder

These people are making edits left and right, jumping to address every single thing they hear from every single person, not even realizing that the form query rejections are just printed from a central file and not personalized in the least. Like querying, editing is its own punishment.

Ring 6: The Networker

These people are convinced that they KNOW somebody who can give them a break, so they are WORKING IT (and I have placed them this deep in query hell because I am jealous, having neither the connections, nor the personality to pull this off). Though it would also be damn depressing to know you had an in and you STILL couldn't get published. After a few months of this, their connected friends run when they see them coming... connections come, connections go.

Ring 7: The Denier

This person says cheerful things like 'it's all part of the process. At least I'm learning a ton.' They are slowly going insane. (I am usually here, though at the moment I've been sent back to Ring 4).

Ring 8: The Expert

This person has NOT been published, but is handing out advice left and right on how to GET published, because they believe an agent may notice how smart they are and take them on, or it makes them feel better to AT LEAST not be making all the newbie mistakes about it. They will helpfully read query, first chapter, and manuscript of all comers, telling them everything they need to do to get it accepted. This can be a happy stage for a year or so, until they realize their advice hasn't worked for them, then they get dumped back into the 4th ring.

Ring 9: The Self Publisher

This ring has accepted that the industry is stacked against them, but instead of continuing to work it and try and get in, they take the matters into their own hands. The problem, is 90% of these folks are doing this before their book is READY—it has not had enough eyes, enough rewrites, and a proper editing, so even those who ARE READY are destined to sit in poor company for all eternity, selling fairly few copies and wearing a stigma.


[keep in mind ALL of us who are 'pre-published' are in here at the moment and I meant no offense. I figure we're in it together and was only trying to amuse.]

Growing Pains

MAN I hate life lessons… Forced growth is just no fun. I mean I don’t hate it all afterward, but during the process, it can be SO humiliating… painful, even. So I hate them, but I love them.

I’m going to tell on myself a little, just to get across how LITTLE I knew…


The Bio Snafu

I blogged about this a little last week: Agent that requested pages, synopsis and author bio: so I spent time on a bio that looked like the BIO we send in with grants. (Can you spot the source of myconfusion? Bio, in the two contexts has different definitions). An AUTHOR bio is apparently the book jacket variety. Who knew? *snort* Okay, so apparently everybody but me. When we send in grants though, we are required to submit a Bio that includes our education, publications and the kind of work we’ve done that is pertinent to the project… (doesn’t sound so bad, does it?) Except it is formatted like a resume. That was what I sent the first time… I sent an email with the corrected sort of bio, explaining where my misguided idea originated, so hopefully I am cute, instead of pathetic… Not that cute tarts are the most appealing kind, but they are better than idiot tarts.

To compound matters, a different agent, because I mention I publish scientifically, asked what kind of scientific writing I do… I proceeded to detail the CONTENT, instead of saying what I now believe she wanted… “peer reviewed, scientific journal articles”. This one I just didn’t have the heart to correct, since it was such a quick correspondence (it was the agent that asked for a chapter). Oi!

My DAY JOB brain caused big giant fails in two different domains… or rather the same domain in two different ways. I was asked questions and my academic brain put me on auto pilot. Not going to let THAT happen again!

Now I know. Never let it be said that the Tart can’t take her knocks…


The Query

I am so amazingly grateful to the agent who took the time to say “I don’t get it” to me. I’ve been using the same query for two rounds now (about 30 agents have gotten it), and because I’d gotten a few nibbles, I really thought it was working. Form rejections give you NO CLUE what the problem is. This woman, in two sentences, guided me to make it a much better grab for the next round…

"I have to tell you that from this query, I really have no idea what your book is about or who the main protagonist is. You might want to take another crack at this."

Hmmm… the last person to feed me a lesson like this was ALSO a Colleen… seems maybe that is a name destined to give me lessons I don’t know I want but I need… but I digress…

Unfortunately, she then passed on the manuscript, suggesting that if I am aiming thriller, it really needs to still be tightened more. So THERE my mistake was in ever mentioning thriller… just like with my other mistake… I think it’s okay to have a thriller underlying, but if I say the darn WORD then they are expecting genre-thriller, which it is not. (and I don’t really want to rewrite it so it is, as I think the family relationship is the heart of this more than the thriller plot--I NEED all that darned character stuff.)

I figure though, that is only the first rejection this round, and it wasn’t an instant reject… progress…

Now to debate who GETS the next round and whether I am up to doing it right now or not…

Man, I hate querying.

One lesson I DON’T have yet, is when it is okay to reQuery… I feel like I might be well within my rights to retry the people I INITIALLY tried (who got the version about the 200K book) because I am pretty sure they saw that number and didn’t read a single other word. The query was also a lot worse at that point… But do I even want to go there? There are LOTS of agents out there.

And I still don’t have a feel for whether I want to join this Amazon contest or not… If only one agent is really looking at a partial, I think I may go ahead, but if I have a couple requests for more, I’ll hold off… I think…

Shaken Confidence

When I was first blogging, I would see these writers comment on moments of feeling like they couldn’t write. I was baffled, because I’ve always felt rather a lot of confidence (probably too much so… I have a nice, healthy ego). But the query process sure takes the mickey out of you, doesn’t it? I’m doubting CONFLUENCE. I’m doubting everything I try to write in my trilogy (and making stupid mistakes—writing things that mess up the timeline and such). When I type up what I’ve written I’m thinking ‘well that’s stupid, what was I thinking?’

I keep trying to decide if I am getting more discerning or am just in one of those moods… a mood that had never really struck me until recently. I am still going with that though. I know my writing will improve, and as it does I’ll have less tolerance for mistakes, but I just really can’t think what I’ve done already is BAD, especially the fourteenth round of a book that was a good story to begin with…

Hmph.

Communicating Complexity

As most of you know, I’ve been sending a few queries, trying to find an agent, eventually a book contract… come to think of it, maybe that is what’s up with my writing mojo, which seems to be on shaky ground… but about those queries. The query body I’ve been sending looks like this:

Query:

CONFLUENCE is about the family of a new PhD, relocated to a rural college town. Fifteen-year-old Jessie is Mac’s daughter from his first marriage, so originally, difficulties the family experiences are masked by the internal tensions of a teen who didn’t want to move with the father and step-mother she has never lived with. Only five-year-old Hannah seems to adjust easily; she is thrilled to finally live with her older sister, but she also makes friends with a homeless man who lives in the woods behind their new home, a friend believed by her parents to be imaginary for several months.

Strange occurrences begin, like the placement of threatening signs in their yard, and the hanging of a dead chicken in Jessie’s locker at the high school, but these things are attributed to a community divided between scientific and religious underpinnings, until Hannah is kidnapped, forcing the teenage Jessie into heroism and the family to unravel the real reason they were brought to Clear Springs.

CONFLUENCE is rich in relationships and character, a strength stemming from my background in social psychology. It holds quirky characters and humor, despite the dark story tract; the language is fast and approachable, and the conclusion is a chilling statement on what is possible when arrogance collides with zealotry.

CONFLUENCE is complete at 137,000 words (chapter 1 pasted below). As high-market commercial fiction suitable for book-club discussions, I believe it will appeal to people who love family crisis mysteries and conspiracy theory.

This is a query letter that has gotten a few nibbles (two ½ requests for partials), so I was sort of pleased with it…

On Saturday, within half an hour of sending it, I got a response that said:

I have to tell you that from this query, I really have no idea what your book is about or who the main protagonist is. You might want to take another crack at this.


Also, your word count is really too high for adult fiction.

Hit me like a load of bricks, it did…

I’ll tell you why.

Who is my protagonist? Well you see, there are four, and it alters viewpoints… *cough* So what do I do? Pick one? What I WANT to do is explain that all four are in a way, but that is a long story, and I’m thinking long stories don’t hold an audience at this stage of the game. My original instinct was Mac, the patriarch. But in reality, the heroine, is Jessie, and I’ve been told by multiple readers she is my best character and strongest voice… go with that…

What is my story about? Well it’s sort of complicated…

I’ve known from the beginning this monster is hard to talk about. It is a complicated story about what happens to a family when they are immersed in somebody else’s insanity. I suppose it’s time to really put the work into my three line summary about what this book is about… I decided to take another crack at this agent though, since she was so kind as to suggest it was okay with her… (something that either makes her really a stellar person, or means she saw enough to think she might like it—in my dream world, both.)

Query Revision:

I appreciate so much your bluntness paired with a willingness to read another version of my query. I've given it another attempt, hopefully more clear in the plot of the story. I should be clear that the point of view includes all four 'verbal' Rawlins, but Jessie is the strongest voice and the primary protagonist in the end.

Forty years ago a group of arrogant young academics decided to conduct a social experiment to see how a set of fictional works might attain power for them, to see how gullible people were. The experiment however, has grown beyond their control and a young family is about to pay the price.

Jessie Rawlins is relatively content, as teenagers go. She is active in a theater group, attends an arts high school, and her father has even returned to town after being absent from her life for five years while he was getting his PhD. She is set to spend the rest of high school in Seattle, until her parents turn everything on its head.

Her father is offered a job as a professor hundreds of miles away and her mother takes the opportunity to accept a job in Hong Kong, agreeing that it would be good for Jessie and her dad to live together for a few years. So Jessie is stuck moving with her dad and his new family, where she doesn't believe she fits in.

To top it off, Clear Springs is small, overly-quaint, and dull—or so she thinks until very strange things start happening to her and her family. She learns of local lore and a supposed cult to the north of the town, but that is the stuff of slumber party tales. Locally, she experiences harassment (because of her dad's job), and the disappearance of a boy she meets at a party. Adding to the tension of these events is the family tension caused initially by her own presence in a previously defined family unit, and then by a homeless man who has befriended her younger sister, a man her parents attribute as 'imaginary' for many months, only to learn he's been living in the woods behind their house and is very real.

Jessie manages though, to make a group of good friends and meet a variety of helpful people along the way, so when her sister is kidnapped and her parents seem to be falling apart, she is the person with the resources in place to figure out what has happened to her and to attempt a rescue.

CONFLUENCE is mainstream fiction (with an underlying thriller) complete at 137,000 words. While I recognize this as long for a first work of fiction, the original draft was over 200,000 words and this has been significantly tightened. I don't believe it can be shortened much more without losing important strands of the story. The article linked in your email mentioned Kostova's The Historian as one of the rare exceptions, and one of my first readers actually mentioned that work as one this reminded her of, though I think CONFLUENCE is more approachable, both in language density and because it is a modern setting with modern family issues—but the family layering and trying to solve something larger is a comparable idea.

So there we have it. I have no clue if I succeeded or not, but like Terry mentions today (see sidebar blog list), it is important to listen and learn. Sometimes we should change and adapt, sometimes not, but it is still important to try to understand what someone else has taken from your work.

I would really love feedback as to whether the second version has addressed my questions... I'd love to know whether any of my first readers think it is now misleading... I don't feel like it is, but I also wanted to turn this back around quickly...

Eating Crow

[No, E.T. not Crowe—better luck next time.]

So my husband would tell you I always insist I’m right, and it’s true. At home, pretty much, I AM always right. And why on earth would I say I was wrong when I’m not, just to convince someone who insists I always need to be right that I don’t always need to say that? If I’m right, I stick to my guns.

But sometimes, if you make a mistake, it is best to just fess up.

A Painful Lesson

My first job out of college I worked at an advertising agency. It was an adrenaline rush of a job, fast paced and mostly satisfying, initially, because I was learning a ton, got to pretend I was rich from time to time (attend events for clients, that kind of thing). Then, 18 months in, the woman two spots above me on my account messed up… bad. She didn’t pay attention to expenses—planned parties that went way over budget… when we reconciled for the year, she was fired.

The guy above me and I were each promoted a slot (me, with some hesitation—I was very green), I became an Assistant Account Executive, BUT, I got dished the budget management for some unfathomable reason (except that I think it was easier to mostly train ME for HER job (with a few schmoozing exceptions), rather than have BOTH of us training for new jobs—plus, I was the excel pro, which when handling a three million dollar, line-item budget is helpful.

I watched expenses. I was careful with how we ordered things that were optional. I put my foot down when our corporate office tried to pass expenses off to my client that weren’t ours (or insisted that expenses that belonged split proportionately across all clients be split that way, rather than mine-the biggest-eating it). I did a good job. But my boss had a business meeting—it was for our client and the travel form said so, but when it was copied and kept in my file, it had part of the reason covered, so it LOOKED like she had done the travel for the corporation the client was part of, rather than the co-op (the co-op was our client—we had to coordinate with the corporation, but those expenses were on them).

I was 23. I was asked by the co-op treasurer what was up and I didn’t know. I said I’d find out, and I asked a question or two, but my boss was out of town and I didn’t get to the answer before the next meeting. I figured ‘I would get to it’ was good enough. At the meeting, he called out the agency because of this one piece of paper with a question mark hanging over it. I was SURE I was going to be fired, but we managed to get the original copy of the form overnighted from LA and show the treasurer to his satisfaction, but my boss was PISSED. She’d been humiliated at a meeting and it was my fault.

I learned my lesson. Just because something is uncomfortable and you are embarrassed, or you don’t know the answer or how to find it, avoiding it can only make it worse. Face it. Own it. Deal with it. It may be fixed, it may not. But I guarantee it will be better than if somebody finds out about it when you DIDN’T own it and try to fix it.

I live by that.


So Yesterday…

This isn’t nearly so dramatic, so you can all sit back down and relax, but it IS a little applied lesson…

I got my request, as mentioned… 75 pages, synopsis, author bio…

Well a ‘bio’ here at the University is pretty much a ‘relevant resume’—we send them with grants and sometimes manuscripts—it is the evidence you are qualified to do what you do. There is something SEPARATE we call a ‘narrative’. After reading last nights ‘author bio’ comments I realized what I really should have sent with my packet was the thing that I think of as a narrative.

And then it occurred to me… I can pretend I never learned, and look like it was an innocent mistake of a rookie (all true) or I can explain and send the right thing, showing growth.

So this morning I drafted an email, with a one paragraph ‘author bio’ that looks more like a book jacket blurb (Joris, I haven’t forgotten I owe you an amusing one—just sort of nuts at the mo, and that is hell on creativity). I think my email both explained, and was a little funny—I referred to my error as nincompoopery, which will either frighten or win over said agent. I also referred to the author bio I sent with the packet as the ‘decoy’.

I figure I’m a playful person, and an agent probably just ought to know that ahead of time because someone who can’t cope with that, isn’t a good fit, but I think the admission of error and immediate correcting speak well for working with me… or that is what I am hoping. Because mistakes happen. Better to fess up, fix it, and move on.

That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

[by the way, I had a second request yesterday afternoon--only a chapter, but better than a poke in the eye--so 2 requests for more and no refusals--that is the best rate I've had on a query round!  Send two more queries to celebrate)