Way-word Journey #5: I Thought I Was Good Enough

I’d written a novel!

After having a couple people read it, all of whom said it was !Wonderful!, I thought, It must be good enough to be published then.

My chest tightened, and my stomach fluttered.

So I researched how to query on the internet. One issue–reliable sources. Another issue–outdated sources. I wasn’t sure who to trust or where to go for help. The biggest issue–I didn’t know anyone else who wrote novels. So I gave it a try.

I queried fifteen agents.

Some rejections came, and I thought they were written just to me. Oh, they thought I would find an agent! It just wasn’t right for their particular taste.

I queried fifteen more. About ten more rejections. And they all began sounding the same.

I mean, if it was decent, one out of thirty might’ve liked it, right? After another fifteen queries and some rejections, I’d had nineteen months of heartbreak.

I’d written another novel and half of the sequel to the one I was querying in the meantime. Because by then, I was addicted to it.

Every agents had said they liked Young Adult, Science fiction.

A side note:

Whenever you’re researching on the internet, look at people’s credentials, but also look at when the article or advice was written. For example, a lot of agents used to want the title, word count, genre, and age category paragraph of the query at the bottom, right before your bio. Now, most of the agents (at least the newer ones) want it at the top. Another addition within the last several years is an introductory, personalized sentence about why you’re querying them. And within the last couple years, comparable titles have become a thing to add as well.

That said, most agents aren’t going to throw out your query if you don’t do it exactly that way. They’ll give you the time (and I know this because I read queries for an agent) and read the entire query. But knowing how they prefer it shows a level of dedication and professionalism that speaks to what kind of client you’ll be.

So what was wrong with my manuscript?

I had a great idea, but my writing wasn’t publishing quality yet. I made a lot of errors that new writers make.

And that was okay.

Something I was doing that wasn’t okay was translating the rejection of the manuscript to a rejection of me. It wasn’t enough to keep me from trying though.

All my effort went to honing my craft. And I made a plan.

First, learn to write well. If querying took that long, I didn’t want to waste another eighteen months querying and burn another forty-five agents. So, I wanted to wait until I knew for sure that my writing was good enough.

Second, learn to edit. Because your writing is only as good as your editing. I wasn’t going to throw away those stories. One was a planned trilogy with a prequel, number two already half written. The other could be a series, and I already knew how book two would begin and end.

So how could I learn when I didn’t know anyone and lived in rural New York?

I bought books on writing craft. For a list of some of my favorites, I have a post on it here.

I went to book clubs and libraries and independent book stores and asked the authors I met how they did it. And every single answer was different. (This is something I later realized would be the one thing that remained consistent throughout publishing–everything is different and subjective.)

I read books and analyzed them. Outlining plots. Following character arcs for primary, secondary, and even tertiary characters. Mapping structures of worlds. I tore the books I loved apart and saw them in a completely different light–as an author and editor rather than a reader.

One of the crucial people I met then was author Therese Walsh. She’d published her first book and was writing her second, but more than that, she was building a community of writers through a website called Writer Unboxed. It wasn’t very big back then, but it’s since become one of the best places to go for quality information on writing. She was building a community. She was giving back to the writing industry and gaining an invaluable network. I wanted to be like her, I just needed the opportunity.

Later, after moving to Kansas, I began taking classes from authors and editors in the business who could teach me the art of writing. I went to conferences and found a critique group.

For years, I soaked up as much information as I could.

But I was afraid to query.

Ever again.

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