An Update!
So, first, the wicked awesome news. Not one but two people who do not know me in real life and are under no obligation to be nice to me, went to my website, got my email address, and sent me nice letters full of compliments and reaffirming statements. How cool is that? Thank you and welcome to Cynthia and Elizabeth.
Second, I have received a number of comments lately about how rough the process seems to be and how frustrated I am. I look over my recent posts and see mostly discussions of WANTED and THE LOST LEGION, so I'm not quite sure what's giving that impression. Perhaps those posts that I do vent my frustration are suitably dramatic as to color any of my other posts. So I'll say again that one of the purposes of this journal is for me to blow off steam. None of the people I am close with are attempting to write professionally so there isn't anyone I can really confide in that would understand the nuances of the industry.
I'm also starting to wonder if I'm following the industry too closely. I have been reading Kristen Nelson's and Nathan Bransford's blogs for years. I remember when Nathan's posts would only elicit thirty responses rather than 800. I've been reading them that long. Now I read Eric's Pimp My Novel and Genevieve's The Rejectionist and I click on the abundance of links that get posts every Friday. I also follow Galley Cat on Twitter. So, I'm plugged in. I'm as plugged in as I feel is healthy. I actually read more for a little while, but the overlap got kind of annoying. I was ready to punch the next agent in the face that told me I shouldn't write. Listen asshole. I don't tell you not to agent. You don't tell me not to write. I get what you're doing. Writing is hard and it's not a moneymaker and you're just trying to burst the bubble of those delusional people that think they're going to write a novel and become a millionaire. That's great, but the rest of us who are compelled to write and will not stop are sick of you telling us to quit. Sod off.
*pant, pant, pant* Okay, got that out of my system.
Now, that said, getting rejected is frustrating. I said it before and I'll say it again. Rejection is part of the process, but that doesn't make it any easier. Rejection sucks. I was the best writer in grade school. I was the best writer in high school. College is murky because I only ever had one competent writing professor and that was a poetry class. It boils down to, I've always been the best, and now I've stepped into the queue with all the other people who were the best. Welcome self-doubt, fear, and anxiety about whether your best won't measure up any more. That's hard to deal with.
It'll be even harder if WANTED gets rejected. I kind of understand it with BLACK MAGIC. Contemporary fantasy doesn't flood the shelves at the bookstores. You get epic, urban (which is different than contemporary), and steampunk. Those are established and in some cases sought after (in case you didn't know, steampunk is one of the contenders for being the new vampire). Contemporary...well, let's just say I'm not overly surprised or dismayed that an agent hasn't beaten down my door to sign me up. WANTED, which falls into much more traditional genre categorization (classic but not necessarily epic) should be an easier sell. For that reason, if I don't land an agent with that manuscript, I will be fare more crushed. It's also why I'm so anxious about finishing it. I want to polish it, revise it, make it even better, solicit agents, and get signed so I can lay this fear to rest. Oi!
On a side note, Pyr (an imprint of Prometheus) is accepting non-represented manuscript solicitations in specific genres, including contemporary fantasy. It is a HUGE temptation to submit BLACK MAGIC AND BARBECUE SAUCE. It is a big risk, though. If I submit to Pyr and they reject it, that's a black mark on the record for later. My hope now is that WANTED gets me in the door and my agent will give BLACK MAGIC a full read and see the pieces of the story that make it shine that don't fit so well into a two paragraph query. (Yes, I know those parts should fit in the query, but the parts people have liked the most so far are the flashbacks, which establish foundation but are not the immediate plot. I'm an amateur, I know.)
On an exciting note, I added six chapters to WANTED and it has improved that story DRAMATICALLY. I mean, a whole lot. So much so that I was bouncing in my seat with excitement. I didn't realize how much I had screwed up until I fixed it and said, wow, that was bad. Good save, Joe. Good save. I am now back in the catacombs approaching the end (which will probably need to be expanded a couple of chapters to give the catacombs the weight they deserve and heighten the excitement of the climax). Turns out, even with the fix and the planned extra chapters, the immediate chapter I was working on had a flaw in it. So I killed one of the characters and that seemed to fix things.
Off we go! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Second, I have received a number of comments lately about how rough the process seems to be and how frustrated I am. I look over my recent posts and see mostly discussions of WANTED and THE LOST LEGION, so I'm not quite sure what's giving that impression. Perhaps those posts that I do vent my frustration are suitably dramatic as to color any of my other posts. So I'll say again that one of the purposes of this journal is for me to blow off steam. None of the people I am close with are attempting to write professionally so there isn't anyone I can really confide in that would understand the nuances of the industry.
I'm also starting to wonder if I'm following the industry too closely. I have been reading Kristen Nelson's and Nathan Bransford's blogs for years. I remember when Nathan's posts would only elicit thirty responses rather than 800. I've been reading them that long. Now I read Eric's Pimp My Novel and Genevieve's The Rejectionist and I click on the abundance of links that get posts every Friday. I also follow Galley Cat on Twitter. So, I'm plugged in. I'm as plugged in as I feel is healthy. I actually read more for a little while, but the overlap got kind of annoying. I was ready to punch the next agent in the face that told me I shouldn't write. Listen asshole. I don't tell you not to agent. You don't tell me not to write. I get what you're doing. Writing is hard and it's not a moneymaker and you're just trying to burst the bubble of those delusional people that think they're going to write a novel and become a millionaire. That's great, but the rest of us who are compelled to write and will not stop are sick of you telling us to quit. Sod off.
*pant, pant, pant* Okay, got that out of my system.
Now, that said, getting rejected is frustrating. I said it before and I'll say it again. Rejection is part of the process, but that doesn't make it any easier. Rejection sucks. I was the best writer in grade school. I was the best writer in high school. College is murky because I only ever had one competent writing professor and that was a poetry class. It boils down to, I've always been the best, and now I've stepped into the queue with all the other people who were the best. Welcome self-doubt, fear, and anxiety about whether your best won't measure up any more. That's hard to deal with.
It'll be even harder if WANTED gets rejected. I kind of understand it with BLACK MAGIC. Contemporary fantasy doesn't flood the shelves at the bookstores. You get epic, urban (which is different than contemporary), and steampunk. Those are established and in some cases sought after (in case you didn't know, steampunk is one of the contenders for being the new vampire). Contemporary...well, let's just say I'm not overly surprised or dismayed that an agent hasn't beaten down my door to sign me up. WANTED, which falls into much more traditional genre categorization (classic but not necessarily epic) should be an easier sell. For that reason, if I don't land an agent with that manuscript, I will be fare more crushed. It's also why I'm so anxious about finishing it. I want to polish it, revise it, make it even better, solicit agents, and get signed so I can lay this fear to rest. Oi!
On a side note, Pyr (an imprint of Prometheus) is accepting non-represented manuscript solicitations in specific genres, including contemporary fantasy. It is a HUGE temptation to submit BLACK MAGIC AND BARBECUE SAUCE. It is a big risk, though. If I submit to Pyr and they reject it, that's a black mark on the record for later. My hope now is that WANTED gets me in the door and my agent will give BLACK MAGIC a full read and see the pieces of the story that make it shine that don't fit so well into a two paragraph query. (Yes, I know those parts should fit in the query, but the parts people have liked the most so far are the flashbacks, which establish foundation but are not the immediate plot. I'm an amateur, I know.)
On an exciting note, I added six chapters to WANTED and it has improved that story DRAMATICALLY. I mean, a whole lot. So much so that I was bouncing in my seat with excitement. I didn't realize how much I had screwed up until I fixed it and said, wow, that was bad. Good save, Joe. Good save. I am now back in the catacombs approaching the end (which will probably need to be expanded a couple of chapters to give the catacombs the weight they deserve and heighten the excitement of the climax). Turns out, even with the fix and the planned extra chapters, the immediate chapter I was working on had a flaw in it. So I killed one of the characters and that seemed to fix things.
Off we go! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!