Third Time's a Charm

So there are these revisions I'm going to be working on as soon as I write the email saying so. {Two reasons I haven't written the email yet: 1) Returning emails in a timely manner is turning out to be quite the art form, and 2) My decision-making process is naturally elongated. We'll leave it at that.}

It's going to be interesting. One of the revisions involves a certain character, a character I single-handedly killed, to remain alive. I'm actually rather enthusiastic about this. For a few reasons:

1. I like this character. Always did. And I would love for there to be continued interaction with this character and Jenn. They have great rapport.
2. When my beta reader read this, she commented on how sad she was that the character died.
3. My first R&R was disappointed by the death, as well.
4. Thus, this third R&R is the third mention of it. And I guess third time's a charm.

Thus, I'm excited. There were aspects of the end of the book that I never quite loved, but I couldn't put words to it. Now I have a starting place--not killing the character--and can rewrite the ending!

~~This blog post has been interrupted by the muse: Melody apparently does not remember what agony we endured at the hands of this ending. The concept of rewriting the ending does NOT deserve an exclamation point.~~

Do not annoy me with memories of the past, dear muse. We shall pretend that those tears were never shed.

Oh, we shall, shall we? We'll see about that when you actually knuckle down and get to work rewriting this ending. Oh, I'm sorry: rewriting this ending!!!!!!!!!

Typos

I'm reading through the manuscript of Those Who Trespass again, in preparation for a revision round that I do not feel prepared for, not at all. And I have found the most mortifying things:

• I misspelled the word 'transition' and did not fix it.
• I also misspelled the word 'sacrilegious'. Didn't fix it, either.
• But the worst of it is that at some point I somehow replaced all my "On" and "on"s with "on". Which wouldn't seem like such a big deal until you read things like this:
• ...to the cloud. once she saw...
• ...the stairs. on top of the roof...
• ...no hope. only a miracle...

Of course, I'm making up all those lines, but the point remains the same. I have lost count of how many sentences begin with "on" instead of "On". AND I SENT THIS TO AGENTS. AND THEY READ IT!

 And they requested fulls! They requested revisions!

So just so you know, if you didn't believe it, typos will not make or break your writing career. Not if your writing is good and your story is good. Not if it's obvious that you do indeed know how to type.

Just give your manuscript--and your query letter, and your synopsis--one hundred percent. Do your best. Agents understand. They can tell when you've given it your all, and they're willing to be forgiving.

Just in case you wondered.

Only You Can Know

I've had a few responses to my requests. And they all go something like this:

One agent doesn't fall in love with Jenn's voice.

The next one tells me that Jenn is such an engaging character.

Then she goes on to tell me that the murder should be less of a murder and more of an accident, or a self-defense killing.

Yet a previous agent made it quite clear that she liked the gray-ness of the murder and appreciated that it wasn't an accident or in self-defense.

 I have come to the conclusion that you cannot depend on another person to tell you what your book is. They can tell you if it's marketable, and they can tell you if it's plausible. They can tell you how a scene made them feel.

But only you know how you wanted the scene to make them feel. Only you know what the book was meant to be. Critique partners and beta readers and agents can tell you stars* of valuable, valuable, valuable things about your book. I cannot emphasize that enough. Without them, you're pretty much...sunk.

Some of them, those that know your heart, can help you find out what your book is.

But only you can know it. Your book is your creation. It's between you and God, because no one else knows your heart like God does. And it's up to you to stay to true to your book. It's up to you to make the decisions that will make or break...everything.

* Stars: Synonymous with 'tons' or 'oodles'. References the fact the stars are innumerable.

Interrogation Points

Pins. Needles.

She said she was going to read it this weekend. And I haven't heard back. My head is full of interrogation points.

Is that a good thing?


A bad thing?


A very good thing?


A very, very bad thing?

Is she spending an inordinate of time crafting a rejection letter? An R&R letter? Is this going to be a repeat of last month's "I love your book so much I hate it" episode?

She's busy. Agents are busy. People are busy. You're busy, Melody. Relax. Chill. She probably just hasn't read it yet--

BUT WHAT IF SHE HAS?! I can totally live if she has yet to read it, but what if she has?!

What if she's trying to make sense of my reply to her question about whether or not I've worked with beta readers and critique partners? What if my nervousness made me even more incoherent than I first worried? What if my book is just sitting there in her Kindle...waiting for a decision? IS MY BOOK IN THE DECISION PILE?!

It's in the to-read pile. That's where books live.

I'm stalking her Twitter but she's not saying anything!


Melody: Go. Write. Something. Else.

Writer's Block {That I Do Not Have}

Sorry for the radio silence last week. And the week before. It's been a crazy, sleep-deprived two weeks. But life is finally settling down.

News?

• An agent to whom I had sent a partial requested a full. And wrote back quickly after I sent it to her. And inquired as to my writing experience. And wrote back quickly after I sent that. She seems quite friendly, and I really, really like her. Needless to say, I'm on pins and needles waiting to hear back. {Have I been Twitter-stalking? Maybe. Just a little. Guess there's a first time for everything.}
•  I've decided that I must, no excuses, finish a manuscript draft by the end of August, when school starts. I need writer's block off my mind going into college. {Not that I, um, have writer's block...}
• I've been returning to a dystopian that's been in my head since before dystopian was a genre, from the days when Margaret Peterson Haddix was the only bleak, totalitarian-government author you were going to find in the kid's section. My dystopian is not working. I have no villain, not one with a face, anyway.
• So I started work on another dystopian. An ice-skating one. {As we all know, ice-skating anything is fantastic.}
• Although I'm actually supposed to be working on my TWT sequel. Or the contemporary that already has 20K words.
• But enough about the writer's block that I do not have! I *drumroll please* have discovered the Notepad app for Kindle! For $0.99, I can make notes of up to 3000 characters {which is a lot, as far as notes go} and save the things as .rtf files to transfer to my computer. {I haven't done that yet; will let you know how it goes when I do.} Which basically means...I can write when I don't have my computer. Like when my brother has my computer. Or when I'm in the bathroom. {Yeah, whatever, you know that's where you get your best ideas.} Or when said computer is off. Because I know that turning it on also turns on the time-suck that is email/Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest/blogsblogsblogs. Anyway...it's a little sad because my lovely Composition notebook has lost it's primo spot in my purse. But it's nice because my purse just got way smaller. :)

The Author

So last week, I received an opportunity to revise and resubmit my manuscript to an agent! *squee* Her letter told me so many things about my book, but what I picked up on the most was the fact that she was passionate about it. About my book!

Do you know what kind of a confidence-booster this is? To know that someone loved my book that much! To know that I can write! It's true! It's not me making this up anymore! It's no longer my friends telling me that my story is fantastic! It's a real, live agent who sells real, live books in a real, live industry!

Wow.

Not only that, I was the honored recipient of several tweets about her reaction to reading my manuscript. One of these tweets referred to me as "the author". THE AUTHOR.

An agent has called me an author.

Of course, she's suggested a lot of changes. I'm on board with most of them, and I can totally see how they'll make the book better. Some of them--some major {read: deal-breaking} ones--were, well, deal-breakers, for her and for me.

But when all is said and done, someone in the publishing industry has been passionate about my book. And they called me an author.

I can't see how this could get much better.

Actually, I can. I could find someone to go see see The Hunger Games with me. {I know! I still haven't seen it. Sad. I hear Haymitch is done quite well though, and that excites me more than anything.} {Team Cinna. Team Haymitch. Team Finnick. I'm pretty sure that Peeta and Gale aren't even on my list.}

Subjectivity

I was "out of the office" all day Saturday, which is to say, I was having lunch with my extended family. Of course, when I got home, I had a nice bunch of emails to sort through--mostly junk, as usual. I have seven email addresses that all flow to one melting pot of emails {thank you, Thunderbird}, which means I have everything from band updates, query replies, friendly emails, newsletters, forum updates, and everything in between...all in one place.

But on Saturday, there were two emails right on top of each other. And both of them were responses to partials I had sent out in response to requests. The first was a short rejection, shorter than even some query form rejections I've received. It wasn't right for the agent; she hadn't fallen in love with the voice.

The very next email was actually from yesterday's snail-mail agent. It began with how much she was enjoying the book, and could I send the full manuscript {via email, thank goodness} so she could continue reading. There were lots of exclamation points. {You can't judge a book by its cover, but you can judge an email by its exclamation points.}

Subjectivity.

Two agents, both with partials. One didn't fall in love with the voice. One wants more, please!

This is a subjective business. Everywhere you look, agents and editors are turning down books that others make bestsellers. One agent loves your voice, another hates it. One thinks your MC is depressing, another thinks she's way too bubbly. One thinks it won't sell, the next thinks it's been over-done. One likes the plot but hates the MC. The other loves the MC but doesn't think the plot makes sense.

Subjectivity.

Your book can be the next Twilight, and you're still going to get rejections. They're going to happen. You're going to get rejections from agents, from editors, and from readers. They're going to tell you what they dislike...and I doubt they'll all say the same thing. And that's okay.

I'm here to write the best book I can write. If someone doesn't fall in love with the voice, that's not my problem. {Unless 20 different agents are telling me the same thing, of course. Then it's time to go back to the drawing board} If someone disses my plot and someone else thinks it's brilliant...it's not my problem. It's my job to write the best book possible. That's all I can do.

I Got To Live That Life

To all my new and lovely followers--welcome! :)

I recently got a partial request via email {all my queries have been via email} to snail-mail my partial to the agency. That involved a ridiculous amount of formatting, cover-letter crafting, and printing, but in the end, I took a beautiful manila envelope to the post office and sent it.

And all my annoyance at the whole snail-mail thing just vanished.

I felt like Louisa May Alcott. Or Jane Austen. Jo March and Anne Shirley. Just the...the romance of it, of writing a book, of printing it out {which they could not do, I know}, of sealing up my story and sending it off into the unknown. Of knowing it would be held in real hands and read with real eyes...

As convenient as email is, I do not think anything can equal the beauty of the real mail. Even if this agency does not end up offering me representation, I'm so very glad they requested a partial. Because just for a moment, I got to live the life of the writer in my imagination, the one who writes in secluded closets with a typewriter, wreathed by cigarette smoke, surrounded by half-full cups of days-old coffee, who stacks the paper with a grim smile, ties it with a ribbon, and sends it away...I got to live that life.

If You Do Your Best

Late again. Perhaps this is a...nightly blog? :)

Figured it was time for an update on Those Who Trespass. I've sent 50 queries. {Dude, I had no idea I could find that many possible agents!} FIFTY!

And I've gotten five requests--four fulls, one partial.

It's a whole new level of querying, let me tell you. I thought waiting on a query was bad. Requests are much, much worse.

I owe so much of this to my query, which, in turn, owes itself to Shelley the Awesome Beta, and Robin, the Writing-Accountability-Partner. {Yes, I've revealed her name! Yes, I still have full intention of giving her her own introductory post!}

It's a good query. Not going to lie. And so, so, so much of the credit goes to Shelley and Robin.

And sometimes it kills me. What if? I wonder. What if my query is is worth reading but my book isn't? What if I'm letting down these awesome agents? I know it's not true; I know this is a good book {credit here goes to critic {critique-er?} extraordinaire, Aimee L. Salter, and Shelley the Awesome Beta}. I think it lives up to the query.

I think there are always doubts. I know there are. I read enough blogs. I see the worries. It starts with wondering if your query is good enough. And then you wonder if your partial is...then your full. Then your synopsis, or whatever it is your agent takes to publishers. Then your book in the hands of readers! Then a sequel! What if they feel like you let them down?

You don't have anything to be ashamed of if you do your best. Your best query. Your best story. Your best writing. Your best editing. Your best promotion. Your best invention of a sequel, if yours is the sort of story that merits a sequel. If you let anyone--friend, beta, agent, editor, reader, fan--down, you can't blame yourself if you did your best.

And I've done my best. I know I have. It's all out of my hands now, out of my hands and in God's.

Chocolate Sessions

I ate chocolate yesterday and today.

Yes, this means something. Because I eat chocolate to 1) celebrate, or 2) ...whatever the opposite of celebrate is. Basically, this all adds up to: good news and bad news.

Bad news first. AKA, Chocolate Session #1: A rejection on a full request. A form rejection to a full request. From one of my dream agents. Le many sighs. I've been waiting and waiting and waiting and, yes, expecting every unknown number on my phone to be an offer of representation. But it's not to be. However, I am still alive. And I think this is worth noting. I now know that I can handle rejection of this magnitude. {With chocolate.}

Good news! Chocolate Session #2: I GOT MY DRIVER'S LICENSE TODAY! Passed the test with what amounts to a B-, which I'm sure is a lot worse than what my brother will get in a few years, but it doesn't matter, I am FREE TO DRIVE! I am almost five years late, but I have my driver's license! {The license journey has been long and arduous. And I blogged about it.}

Either way you look at it, I got chocolate out of the deal. And that rocked.

Breaking Trends

1. 21 queries
2. 10 rejections
3. There's a trend here.
4. There must not be a market for my book.
5. Maybe I can't write good query letters.
6. There isn't a market for my book.
7. I can't write good query letters.
8. My queries suck.
9. My story sucks.
10. My writing sucks.
11. There are other careers.
12. There's still time to apply for financial aid this fall.
13. All the grandparents would be happy.
14. I can't be a writer.
15. Am I crazy?
16. Even if it sells, it's not a career.
17. I should really ditch this whole writing idea.
18. *checks email*
19. OMGOSH A PARTIAL REQUEST I'M GOING TO DIE FROM HAPPINESS MAYBE I'M REALLY SUPPOSED TO BE A WRITER AFTER ALL!!!

Just keep writing. :)