Ahhhh.
For the hell of it, I just submitted my first (this round, anyway) query letter to a lit agent. I did it because I wanted to feel like the process is going somewhere, and because it wasn't an agency I'd expect to hear from even if somehow I wrote the most amazing query in the world. (They represent only 5% novels, and I think only 10% first-time writers, and I think they publish maybe twenty titles a year. They're based in SD, however, so that was kind of fun. Although I'm not actually sure why, except I guess that if they break my heart I could personally go and see where the office is to glare at it on my way somewhere else. Watch out, world.)
It was a decent letter - not great, but decent. Depends on what they're looking for. Unique angle but not everyone wants that. I'll rewrite it before sending it to any real prospects.
It seems seriously impossible to break into the market. I calculated it yesterday at a .01% chance of ever getting a novel published, which is pretty scary. Today I walked to the park with an old friend. She smoked thin expensive cigarettes she'd bought and then regretted, more as a chore of frugality than for pleasure, and we sat on a bench near odd-looking, duck-like birds and talked about what happens to the people who fall through the cracks. My friend just took her MCATs and realized that maybe one or two of the people in the test center with her would ever become doctors - and what about the rest? You hear the glory stories, not the rewrites of future plans. If I ever make it, I'm going to look back on this afternoon with overwhelming gratitude that I don't have to think too hard about those who never realize their dreams.
But the odds aren't looking good. I think I actually have a significantly better shot at getting attacked, robbed or raped - all things I worry about that my boyfriend promises me are never, ever going to happen. That doesn't bode well for publication, if the math is correct in all cases. (Good thing I'm a lit major and haven't taken math since my junior year in high school.)
I think on some level I must think it'll happen someday, because otherwise I might not tell anyone about even trying. I'm probably that kind of person. Boy, will this come back to bite me in the ass if/when I get enough rejection letters to staple together and stand on the balcony and drop onto someone's head when I'm especially bitter about not having the chance to do what I love.
Oh, the angst.
Anyway. This was intended as un update on progress. So I sent a (BS-ish) query, can say I've officially started, and now for the real work. I definitely need to edit again, and I think I should be able to do that in three weeks, especially after getting feedback from my amazing friends who've been reading. (Believe me, I know exactly how lucky I am.) I'm really afraid that that's wrong, though, and that really I need to spend like a year on it. I want to do this NOW. Meanwhile, I need an amazing, amazing query letter that convinces everyone who reads it that my manuscript is the best thing ever to happen to them. I'd like to be at the point where I can send stuff out in three weeks; I think waiting for (rejection) letters will buy me some time to fine-tune.
I like this story - a lot, in fact - but I also know I can do better. Maybe not on this one and maybe not for a while, until I'm older, but I'm pretty sure I have that somewhere in me. (But then, I would be.) At any rate, I want the chance to pursue that and do it full-time and not feel like one of those stupid people who 'want to be a writer' because of stupid, stupid movies/TV shows that glamourize it. (Never Been Kissed, How to Lose a Guy, Sex and the City. Die. Die.) I know exactly what it sounds like to say "I'm working on a novel," believe me.
I see why writers become alcoholics.
My turn.
Just kidding, kind of. I'll keep working. Slash waiting for my first rejection, which will, I think, officially start the ball rolling, and it'll keep going I think until it's like a snowball that just keeps gathering more and more powder until individually innocuous flakes have conglomerated into a powerful wintery threat that I'll see coming but for some reason will be unable to run from and that will knock into me and, being much stronger, roll over me and press me into a sad flat little speck on the asphalt. In the spring, you can peel me and my wounded pride/imminent career in technical writing off.
It was a decent letter - not great, but decent. Depends on what they're looking for. Unique angle but not everyone wants that. I'll rewrite it before sending it to any real prospects.
It seems seriously impossible to break into the market. I calculated it yesterday at a .01% chance of ever getting a novel published, which is pretty scary. Today I walked to the park with an old friend. She smoked thin expensive cigarettes she'd bought and then regretted, more as a chore of frugality than for pleasure, and we sat on a bench near odd-looking, duck-like birds and talked about what happens to the people who fall through the cracks. My friend just took her MCATs and realized that maybe one or two of the people in the test center with her would ever become doctors - and what about the rest? You hear the glory stories, not the rewrites of future plans. If I ever make it, I'm going to look back on this afternoon with overwhelming gratitude that I don't have to think too hard about those who never realize their dreams.
But the odds aren't looking good. I think I actually have a significantly better shot at getting attacked, robbed or raped - all things I worry about that my boyfriend promises me are never, ever going to happen. That doesn't bode well for publication, if the math is correct in all cases. (Good thing I'm a lit major and haven't taken math since my junior year in high school.)
I think on some level I must think it'll happen someday, because otherwise I might not tell anyone about even trying. I'm probably that kind of person. Boy, will this come back to bite me in the ass if/when I get enough rejection letters to staple together and stand on the balcony and drop onto someone's head when I'm especially bitter about not having the chance to do what I love.
Oh, the angst.
Anyway. This was intended as un update on progress. So I sent a (BS-ish) query, can say I've officially started, and now for the real work. I definitely need to edit again, and I think I should be able to do that in three weeks, especially after getting feedback from my amazing friends who've been reading. (Believe me, I know exactly how lucky I am.) I'm really afraid that that's wrong, though, and that really I need to spend like a year on it. I want to do this NOW. Meanwhile, I need an amazing, amazing query letter that convinces everyone who reads it that my manuscript is the best thing ever to happen to them. I'd like to be at the point where I can send stuff out in three weeks; I think waiting for (rejection) letters will buy me some time to fine-tune.
I like this story - a lot, in fact - but I also know I can do better. Maybe not on this one and maybe not for a while, until I'm older, but I'm pretty sure I have that somewhere in me. (But then, I would be.) At any rate, I want the chance to pursue that and do it full-time and not feel like one of those stupid people who 'want to be a writer' because of stupid, stupid movies/TV shows that glamourize it. (Never Been Kissed, How to Lose a Guy, Sex and the City. Die. Die.) I know exactly what it sounds like to say "I'm working on a novel," believe me.
I see why writers become alcoholics.
My turn.
Just kidding, kind of. I'll keep working. Slash waiting for my first rejection, which will, I think, officially start the ball rolling, and it'll keep going I think until it's like a snowball that just keeps gathering more and more powder until individually innocuous flakes have conglomerated into a powerful wintery threat that I'll see coming but for some reason will be unable to run from and that will knock into me and, being much stronger, roll over me and press me into a sad flat little speck on the asphalt. In the spring, you can peel me and my wounded pride/imminent career in technical writing off.
posted by Kelly at
2:33 AM
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1 comments
