Socialization Is So Important

I always stressed that to people who bought my puppies over the years. Nothing can compare to the well-rounded adult that was brought up being well-socialized.

Now, other writers, agents and publishers are telling me the same thing. I must become a social creature and join all sorts of forums, blogs and social websites. I am learning how to Tweet and I have a writer's page on Facebook. I joined LinkedIn and before I could get a profile finished, I was getting emails telling me I needed to "check what Samantha is up to." Since I don't know a Samantha I didn't rush to check out her page. Within the next ten minutes, I'd somehow been "linked in" to over a hundred people. Many of them casual acquaintances, some of them friends, some I've worked with in the past and a majority of total strangers. I finally traced Samantha down as owning a store where the sister of one of my friends shops! Apparently when I told them NOT to go to my address book they used the same selective deafness that Buford the Big Blue Dog uses when I tell him to stop stealing bread, and they rifled through my e-mail address book like a pervert in an undies drawer. And they dug all the way to the bottom of the drawer too. And sent an invitation to not only all my panties, but also invited the panties of my neighbor's sister's uncle's best friend's maid to link to me!

If you got a request to "link with me" and you don't know me, or haven't heard from me since I developed breasts, I apologize. I haven't been back in to see what havoc has been wreaked. I'm a little afraid to. It's like watching an episode of "This Is Your Life" gone terribly wrong and the "guest" is reintroduced to people from their past that were in the past for a reason.

I guess I'm handling all the socialization well. At least nobody has jumped out from behind a bush and snapped open an umbrella in front of me. (And only dog people will know WTF that means).

Warning: Exhausted and Grumpy Writer Ahead

I am literally wearing myself out trying to have documents on hand to fit the requests of any other agents that might contact me.

I have saved both novels (why oh why didn't I listen to the people who said focus on just one? Although doing that is sort of like a parent admitting they have a favorite child) in a variety of fonts and formats. I've backed up, rebacked and printed and saved and I'm so confused now that some poor agent is likely to receive a copy of my Facebook status or my father's eulogy instead of what she's asked for.

In the middle of all of this I downloaded Dropbox because I kept reading about it on different agent blogs. Sounds good. You just put in it copies of stuff you want to protect or have available from other computers, and voila. What no one told me was that when you "drop and drag" (as instructed) files into Dropbox, they are no longer on your desktop. Imagine my horror when I came back after lunch and opened my Hot Bubbles and Chocolate file and it said "this file is empty." Heart attack city! (Better than a hospital stress test... now I know my heart can take anything).

I quickly learned to copy and paste into Dropbox. Yeah, I know. Unnecessary. But, I am too old to just blithely trust all these newfangled inventions.

Nothing in the mail today. At least there wasn't a rejection!

*sigh*

Your Post Has Been Sent

Well, it's done. My newly hashed synopsis of Hot Bubbles and Chocolate, my bio and the first three chapters of the book are now wending their way through cyberspace to what I hope will be gentle and welcoming hands at the agent who brightened my world by requesting further info. Thank you Arliss for being there and doing the voo do that you do so well!

I'm too exhausted, emotionally and physically, to do anything but play solitaire. And dream. And think about what I shoulda, woulda, coulda done differently.

Ah well. Tomorra is anothah day. (I did mention I'm Southern, right?)

Out Of the Darkness, There Came a Voice

OK, it wasn't a voice. It was an email. But, it came at exactly the right time. No matter what comes of it, it's a wonderful thing to be told that you've "intrigued" someone with your writing. Especially someone who "matters" (not that the readers who have already been intrigued with Hot Bubbles...Lori, Dennis, Pete, Clark and Arliss et al... don't matter, you know what I meant).

I opened the morning e-mail to find:

I was intrigued by your project and would like to see the first three chapters of the manuscript. It would be great if you could EMAIL me, as an attachment that could open in Word (rather than a PDF) the first three chapters, a brief one- or two-page synopsis, and a short bio (including a list of any previous publications).To expedite the review process, please write REQUESTED MATERIAL in the subject heading.

Thanks for contacting me. I look forward to reading your work.

Regards,
Another Unnamed Agent

I'll bet they say that ... "I'm intrigued"...to everybody, but for now, let's pretend I'm special.

Of course this means I immediately have to start preparing yet another synopsis (longer this time, whew) and re-edit and then re-re-edit the first three chapters. And dash the synopsis off to Arliss for a quick readover. I'll send it all tomorrow after I double and triple check everything again.

I'm psyched.

The Sharp Sting of Rejection

After joining beaucoup (boo-coo? anyway, a heck of a lot of) writer's forums, and lurking at dozens of agent's blogs, I had resigned myself to settling in for a long wait before I hear from an agent after submitting my query.

Suffice it to say, SOMEONE out there not only doesn't like me/my writing, but is quick on the draw to tell me so. My first rejection arrives in the morning email.

Dear Ms. Hudspeth,

Thank you for sending me your query. Unfortunately, your project isn’t right for my list, so I’m going to pass. The number of queries I receive makes it impossible for me to provide personalized feedback, but you might try www.agentquery.com, if you haven’t already, for a better editorial match.

Best of luck with your agent search.
The Unnamed Agent

Ouch.

Her polite suggestion would be really helpful... if I hadn't gotten the info to send my query to her from, wait for it, agentquery.com. I had submitted Hot Bubbles and Chocolate to her because her personal agency page as well as the blurb on agentquery.com said she was interested in "chick lit, women's, contemporary fiction." I guess it was just me. Sob.

No more e-mail. And my mind whirling in too many directions to write. Thank goodness for TiVo and the fact that Criminal Minds and Whose Line Is It Anyway run on lots of different channels giving me an unending supply.

I wonder if you can develop a taste for hard liquor?

Hitting Send. Really. Hitting Send. Now.

I never knew my pinkie finger could be so strong. My mind tells me to hit the enter key which will send the query letter to one of the six agents I have chosen with whom to possibly start my journey.

I have pored over submissions policies, suggestions and requests. Most went via email, a couple went directly from an agent's website. Not sure if I like that idea or not. At least I know I answered the questions they wanted answered in the amount of space they required. It will probably be much easier to be ignored that way though, or forgotten. Of course, it's very easy to hit 'delete' to an email too. *sigh*

If only there was a "one size fits all" template so this stuff could be done once and then get back to writing. But this agent wants things one way, another wants the opposite. One is my kind of agent, wanting a lot of info up front, with a fairly lengthy bio and synopsis. This I can do. The next says that query, bio and synopsis all-together should be no longer than one page. I can write more than that about my breakfast cereal. Now, I guess, is when I learn how to edit, chop and further mutilate my already prepared bio, query and synopsis. By the time I get finished, it's going to read little more than "I'm a writer. I've been published a lot of times but nothing you'll recognize. Now, I've written a book about the Civil War. A lot of people die but then a lot get happy. Please represent me." Ack.

Another agent wants 12 TNR (which I now, after doing a quick Bing-search, know means Times New Roman font), first 2 pages, no bio and an "intriguing query that will knock my socks off." I put that one off 'til last. Maybe with practice I'll become better at sock-knocking.

Finally, all the letters are written. The requested pages have been formatted according to each person's preference. Websites have been double-checked to be sure that the spelling of the particular agent I'm querying is correct (and current). A bio has been written that makes me (hopefully) sound interesting, knowledgeable and immediately gives the impression of you'd-be-a-fool-to-let-me-go. The synopsis has been written, rewritten and then written again. How do you condense 20 chapters into less than one page? Again, ACK. This has been an all-day job. Not a single word got written except those trying to prove to someone that I don't know that I is indeed a writer and words, they is my life.

My finger hovers over the send button, and then, one by one my children go out into cyberspace to hopefully find a loving home where they will be appreciated, nurtured and allowed to grow into books I will be happy to call mine.

I wish I drank.

To Market, To Market

OK, as the first day of the rest of my fiction writing career, I start by opening my Writer's Market book. Geez. How overwhelming. My eyes are crossing trying to make heads and tails of agents and publishers, their wants and needs and their submission preferences. Good thing I don't have a "day job." How do people get published and lead normal lives with kids and families and jobs and bills? I'm lucky that I have time to focus just on writing, and I still am having a hard time keeping up!

I finally get my rhythm going, and a few hours later, my Writer's Market looks like it's years old instead of just months. Pages are tattered, folded, spindled and mutilated...and marked with a rainbow of marker colors. A pink line means that the agent (I decided to focus on agents and try to get signed with someone who will handle all this tedious query stuff so I can actually have time to write again, instead of also querying publishers directly) is one that handles my genre(s). A green line denotes ones that accepts email submissions. I am far too green (environmentally, not jealous) to waste all the paper necessary to send manuscripts that may well end up in a wastebasket somewhere. Besides, email is faster and I'll have a definite record of who I sent what to when. Yellow means they are currently accepting queries and new clients. Eventually I'll go back through and make a list of the ones with all three colors.

For now, I'm trying to find agencies that have at least one agent who focuses on the different types of manuscripts I currently have available, as well as those that are 'baking.' I enjoy working on different types of manuscripts, so I need to find an agent who is willing to work in different genres instead of fixated on one.

Behind the Gray needs an agent that loves history and historical novels. Hot Bubbles and Chocolate needs an agent that loves to laugh and can find humor in day-to-day life.

After too many hours staring at fine print, I squeak in a couple of hours of editing. Tomorrow, I write query letters. Tonight I watch reruns of Frasier and wish I could write as well as their writers!