In Which I HAVE A BOOK DEAL!

I've had to sit on this news for a bit, but as the title says, ALL THAT REMAINS sold!!

Publisher's Marketplace Announcement



Okay, backing up a bit.

I signed with Agent Mollie at the very end of January. There was excitement already about ATR with some editors, etc, so we wanted to revise ASAP and get it out.

So I finished up revisions and we went out on sub on Valentines Day.

And for two weeks my emotions were up and down like crazy. I'd heard being on sub is rough, but they weren't kidding. I'm a person who pretty much lets things roll off me. Rejections? Not a problem. Waiting on responses? Sure, I can handle that.

But submission? I haven't been that stressed in a long, long time.

Though, to be fair, I think a large chunk of my stress was because everything was happening so, so fast. I mean, I had sent out my first query for ATR in November, and here we were, on sub, three months later. Super zoomy fast. Which gave me no time to adjust to anything.

But, luckily for me, it didn't last long, because on the last day of February HarperTeen offered!

I spoke to Mollie right away.

Then I called Twin. I was shaking I was so excited. After I told Twin, I called my mom. She kept having me repeat my news. And then she told my dad and my other sis and I told Brother when he got home.

But of course, I had to swear them to secrecy until we accepted and I had the go-ahead to announce.

And we did accept! And here I am announcing and I'm so super excited to work with Editor Alex and launch ALL THAT REMAINS into the world.

I hope you'll like it. I think you will.

And as always, thank you for reading. If you're trying to reach this point yourself, just keep trying, just keep putting yourself out there. You can do it.

In Which I HAVE AN AGENT!!!

Guys. GUYS!!!!

SERIOUSLY!

Okay. Wait. Let me calm down and back up a little. I'm just so excited because since I started this blog, alllll the way back in 2010, I've seriously dreamed about writing this post, guys. THE POST.

The I GOT AN AGENT POST!!

Because I did.

And this is how I feel:

I honestly wish I could dance this well

 

Okay, so let's tell a tale, a tale of queries and revisions and offers. But first, we must go back to a conference. (prepare yourself for a long ass post)

Wait. One more dance:

 

In NaNoWriMo 2011 I wrote the first 50k of ALL THAT REMAINS. Then I put it aside for a year because it was fighting me and I was working on something else. For NaNo 2012 I finished the last 50k of ATR and I loved it and decided I would take my time revising this one. And I would take a class to workshop it. And I would not rush.

In October (2013) I attended the MN SCBWI conference, which was fun and awesome. I had signed up for a MS crit from either an editor or an agent and I was assigned to the editor. But instead of giving me a crit, she mostly just said that she loved my first five pages and that she wanted to see the full of ALL THAT REMAINS.

Which was amazing and great. I told her that I planned on querying because I wanted an agent and she agreed that an agent would be the best way to go. And then she did something awesome--she told me if I wanted to, I could use her name in my query. So I did.

I began querying on Halloween. I sent 2 out, got 2 fulls, and then sent out a full batch of 10. My goal was to query through November, take a break in December, and then start up again when I was done with my MFA residency in mid January. Also, I had a new strategy with this MS: I was going to start off by targeting agents who had read previous manuscripts of mine.

I had a very large request rate. A lot of requests is normal for me, but this was different. This was also no rejections. Even with a lot of requests on the other manuscripts, I still pulled in the Rs. But not this time. For awhile I had an almost 100% acceptance rate on my queries. I even broke my rule and queried a few agents who had only rejected me in the past, and even they requested. For a brief moment, I thought about pulling out of the Baker's Dozen contest, but my family convinced me otherwise.

I got a partial request in mid Nov. Then that agent bumped it up to a full. And she tweeted about me, guys. That . . . that was a crazy moment. That she was so excited to read the full that she had to tweet it.

In early December, the same agent sent me an email that she wanted to call and talk revisions. She raved about ATR. She comped it to an amazing book that I lurved (*cough* LIES OF LOCKE LAMORA *cough*). And she wanted to give me her revision notes asap because she was pretty sure I would get an offer from another agent soon. And her revision notes were great, so I dove in.

And then I got 3 more R&Rs within the same week. Now, I'd had R&Rs before, but these were different. They were exuberant. There were phone calls and excitement and more agents telling me that I would most likely get an offer from another agent soon.

One agent only wanted to see revisions on the first few chapters. A kind of "feeling me out" sort of deal, to see if I could actually pull the revisions off. And that I wasn't crazy.

So I dove into those first, because they'd be faster. I sent them back to her a week before my MFA, but this agent was still out of the office because of the holidays.

Then, the day before my residency, when I'd be in lectures and workshops and readings for 11 days straight, all day, this agent said she wanted to call.

I thought it would be an offer. So I managed to skip some of the non-required readings, and took the call in a classroom.


And she offered.

And my new MFA friends freaked out in enthusiasm and excitement and congratulations and that night we went to a Korean restaurant/bar and performed some major karaoke.

That night I nudged everyone who had the MS, including the 3 remaining R&R agents and the few queries I still had out.

I had another offer a few days later. I actually had dinner with this agent because she happened to be in town, visiting in-laws. The dinner was lovely and I had a great time.

Then I had another offer. And another. And by this time the residency was over and I had just a few days to reach out to agent clients and do some final research before I had to make a decision. But during this time the offers still came in.

 

But, when it was all said and done, there was one agent that just struck a chord with me. When I was finished speaking with her on the phone, I felt excited to get to work. It was my gut telling me she was the one.

I am happy to announce that I am now officially repped by: MOLLIE GLICK! Of Foundry Literary + Media

I'm so excited to get to work on revisions with her.

Me, signing the agent agreement

 

Twin baked me a cake!

It was butter pecan. And it. was. delicious!!

So. The Numbers, since I know some people love the numbers (I know this because I am a numbers person. I love reading the "I got an agent" posts and I love seeing the stats)


Queries sent: 25
Query rejections (before the offer): 3
Partial Requests: 3 (2 bumped up to fulls)
Full requests: 14 (including the bumps)
R&Rs: 4 (3 stepped aside after the offer)
Number of Offers: 7


But, I think it's important to remind people that, yes, even though those stats are pretty awesome, this is after 2 other queried manuscripts. I've been querying almost steadily since 2011.

So here are some quick stats on those, because I want to remind people that sometimes it takes a lot of work and patience to reach this point. And there's no shame in it. I loved every step of the journey, both the ups and the downs, because it meant I was putting myself out there, that I was working hard and trying and I knew trying was the only way I'd reach my goals.


GLIMPSE OF ANOTHER SHORE
Queried for 8 months in 2011 and 4 months in 2012
Queries Sent: 96
Partial Requests: 1
Full Requests: 17


BREAK FREE
Queried for 6 months in 2012 and 7 months in 2013
Queries sent: 106
Partial Requests: 5 (three bumped to fulls)
Full Requests: 11 (not including the bumps)
R&Rs: 3


So. There you have it. over 200 queries in 3 years. 48 manuscript requests. 7 offers. 1 agent.

Thanks for reading and for being awesome. Because you are.
 

In Which I Conferenced

Saturday I hit the MN SCBWI annual conference. It was my first one, since I've only been a member for a year now (which, I mean, you can attend if you're not a member. I just didn't know about it until I became a member)

There's something to be said for a conference that only lasts a day. At the very least, it means you still get some of your weekend to do your normal weekend stuff (for me, that's errands and cooking club. And writing blog posts, natch)

So anyway, here's a rundown of the conference:

The keynote speakers were David Small and Sarah Stewart. David is an award winning illustrator and Sarah, his wife, is a Picture Book writer. The first panel was David talking about his graphic novel memoir, Stitches.

David Small was just an amazing speaker. Seriously. Everything that came out of his mouth was entertaining and profound and funny. He was one of those speakers you could have listened to the entire conference.

He and Sarah gave another presentation on her book The Quiet Place, which he had illustrated.

And they were both adorbs. Like, you know those couples that love each other so much that you can't help but love them too? Not one of those couples that fills facebook with "I love you" and "I'm on my way home!" and "I can't wait till you get home!" Those couples drive me crazy. Listen, I know you love each other, but you don't have rub everyone's face in it. David and Sarah were not like that at all. I think everyone just absolutely loved them together.

There were only like 5 copies of Stitches for sale at the conference. I got the second to last one. BAM!

The conference was then split up into Workshops. Two at a time, one for illustrators and one for writers, so naturally I hit the writer ones.

The first one was "A Whole New World: How Dreams and Desire Can Improve World-Building" put on by Sara Sargent, Assistant Editor at Balzer + Bray, a HarperCollins imprint.

Her presentations was great. The best part was, though, a writing exercise we did. She had brought with a box of books and she said anyone who volunteered to read theirs could pick out a book.

Later, someone would tell me that she thought I was super brave to volunteer and I told her the truth, that I will pretty much do anything for a free book. I got Everneath by Brodi Ashton

Honestly I wanted to be first, but one girl had a critique to go to in the middle of the workshop and managed to raise her hand faster. But I went second.

The exercise was to just list out your MCs tangible want, emotional want, barriers to their success, tools to combat the barriers and wish fulfillment. Most of these are things I actually write down before I write my rough draft, so it was easy to participate for me.

The second workshop was "Cracking the Nut: One Agent's Advice on Craft and Career for Writer's of All Levels" by Linda Pratt from Wernick & Pratt Agency.

Her presentation was good, but I was familiar with a lot of what she said, so there really wasn't much that I found surprising.


There were critiques going on as well. If you paid an additional $35 you could've had your first 5 pages read by an agent or editor or creative director. I didn't participate, mostly because I thought $35 seemed pretty expensive for only 5 pages (or at least, it did to me, since it seems like there's always blog contests or auctions where you can get 50 pages or more read by agents). But in hindsight I kind of wish I had done it, just because everyone else was and I felt a bit left out. Of course, that's a known flaw I've talked about here.

There was, however, a first pages event. And that was free to enter. How it worked was, if you wanted, you emailed your first page before the conference. Then the last event of the day was the two agents and one editor would listen to randomly selected first pages and comment on them.
It was all anonymous and random, so there wasn't a huge chance you'd get picked, but it was fun to hear what the agents and editor had to say. And I totally learned a LOT on how to write Picture Books

BUT!! I was totally picked! They only had time to go through 4 of them and mine was the 3rd one!

I have to say, it was utterly terrifying hearing someone read my first page (also, kind of a bummer, she flubbed my best line on that page, which gave it a different meaning. Le sigh).

I think I got pretty nice feedback. Or at least, they all said something good about it (they liked my opening line, my tension and the dialogue) where as it seemed all the others had mostly criticisms. But still, it took me an hour or so to calm the eff down so I could accept the critiques with a critical eye.

So there you have it! I tried to keep this post short, but clearly, I didn't.  Sorry, and high five if you stuck through the whole thing!

In Which I Contest

Man I've been doing a lot of contests lately. I don't know if that's a good thing or not. Especially since I've taken a short hiatus on querying while I finish up another round of revisions.

But they just seem so fun and everyone's involved and I always like to be involved in things when it seems like everyone else is and having fun. I can't help it. I like being part of the group.

I figured my chances for Pitch Madness were slim, since I'm not great at writing pitches. I'm not bad, I'm just no comparison to those peeps who are ah-mazing at it. So I didn't make it to the next round in that one, which was expected.

But both GUTGAA and Come and Get It rely on the query and first 250 words. And I'm much better at query writing. I made it to the second round of CAGI (I was #72) and our entries will be posted starting today for browsing agents. So that's exciting! Of course, there's always a chance I won't get any requests and I'm okay with that.

GUTGAA round 2 winners won't be announced until later this week, I think. I feel like I have a good chance, but again, it all depends on the judges personal tastes and who else you're up against. Either way, it's been fun and I'm glad I participated.

What about you? Have you been participating in any contests?

In Which I Share More Stuff Pt. 3

All right! This is my last post regarding the Children's and YA Literature Conference. This will just be covering Megan Atwood's Steps for Revising which I'm sure we're all interested in. At least I know I always am.

Fun fact. After this panel (and some thoughts from a trusted Beta Reader) I realized I was finally ready to begin querying my MS Break Free. So, officially I started querying three weeks ago. Fun times! Cross your fingers for me.

And since we're on crossing fingers - today is also the day the 8 Agents participating in the Writer's Voice Competition vote on the entries. Cross your fingers (again) that I get a vote. I would be over the moon happy if even one agent would like to see more.

OK. Sorry. Back to the revisions.

Megan Atwood was awesome. I would, hands down, take a class from her. She was also really really funny, which is always fun.

Deets on her: Megan Atwood created the Young Adult imprint Flux through Llewellyn Publications and was an acquiring editor for five years as well as an agent for one year through Firebrand Literary. She currently writes work-for-hire projects for publishers and has published 14 children's books.

OK. Her steps for revision:

1. Feeling for the bones: Does your premise suit your story? Does your story start in the right place? Is your narrative Arc arcing? Can you add some more sensory language?
2. Characters: Does your MC grow/does the inner journey match the outer journey? Are secondary, yet important characters growing (or not)? How often are you in your character's head - when can you ground emotion in the body (show don't tell)?
3. Pacing/Suspense/Foreshadowing: What scenes need to be slowed or sped - are your important scenes given the time they deserve? Are events and emotions "earned"? Are you giving out the right info when you need to? Do your chapters end with some sort of suspense and are you zigzagging those so as not to fatigue your reader?
4. Language: Are you overusing dialogue tags? Which words can you change to enhance ambiance?
5. Repeat: Put it aside for at least two weeks and work on something else. Try to read for pleasure to turn off your editor brain. Then start over at step one.

So there you have it! It sounds easy, natch, but we all know it's much harder than that. Still, it's always nice to have a game plan

In Which The Entries Are Posted

Woot woot! Today is the day that the Writer's Voice entries are posted!

You can find my entry along with my teamates' on Monica's Love YA blog. The other entries are on Cupid's blog, Brenda's blog and Krista's blog.

Feel free to comment on the entries and cheer the contestants on, but please no critiques!

AND! For those not yet in the know, on May 24th (a week from today) Vickie Motter and John Cusick will be reading twitter pitches under the hashtag #WVTP from 12PM - 6PM EDT. And there's rumors that there may be other agents lurking as well!

Click here for the rules and get those 140 character pitches polished!!

In Which I'm In!!

Holy cow guys! I made it! I was one of the peeps selected for the Writer's Voice Competition!

I was totally surprised! I had actually just assumed I wasn't going to get picked because the competition was so fierce, but then I got an email from Monica and a comment on my blog post!

I'm super excited! Here's hoping maybe some of the agents like my first chunk enough to want to see more.

Cross your fingers for me!!

In Which Break Free...er...Breaks Free...

So the other day I got second place on a blog contest, over at the awesome Lisa Amowitz and Heidi Ayarbe blogs. Second place won some awesome books, which, as stated, is awesome! Because seriously, I could always use more books. Right? Right.

The grand prize was  a blog banner design and a partial request from Lisa's sweeeet agent Victoria Marini. It was originally just going to be a 5 page crit from Victoria, but she was all, pshaaa, I'll read a partial. Because she's cool like that.

Anyway, Sandra, the chick who won the grand prize had some exciting news. Victoria was already reading her full MS, so that meant I got to have the partial request!

Super awesome great news for a Friday!





BUT! And it was a big but, Victoria had already seen my Glimpse of Another Shore during my first query rounds AND during a Secret Agent contest I participated in last year.

I sat down and thought about it really hard. Yes, I'm still revising Break Free, but also, I'm on the last legs of the revisions. And almost everything that needs to change is from the middle to the end. The first 50 pages only brought me to chapter four, I think, and those first couple chapters had been revised TONS, both by myself and critiqued by no less than 7 other people.

So after spending close to 8 hours on Friday giving those 50 pages a microscopic line edit, I made the decision to send Break Free out into the world.

I'm kind of freaking out a bit.

Here's the thing. I don't usually worry about my MSs once I'm querying them. Because if I've reached that point, I've also reached the point where I feel like I can't do anything more with them. I can feel confident in their query and their sample pages.

And though I'm confident about Break Free (I LOVE that MS) I'm also worried about it because I haven't reached the "there's nothing more I can do" stage. At least not with the stuff past those first 50-75 pages.

Sigh.

Anyway, really what it comes down to is I'm nervous for Break Free's baby steps into the big wide world, but also excited. Because this part of the writing business is always very exciting to me. I love querying and the accompanying roller coaster.

So, there you have it. That's a microcosm of what's been going on in my world.
How about you? What's been shaking?

.

In Which I Heart QueryTracker Pt. 1

I know I've mentioned in passing that I'm using QueryTracker to track my queries, but I don't think I've actually explained how much I Lurve it.

How much, you ask? A lot, is my answer.

For reals, besides checking my GMail a ridiculous amount a day (better yet, I just leave it open since GMail automatically refreshes when you get a new email) QT is my number two place on the interwebs I hang out since I started querying. I muck around there at least 5 times a day, running reports and checking comments on agents I've queried.

Since you all know my love of spreadsheets, one of the best thing QT offers if you're a premium member (and I am) is the Data Launcher.

Let's say you sent a query to an agent and you want to know how quickly they're responding to queries, or if they've responded to queries after yours (so you can decide to close it out if they're a non-responder)
You just launch the Data Explorer and it provides all that info for you!

click on the image to make it larger

In the above example, I sent a query on 6/5, but you can see her response time is anywhere from 3 days to 25 days. Also, because the other queries are rejected and not closed for no response, it looks like she actually responds to all her queries, so for this agent, I'm better off waiting for an email, and I shouldn't worry about it until at least a month has passed.

Since I like to read into everything, the data launcher helps to keep me occupied.





Wednesday, I'm going to talk about another thing I love about QT - the forum.

What about you? Are you a QT member? Have you played around with the reports?

In Which I Make A Deal

So, after much thought and discussion regarding my Deal With The Universe, I've finally made up my mind on what I will do.

So here is the Official Deal:

If I get the thing that rhymes with Boffer of Bepresentation I will:
Pierce my ears.

And not normal piercing. I already have a set of holes in my lobes. No, I'm going to get an Industrial Bar piercing.




Or, I may be able to be talked into something like this:





It will depend on the conversation I have with the piercer at my tattoo studio.


So. There is my official Deal With The Universe. Witnessed by all of you.

On the plus side, my mom has also decided to make a Deal on my behalf.

Her official deal is:

If I (Sarah) get the above mentioned thing that rhymes with Boffer of Bepresentation, while I (Sarah) am getting my piercing, she will get a tattoo.

That's right, two Deals With The Universe.

So cross your fingers for me, and help the universe along.

So how about you? Made any deals (or got any piercings) lately?

In Which I Query

I tried to find a picture related to the topic at hand but couldn't. So instead you get this

So, as the title says, and as I hinted at last Wednesday, I've jumped into the query waters.
So far I find them pleasant and warm. And exciting to finally be in them!

Though one thing I didn't expect was this obsession with my gmail, and some mild impatience. I know everyone tells you to expect this, I just though I wouldn't have to worry about it.

I mean, waiting for responses? I though that'd be easy. I've submitted short stories and had to wait on those. I've got a story on submission right now that's been with magazine for 4 months now, and I've still got another possible 2 months wait on it. Just to wait to see if they're interested. That's half a year for like 2500 words.
After that, I thought waiting for possible query responses would be easy.

Wrong. I think the reason why it's different is because some agents get back to you right away, so you get a taste for quick responses. Which means I check my gmail like 3 times more a day than I used to.

Also, checking my gmail is totally bittersweet now. I get both excited and nervous to do it. What if I have a response? What if I don't? I'm not even necessarily worrying what the responses will be. All of this wars inside me the moment I sign in to when my inbox opens up.

All in all, I'm having a great time.

When I got really serious again about my writing (about 2 years ago) one of the things I was looking most forward to was querying. Even though it's an emotional roller coaster, it looked so fun to me. And it's definitely one step further along in the journey. So yeah, now that I'm here, I'm determined to have a good time, no matter what.

Also, I love filling out little databases and stuff with submission stats (like duotrope digest for short stories) so now that I actually get to do that in query tracker, I'm all smiles.

So, how about you? Where are you at with your current writerly process? And most importantly, are you having fun?

In Which I Promote A Contest

Hey All -

Shelley Watters from Is It Hot in Here or is it This Book? is having an awesome followers contest on her blog where the prize is:

A FULL MANUSCRIPT REQUEST from SUZIE TOWNSEND! True story.

So head on over to her blog - and check out the rules. Last day to participate is April 2nd (which is when I will be posting my pitch here)

Check it out!

In Which I Need Querying Opinions

So, I'm getting closer and closer to the querying stage (Excitement! Also, unexpectedly, fear...) and have a few questions for those of you who are query "experts". Or at least have jumped into that trench ahead of me.

How do you know which agents to query first? I mean, I have a significant agent list (still growing) on query tracker, all numbered from 1-10 in relation to their awesomeness. Obvs the Number ones (of which there are like maybe two) are my favs and so on.

Do I query them first? But what if it turns out my query isn't cutting it (I don't actually think this will happen. I quite like my query and have gotten some good feedback on it. But still...). If my query stinks and I send it to my ones, twos and threes first, well then I may waste my opportunity with them.





I guess probably a good way to go about it is to make a small group with a mix of some "middle of the road" agents. Like maybe a few fours fives and sixes. Use them to test the query. If Istart getting some bites, then I can begin to send it to my lower numbered agents.

I think this is what I'll probably end up doing, but I'd really like to hear from those of you who have queried before or are querying now. Who did you pick to query first and why? Inquiring minds (mine) want to know!

In Which I Hit A Webinar

So on Thursday of last week, I attended the Writer's Digest Webinar Starting Off Right: How to hook an agent with your first pages (this may not be the exact title. I was dumb and forgot to write it down. It's close though and I'm sure you get the gist)

I heard about this webinar from the lovely Roni over at Fiction Groupie, since it was her agent, Sara Megibow, putting on the webinar. The best part of the webinar? It comes with a critique of the participant's first 3 pages! Awesome, right? Totally worth the money. It's like they knew what bait to hang in front of us to entice us in



see more Lolcats and funny pictures

(also, she stated that, if she likes the first pages, she may ask for more. How awesome is she?)

Anyway, I took notes during the webinar so I could write this blogpost and let you all know what Sara said. I have to say, when the webinar was done, I felt totally confident. She said very little that surprised me and it seems I am on the right track.

She broke it up into a "why" and a "how" section, though most of the seminar was in the "how" section.

WHY (is it important to start off right)

• The agent has to be engaged immediately
• Sara says, for her to offer representation, she must love the manuscript AND think she can sell it
• She also almost always knows within the first three pages if she loves the novel
• She is actively looking for new clients (and she's with the Nelson Literary Agency. Pretty snazzy, IMO)
• She is looking for: YA, MG, Romance, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Women's Fiction and Literary Fiction with a commercial bent
  

That was pretty much it for the "Why" it's important to start off strong. She then went into the "How" and this was broken down to "Hot" and "Not Hot" sections

HOW (to start off strong)
HOT (what she likes to see)

There needs to be:
1. A clear inciting incident
2. Compelling Characterization
3. Command of the basics

1. the writer needs to be able to explain in 1 or 2 sentences what propels the novel forward. This should also be in your query. She says it is essential for the writer to be able to do this. For her, it is a deal breaker if there is no clear inciting incident

2. Why do we care about the characters? This is clearly important and good characterization needs to be present early on

3. This is broken down into more sections:

• Superior writing. If you do not have a firm understanding of the basics of writing, this is a deal breaker for her. She stated multiple times that a writer needs to master the art of writing before one pursues the business of publication
• Unique concept. Which mean, no vampires, no super powered children discovering they're the key to saving the world, no women opening bead and breakfasts, and in sci-fi and fantasy, no prophecies and cliches. None of these things are deal breakers, but you'd better have an interesting spin on it to make her love it or think she can sell it.
• Effortless world building. She wants to be engaged by the world.
• Realistic character motivation. For example, if your character finds a body, that character better have a damn good reason for investigating the murder instead of doing the actually believable thing of calling the police

NOT HOT (what she does not like to see)

1. Data dump - we all know this is a no-no for the beginning of your novel

2. Ineffective use of dialogue - all the examples she showed were obvious things such as "as you know, David, I'm the king and was crowned thirteen years ago on your birthday".

3. telling vs. showing - again, she stated the necessity to have masted the art of writing before jumping into the business of publication

4. mistakes with POV - a deal breaker for her would be an adult narrator in a YA novel. Or strange narrators like houses or jewelry.

5. prologues or dream sequences - this isn't a deal breaker for her, because they can be cut if needed, but it is a red flag. And if you've got some marks against you in other areas (sloppy grammar, etc) you're probably in for a form rejection.

Then the last few minutes of the seminar were wrapped up in questions. A lot of the questions were unproductive or had already been answered (questions about prologues, or questions regarding queries, which the seminar did not address) but I took a few notes.

• it's good to keep momentum moving in the beginning. Shortening chapters is a way to do this, but isn't necessary
• always keep queries short - like back cover
• if the novel's momentum slows in a scene, it's typically due to too much data
• For genre fiction - opening with action is important (though, for fantasy, it's acceptable to start off slower)
• prose and imagery can function as a hook, however this is harder in genre fiction
• if an agency's submission guidelines don't say it's not OK to submit to more than one agent in the agency, then you're probably OK to query more than one agent
• read other books in your genre - especially what's selling well and has good reviews
• if you're looking for critiques of your work from people "in the biz" she recommends the annual Brenda Novak auction (the link she gave is broken. Usually though there's a lot of buzz for it around the time). Yes it will cost money, but it's for a good cause (though in my experience, it's huge leaps above what I could afford).

And that was pretty much everything she talked about!

I would definitely recommend this type of webinar in the future for anyone who's interested.

I hope this helped, and now I'm off to work on my first three pages to submit for her critique.

In Which I Share Exciting News

So how was everyone's weekend? Did you have a good time? We did (well except for when we saw The Last Airbender. I'm a HUGE fan of the show. Mr. M. Night Shyamalan, I hereby revoke your movie license. The writing was terrible. Writing 101 - Show Don't Tell.)



Remember how a few weeks ago I requested some crits for Hole-Ridden, well they were super helpful, so thanks again everyone.

A few months ago I discovered a little community called the Online Writer's Workshop, or OWW for short. I actually learned about it from Colleen Lindsay and since I have a bit of a literary business crush on her, I do pretty much whatever she says.

It's an online writing community for sci-fi, fantasy and horror writers. You critique people's submissions which gives you a point and when you have 3 points you can post a piece of your own (up to 7k words) to be critiqued.

I had done something like this before, with The Next Big Writer about 5 years ago. At first I liked that system but then it became clear to me that the crits I got back from the other writer's weren't at my level and so therefore I wasn't getting out as much as I was putting in.

OWW seemed a bit better because they make sure the crits are valid (no one sentence, "good job" allowed) and also OWW has a lot of professional authors as members (Elizabeth Bear, Karin Lowachee (and you all know how much I heart her)).

The first month is free (cost is $50 a year) so I signed up and submitted Hole Ridden to see what kind of crits I got. They were OK. There were a few that were helpful and a few that were either below my level or just clearly didn't understand the story or horror writing in general.

And then, I got the email...

"Hi! A submission you made to the workshop last month has been selected as one of our Editors' Choices (to be reviewed in the next newsletter)"

I freaked out!

What is an Editor's Choice you ask?

"Each month our Resident Editors select one outstanding submission in each category as an Editors' Choice and review it in the newsletter. Editors' Choices do not count against a member's three-submission limit, and remain on display, with their editorial reviews, in our Editors' Choice archive for about four months."

If I had a sci-fi piece that was chosen as an Editor's Choice, it would be critiqued by Karin Lowachee (swoon). Alas this was horror so it would be Gary Braunbeck while Jeanne Cavelos is out.

This would be a crit to end all crits! I was excited because I knew after this crit Hole Ridden would be probably as strong as it could be. But I was also worried. I thought it was pretty strong as is, so what was he going to find wrong with it?

Tune in tomorrow for a special Tuesday post regarding my editor critique of Hole Ridden!

In Which We Discuss Agents

I'm really excited for when I get to the point where I can start researching agents. I mean, I have a few listed already, but I haven't done any serious agent research. I don't want to get ahead of myself because then I might get discouraged or bored with it and then have that to get over once I HAVE to do agent search.

I'm really excited to make an excel spreadsheet of agents I have or plan to Query. I love making excel spreadsheets, so I think it will be super fun.

I'd like to know, from those of you that are searching for an agent right now, how you made your list/lists?

Did you use Agent Query? Or Query Tracker? Something else?

How did you decide who was on your "A" list and who was on your "B" list, etc?

If you had a "dream" agent in mind, what was it about them that made them so?