What Writers Want.

I mentioned last week that there were still a couple of chunky submissions out there...well, heard back from one. She was under the impression she had already told me she was declining the opportunity of representing me. Believe me, if such an email had arrived, I would have known about it.

However, that old full submission is still in limbo. Perhaps it's been so long collecting cobwebs on the hard drive that their computer thinks my follow-up was just another poorly-worded query, and dumped it before it reached human eyes. Ah, well...c'est la vie and all that. And of course, the agent could be away at some long, long convention, in some remote place where there is no access to the internet.

In the meantime, I sent off six new queries over the last ten days, spread over all four manuscripts. Three rejections later, early this morning my time, I received a request for a FULL of The Place of Dreams, from the very first query. To say I was stunned is an understatement. My experience has always been (and remember how many queries I've sent out over the last year or so) that a full request comes at about query number 52.

A New York agent, too, which is refreshing. This book is most definitely not set in the US, and I always figured that's why I've struggled so much to get a good response from that city's creme de la creme (really thinking in French today). I'll still approach some British agents -- just as soon as my printer is up and running...really.

What writers want, in fact, need, is contact with folks who say they really liked the bits you've sent them so far. It's totally reassuring. It makes all the work -- and I'm not talking about the actual writing here  -- worthwhile. As an aside, with my paintings, if someone wanders into my house -- friend, neighbor -- and spies one of my pictures and says how much they love it, I often give it to them. I'm a total pushover for flattery. Of course, I won't be doing that with my novels. Will I?

I'll keep you posted, as they say.

Boadicea and the Patient and Resilient Writer

I boldly followed up with a couple of New York agents this morning. One has had one hundred pages of Summer Must End for over seven months. The other asked for and received the full Strachan's Attic manuscript five months ago.

Now I know this would seem to imply that neither agent is interested, but when it comes to big partials and full requests I've always been treated very politely, so I've come to expect an eventual response. Heck, I recently received a very nicely worded rejection for an initial query with ten pages that I sent  seven months earlier, and it was personal, not the usual auto-response thing. So there are agents out there who do seem to empathize with the lonely writer waiting for human contact.

In the first half of 2012, of 147 queries (involving several partials and fulls, so I know the query letter worked) for 4 different books,  I received 80 rejections, about half of them personally worded. 65 - not unexpectedly - did not respond at all. I stopped querying (to spend time licking my wounds) last July.

These days I'm totally immersed in painting, producing a couple a week, and selling here and there (check out the art blog if you don't believe me). The almost instant gratification experienced with painting has been rejuvenating, but I know it won't continue for much longer. For the first time since last July, I've started to feel a small twitch of anticipation at the prospect of agent research again. It's only a small twitch now, but it will grow more demanding. Call me a masochist, if you like, but you have to be in this game. And I'm not jaded, really I'm not.

So I am once again girding my loins, Boadicea-style, to begin the slow slog of snail-mailing queries to those agents who do not accept email queries. Most British agents fall into this category. It's true. I have no idea why. Perhaps someone can tell me. In any case, I've said before that my writing is more suited to the British agents' taste in books judging by my favorite reading, and I feel that I can no longer "hmphh" at their sweet eccentricity.

Do you, my patient writer friends, have anything to add about this business? We have all been so very, very quiet lately when it comes to blog comments (especially me) but I would like to know how joyous you are about approaching agents. Or do you mutter under your breath (using Anglo-Saxon words that are best left off blog pages) as you compose yet another letter?

May your spring and my autumn bring a new determination in this insane struggle we endure for the sake of our need to write.

Notice the date of this post? I feel love...somewhere out there.

Never give up the fight.

"...Stay Drunk on Writing So Reality Cannot Destroy You."

Ray Bradbury said that, and I like it.

I do get drunk on writing. Painting isn't the same. I become a bit starchy, and frown a lot more, especially when my little treasures don't sell. Writing transports me. I resist returning to reality.

So I believe I will have to get back to that fifth book in the New Year. Which leads me to wonder why anyone else would be interested in that.

Before we all became so jaded about the publishing industry, there was such a sense of belonging and excitement reading writers' blogs. I was hungry to hear how others were doing, what their feelings were. (I also made a few new friends I've come to count on, some of whom are actually published.) But I believe there's been a distinct shift in thinking. It's tedious to hear, once more, that an agent hasn't been found, or that an agent was found but is finding the book a bit of a hard-sell. To sum up: nothing is happening. Who wants to read that on a regular basis? Masochists most of us are, but why make things worse?

People are split into two camps, it seems, judging by comments on other sites:

Those who love uplifting blogs, where the writer has just sold their first novel, and there's a mention of foreign rights, a TV movie, perhaps. And we know this blogger, don't we? Followed her all last year, didn't we? And now we can share in a little of the triumph.

And there are those who frankly enjoy a bit of misery. Hearing how terribly so-and-so was rejected, and how bitter he is about the whole process. Never going to write again. (Or worse, he's going to self-publish.) People so like reading this sort of thing, and it makes them feel less alone with their own frustrations, and possibly a whole lot better.

But blogs that are neither triumphant nor terribly, terribly poignant are just plain blah, let's face it.  And that's where mine is now. The only new thing  is that my agent (who has been in poor health) wrote that she is 'ready to get back in step and get this book (The Place of Dreams) sold, for heaven's sake!'

And so, in this last week of 2011, I wanted to let you know where my head is. I wanted to thank you for your readership and your comments over the past three years, despite the blahs. Oh, I've been gung-ho and rhapsodic at times, but Reality kicked in and now I need to re-immerse myself in the writing so that it can't destroy me.

My wish for all of us in 2012 is that we all get drunk together on our writing. And screw reality.

Thanks for the tip, Mr. Bradbury.

Spring is Here!

All the little new things will be here soon - leaves on the trees, flowers, tiny birds, and new-born lambs. I love the Fall, but Spring is renewal time. For all of us, but especially for those of us who live in the Northern snow belt, this is the energizing season, when all of us are coming up with plans for ourselves - to re-do the living room, get the garden seeded, do some yard sale browsing. For the writer, it's to get the book finished, to get it edited, to get it published, dang it! I am full of optimism and energy. I hope this beautiful season brings you the same joy.

I shot off another query yesterday, to keep my percolating ones to a count of 12. Summary: 12 pending, 5 rejects, 1 partial out there. When I sent off that query yesterday, I mistakenly said I had pasted in 10 chapters (I wish!), instead of the suggested 10 pages, so I quickly sent a correction to them. This morning there was a response, and I thought it was bound to be one of those instant rejects, but it was "No Problem!" Such a generous response! Such an upbeat two words! Such an enthusiastic exclamation mark! Surely I can read something into this... As it's such a lovely day, I believe I will.

Of course, spare cash is always a problem, isn't it, for most of us? I was therefore delighted to receive this email yesterday. A Half-Million Dollars for helping someone out? My goodness, talk about perfect timing!

"Hi Dear,

l saw your profil and go through it and willing to contact you, I have to introduce myself for you, I am Mr.David Komu, the only son of late Chief and Mrs George Komu, I wish to request for your assistance in my efforts to procure the transfer of my inherited funds for investment ventures.

I have Five Million Dollars ($5.000,000.00) here in my name with one of the prime banks here and I will require for your assistance in receiving the transfer of the funds in your local bank account for investment purposes. As it is my desire to come over to your country to further my education
while you take goodcare of the investment, I will be very glad to give you 10% of the total sum for your co-operation.

I will be very appreciative if you can return to me with urgent dispatch to enable me advise you on the modalities.

I am waiting for your immediate response.

My Kind Regards!
Mr.David Komu

Please reply to me with this my private email.
davidkomu002@yahoo.com"

Seriously, I'm amazed that this kind of stuff is still floating around. Do we all come across as total idiots, naive Westerners with no brains to speak of? I think it's that assumption that most offends me. Give me a slick, clever, intuitive con man any day, over the insulting ones.

I was going to suggest that we all, as many as possible, email him back and lead him on, as it were. I found a wonderful English site some years back, where this chap kept up tanatalizing online correspondence with several similar writers for months, representing himself to them as a vicar, a baronet, a professor, and so on. The stuff he posted was some of the funniest I've read. Of course, finally the naughty crooks realized what was happening to them. If I can find the "vicar's" post, I'll put it up sometime.

Take a break from the writing this weekend and go out and enjoy this new season. It's still cold here, but that's just the last of Nature's little jokes. Pretend it's really warm.

POSTSCRIPT: That nice agent just asked for three-chapters!