In the trenches

Querying.

What a word. It’s funny how something relatively straight forward, unambiguous, and objectively easy mutates and takes on a completely irrational, yet terrifying creature in the mind of a writer. Especially funny given that words are supposed to be our happy space. But not that word.

I finished my first novel recently. A considerable feat given I’ve been writing novels for the past 24 years. Something about the fear of finishing always kept me from moving to that critical point in the process where the words start a countdown rather than a count up. If you’ve written before, you know what I’m talking about. Until about 50,000 words you’re reaching for a word count, then a shift. 30,000 to go, 25,000 to go, 10,000 to go. For me, 45,000 was my turning point. Both in terms of count and in terms of completion. I’d go hard up until that point.

25,000: Words? Words are easy.

30,000: Fucking A right, my man. I’m doing this. Nothing can’t touch me

40,000: This one’s the one. This is it. I’m a writer

45,001: Wut r centencez. How does peeplez make talk!

Without fail. So try short stories, you might say. Short stories are hard y’all. I’m going to say it. I am not a short story writer. I’ve tried. I’ve queried there too. I’m too obtuse. Can’t do it, square peg round hole and all that.

So when I finished The Watcher, I was on cloud nine. It’s only taken me six 45,000 word novels that I couldn’t finish, dozens of short stories, countless poems, and a myriad of songs I’ll never put a melody to because words are my music, not instruments. But I finally made it.

And then, the query. I started querying The Watcher at the end of September. I started out calling it The Burying Place, then decided that wasn’t doing it justice. To date, my sweet little baby horror novel has visited with 54 agents who are actively acquiring horror clients.

35 of them haven’t responded.

16 of them have rejected it

3 have requested full manuscripts.

Those numbers are promising. As someone with a sales background, I’m used to going for no. At this point I know that roughly 6 no’s equate to 1 yes, so give me more no’s. I’ll horde them all in an effort to find the 1 yes that leads me to my person.

I’m not querying anymore. If it finds a home, it finds a home. If it doesn’t, I’ve already started my next novel which I’m confident will find one.

So moral of the story:

Am I anxiously and obsessively checking query tracker to figure out what nuggets of insight it can feed me about my potential new partners? Yes.

Am I worried about not finding representation? Yes.

Will the universe lead me to the right person at the right time? Also, yes.

My point is you’re not alone. I’m in the trenches with you. And we’re going to make it out alive.

And that’s all I’ve got to say about that.