My wife and I traveled last weekend from here in D.C., where it is basically still summer (though much more comfortable than the actual summer) north to a place where it is really autumn already: the leaves are changing, sweaters are mandatory, and it just feels and smells like fall. Then, bizarrely, back from fall to "summer" when we returned.
Here would be a place where, a couple of years ago, I would include a lengthy analysis of family dynamics. But now I feel disinclined to do so except to observe in passing that if you'd asked me to list things I was fairly certain would never happen in my lifetime, surely a beer pong tournament with my family would been towards the top. Imagine a family consisting entirely of adults (or at least, people of adult age) - no children or even teenagers - it's a little strange. Which isn't to say that some people aren't having second childhoods of a sort. All I know is that I didn't have a bad time. No one said anything wounding. No bad memories were dredged up. The nights before and after weren't filled with especially disturbing family-themed dreams.
On a related note, this recent Saturday Night Live sketch becomes, in the words of Belimperia, "disturbingly relevant" (worth a watch - it's pretty funny):
I've been working pretty hard at writing, too. I've got a list of ten agents to query next, and hope to unleash a new round of queries before the end of this month. It's not exactly Travener's QueryBomb (TM), but 10 is a lot for me.
I have extensively reworked the first chapter, which is where a lot of my readers identified some weaknesses. It definitely uses some of the same content, but - remember the post earlier this year when I asked what constitutes a "rewrite"? - I think this constitutes a full-blown rewrite. Especially the first scene, which is actually a fusion of the first couple of scenes in the earlier version.
Usually, I edit by going over things again and again, a million times, but not spending a huge chunk of time or effort in any one iteration. (I know I am getting close as the tweaks in successive iterations diminish slowly to near nothing.) This time, I find myself spending the better part of an hour on a couple of sentences, turning them over and over, trying to get them just right.
I can admit to you all, since I am anonymous, that researching agents is an activity that I find both frustrating and depressing. Frustrating because there's no one real good source of up-to-date information out there (and yeah, I'm cruising querytracker and absolutewrite like everyone else, digging up the interviews on the Guide to Literary Agents and trying to make sense out of agency websites) and also because there seems to be so much talk and so little of it is informative sometimes.
Agents say they're looking for "a great story" or "writing that jumps off the page" or a thousand other little phrases that are utterly useless for writers trying to figure out who to query. Like seriously, am I supposed to read that and go, "Wow, Agent X wants a great story. Gee, my story isn't that great, so I guess I won't query her."?????
That sort of stuff just plain doesn't help, but agents say that sort of thing all the time as though it is actually meaningful to anyone. I'm torn between wanting to research the hell out of these agents and tell them what they had for breakfast in my query letter, and just saying "the hell with it" and taking the shotgun approach. So I wind up in the muddy middle.
Part of my problem, I know, is genre. My book is literary and that's the best I can do to classify it. I can't call it a "YA urban paranormal" or a "steampunk romance". That specific a classification could help me narrow it down, but it's just not possible with my book. I've done my best to find books "like" mine, and query those agents when I can, but plenty of those very same agents aren't accepting queries or have become memoir writers or have just had babies or whatthefuckever.
It's depressing because not only is it time-consuming but it reminds me of the dark hole of failure. I was laying in bed last night wondering to myself, could I really fail at getting published? It's not that I assumed I was destined for success and it has just now occurred to me that I might fail.
Just that here, at this point, I can see failure clearly. It looks a lot like last fall did, and while I know more now, while I have a new query and a new first chapter, while I've received a lot of good feedback on my work that has helped me strengthen it, I wonder what will happen if I send out another 10, 20, 30+ queries this fall (to add to my 55 or so sent so far) and have nothing to show but some form rejections and silence.
When I start to get depressed this way, I think about my WIP. It is so different that the query process for it will share little in common with what I'm doing now. I might totally lap myself with it. I can see it being an easier sell. It's fun, and funny. It's half the length. It's derivative. It's the furthest thing from deep. It might help provide me an entry point for my more serious work.
I know I am being way premature but I do worry sometimes that if I'm only able to publish things like this, and not the deeper stuff, it might wind up being more frustrating than not publishing at all. But that is complete hypothetical at this point as I have yet to even finish a first draft (though I am getting there, with nearly 40,000 words of a draft that I think will be around 50,000).
I've also been spending a little bit of time getting involved with a local writer's group. I would love to meet more writers, hang out with more writers, and especially network with more writers. Most of these folks are freelancers and technical writers rather than poets and authors, and I don't want to sink too much time in this, but I suppose it cannot hurt. Ignoring the people side in favor the technical side has ding'ed my efforts to do certain things in the past, so I need to try to balance.
5 comments:
First of all, yes you need to post more because I always read them and miss them when you don't.
Second, I loved the family wrap up even though you didn't go into specifics.
Thirdly, have you tried plain old "commercial fiction" as your genre? I would call it that. Especially with the mystery element.
Fourthly, stop it, stop it RIGHT NOW with the failure talk. Let's pretend a moment that you had the ability to see in the future and you could see, without a doubt, that you would be published at age 42. But the years until 42 are going to be fraught with learning and bettering yourself. Are you still a failure?
No.
By your own admission, you've learned acres more by this time this year than you knew last year. Get over yourself (I mean that in the nicest possible way) and remember that we all need time to learn. You already know you're a good writer and it will happen for you...if you keep on.
Goodness. That's MY ranty lecture for the day!!
I'll follow up on Sierra's ranty lecture with some additional thoughts re: querying (and frankly, I should do a query-related blog post because this comes up a lot): you're way overthinking the query thing. The fact of the matter is, no matter how much research you do on specific agents, it's a guessing game as to what will appeal at any given moment. So just put together your best query and pump those suckers out there. Every agent I researched and thought would be a perfect fit for me? That's right. A form reject. Some agents who I thought, aw, what the heck? They asked for pages. You just never know. Obviously you want to respect their preferences when it comes to genre but beyond that? Just query until someone puts a ring on your finger, and never "wait" for an agent, trying to build a relationship. Agents are inherently fickle (I mean, look what happened to poor Trav). Be an emotionless query cyborg.
OK, well, this is getting long. Beer pong outside of college seems kind of odd but hey, if it works for your family, maybe it can become a Columbus Day tradition.
KLM and I have agreed that it's a total crap shoot, this query and agent thing.
Thanks, guys. I was venting, but not thinking of giving up. Your perspective on querying is different than from what I'd always assumed, which is that my problem was the lack of enough research. The writers conference I went to really seemed to solidify that in my mind. You *should* do some query-related posts, KLM. Obviously you've got yourself an agent so whatever you did, it worked. For me, well...I'll launch these 10 and we'll see how it goes. But maybe I shouldn't worry so much about each individual query. Sierra - I should do a whole post on how confusing this whole commercial vs. literary thing is for writers. I have on occasion called my work "commercial" when I thought that's what the agent would prefer to hear.
I don't think that's a wrong approach to take, actually -- you should always adjust your terms according to what the agent will perceive, as much as you can figure out what they will perceive.
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