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Current word count: 14,322

Words written today: 1,183

Words to goal: 25,678 / 347 words a day til end of September

After two days off, I got in a good couple hours on my new book this morning, and it feels so good. The story is there, but the writing’s not great. But that’s what revisions are for.

On Monday, I wrote about things to consider when we get rejections from agents. Rejections can sting, and can make us feel insecure about our writing. Of course, we would love it if every person in the world thought every sentence we write is the best thing since slice bread, but we have to be realistic. Art — and writing is art – is subjective, after all.

So it’s really important to keep rejections in perspective. Mystery and thriller writers’ blog The Kill Zone has a great post from agent Anne Hawkins, of John Hawkins & Associates, in which she talks about why good agents turn down good books. Anne reinforces what I said on Monday about personal taste and an agent’s need to really love a book to take it on. She also adds a few more: saleability of a book, because, of course, publishing is a business; length; author; timing; and conflicts of interest with current clients’ work. It’s a great look into the considerations an agent must give every project they’re offered.

For the writer getting the rejection, we often won’t know what the reason is. Most of the time we’ll get the standard “it’s not for me” form letter. Sure this can be frustrating, but as agent Janet Reid pointed out this week in a post called A Reminder That No Means No, it’s not an agent’s job to tell writers why their work isn’t right for them. And when they’re reading hundreds of query letters a week, plus requested manuscripts, clients’ manuscripts and contracts as well as selling and negotiating for their current clients, it’s understandable that they don’t have the time to give personal feedback to every query they receive. Think of how you would feel if your agent delayed getting your book out because she was writing personalized emails to every query she received.

So what’s a writer to do when we get rejections: First, don’t let it get us down. Keep things in perspective.

Have you sent out 10 queries and gotten no requests for the material? If so, rework your query letter. Are agents asking for fulls or partials but not offering representation? If so, consider your work. Is your opening the best it can be? Is your book the best it can be? Does it need another revision? If you can look at your work and say you’re truly happy with it, then you’ve just not yet found the right agent. Continue to research agents and send out your work. If you persevere, you’ll find the right match eventually.

But most important of all, don’t let a rejection stop you from writing. The best thing you can do to combat a rejection is to write something else. Agent Rachelle Gardner suggests this in her recent post entitled Write Another Book!

If you don’t attract an agent with your first project, you will with your second, or third. Nowadays, agents don’t have the time they once did to take on books that need a lot of work. So your manuscript has to be at a higher standard. The more you write, the better your work will get. And once your writing has secured that agent, there’s nothing to say those earlier works might look better now.

So, keep rejections in perspective, and remember author J.A. Konrath’s quote: There’s a word for a writer who never gives up — published.

Literary agent Rachelle Gardner has an interesting post up today about query letters. It seems that a group of writers got together, worked on their query letters together then hired someone to submit them. The problem is the person who was hired didn’t properly research the agents or their guidelines, resulting in rejections for the writers and, I would guess, a waste of their time and money.

It’s a wonderful idea that in our busy life, we can concentrate on writing and leave the submitting to someone else, but, if you have spent all this time making your book the best that it can be, would you want to leave its future up to someone else?

Now, I’ve never used or even researched services such as these, and maybe there are good ones. But, if you’re going to use one, let Rachelle’s post be a cautionary tale and research them well.

However, keep in mind this: No one will care about the future of your book more than you. No one will care enough to spend the time researching agents for just the perfect ones, researching their submission guidelines and tailoring the query letter to them specifically. All of these things will give your book its best chance of getting noticed, so they’re all important and should be done right.

Remember literary agent Jennifer Jackson’s Letter From the Query Wars blogs posts: Last week she read 205 queries and asked for partials from 3 — just 3 out of 205! Imagine if out of those 205, she had 12 that all read the same way, were received the same day one after another and didn’t follow her guidelines, like those Rachelle received. Do you think any of those 12 would have been in the 3? I’m sorry to say that I don’t think so. As Rachelle pointed out, even if all those 12 were great query letters and did follow her guidelines, Jennifer wouldn’t be interested in following up on 12 books that are all the same. And she’d probably be a little suspicious. I would.

Don’t short-change your book. After you’ve done all the work on writing and revising your manuscript, take the time to write a great individual query letter that will stand out in the crowd; research the best agents for your particular work — not just your genre, but your style too — research their guidelines, the ones from their website not a book that might not be up to date; research their style of working, read their blog if they have one, their clients, their clients’ books to make sure your work will fit with them; then tailor your query letter to each one of those, personalizing the letter.

Give your book the best advocate it can have: You.

Write On!

I’ve talked about this before, but I just read a post by literary agent Rachelle Gardner and thought that this is something worth repeating.

Rachelle answered a reader’s question about tips on time management by saying that prioritizing her work is the best way she knows of getting through the day. She also talks about the things she DOESN’T do so she has time to do her work. Here’s a quote:

I’ve dispensed with a lot of non-necessary things in life… things I’d like to do if I could! But the path I’ve chosen means I’ve had to let go of some things. For example: I don’t scrapbook. I don’t knit. I don’t separate the whites from the colors… don’t clip coupons… don’t grow a garden… don’t make jam… don’t bake my own bread… don’t go to PTA meetings… don’t make my kids’ Halloween costumes… don’t homeschool… don’t remember everyone’s birthday… don’t run marathons… don’t go for manicures or pedicures… don’t watch Oprah. I don’t even vacuum or dust (I delegate those tasks).

A writer friend of mine has been struggling with finding time to write. She’s a single mother of three with a demanding job, and she’s trying to also live out her love of writing and fulfill her dream of getting her work published. She writes beautifully, and I have no doubt that if she preserveres, she will get her dream. But sometimes her schedule is so hectic, she doesn’t write for a few weeks or months, and she misses it. Of course, her addiction to TMZ doesn’t help either.

For us writers, writing is not something we think about sometimes and would maybe like to do if we have time — it’s something we have to do, something that pulls on our mind, begs us to pay attention. It’s a desire, a need. And when we’re not writing, we don’t feel entirely whole. We know that something is missing.

Rachelle’s quote reminded me that to make time to write — not find time, make time — is imperative. It’s the best thing we can do for us as people as well as for our dreams. Because we’re happier writing. And to make time to write, we often have to forego other things.

Like Rachelle, there are lots of things I don’t do that I would love time to do: I don’t do puzzles … knit … learn to play a musical intrument … get my hair cut as often as I should … keep the garden as nice as I would like … finish decorating my house … get my nails done … chat with friends … And ditto on everybody’s birthdays (sorry to my friends and families — know you’re in my thoughts).

 This might sound selfish, and it is to a point. But it’s something I have to do right now, and my hope is that one day, I might be able to just have writing as my job, cutting out one of the tasks during the day. We’ll see.

My point is, if writing is important to you, make the time. I get up early in the morning so I can work on my novel before the sun comes up. Find your time and be selfish about that time. Make the time for your family and friends, you need that too, but look at your life and see what you can cut out or cut down on so you can use that time to write — then be selfish about those minutes or hours. They’re yours. Use them well.

Write On!

I’ve written about this a few times before, and the more I read about query letters, the more I see that spending time making your query perfect is as important as time spent making your manuscript perfect.

Literary agent Nathan Bransford had a post this week about working with new agents and in it, a link to a speech by best-selling author Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook, etc.) about how he got his agent. Have a read. It’s a fun piece. But here’s the part I want to point out:

A typical agent in New York gets 400 query letters a month. Of those, they might ask to read 3-4 manuscripts, and of those, they might ask to represent 1 The odds are tough, but not impossible, and that’s why I believe that a good query letter is the single most important page that any unknown, unpublished author will ever write.

I worked hard on mine; 17 drafts over two weeks and I did my best to make sure every word counted.

Nicholas Sparks’ success is unquestionable, and his road to publication began when he spent two weeks writing and revising his query letter. (Note that, if you read more of his speech, he got nos from all the agents he sent to except a new agent who had been passed his query from someone else in that agency. So, even after two weeks of work, the odds were still tight.)

To show how competitive this is, check out literary agent Jennifer Jackson’s blog every Friday when she posts Letters From the Query Wars. At the top, she lists the number of queries she read this week, the number of partials/manuscripts she requested and their genre. This past week, she read 158 queries and requested 0, none, nada.

There are a number of possible reasons for this, including a query letter could be brilliant but not her cup of tea. But all 158 of them? I doubt it. Those query letters really need to shine.

I’ve also written before about being picky when it comes to getting an agent. New writers often feel so grateful for any attention that they’ll sign on the dotted line for anyone with a pulse and an interest. But this is our career that we’re setting up, and an agent is someone we’ll work with for a long long time. So, it’s ok to be choosy and make sure it’s a good match. (This is why it’s important to research the agents you send to before you send out your queries.) Check out this post from literary agent Rachelle Gardner about the best way to fire an agent — a situation you don’t want to be in. The post is very interesting and offers great advice. But here’s something I thought was good in one of the comments:

I made a mistake and signed with the first agent who’d take me on. If my experience can teach just one lesson, let it be this: the author-agent relationship is like a marriage. Be just as careful in getting into one as the other.

This author ended up terminating the relationship with her first agent and thankfully signed with another agent more suited later. Congrats. But if you can avoid it, do. Research research research, write, revise, revise.

Make your query count. Your manuscript and your career will thank you.

Write On!

Happy Easter!

As much as I like this blog to be read, hopefully you’re all taking a break from publishing (I know, strange for the “write every day” girl to say that) and enjoying your Easter. It’s hard to believe, but some things are more important than our writing.

I’ve done more research on how to write a killer query and discovered that the query was even more important than I had previously thought because at least one of the agents I plan to query wants just a query in the initial submission, not even a couple pages of the story to show my writing chops. That means the story, tone, voice, everything has to come through in my query. After I got over my desire to bury my head in the sand, I continued my search of agent/editor websites and blogs about query writing tips and wanted to share a list of links that I think are very helpful. Also, remember that yesterday I posted some links to agent Rachelle Gardner’s tips, so check them out too.

Literary agent Nathan Bransford has a list of posts about “The Essentials” in the right nav bar on his blog, but here are some I think are most useful:

Two copies of query letters Nathan thinks are good. These are real query letters, and he comments on what was good about them. Here’s the first one and the second one.

How and Whether to List Publishing Credits - The jist is, do if you’re published (not self-published) and/or the experience relates to the project.

Nelson Literary Agency has a wealth of information in their FAQ section. In it, you’ll find links to a 12-part Pitch Workshop, seven examples of query letters they received from some of their clients along with commentary and a bunch of query letter dos and don’ts.

You should also read agent Kristin Nelson’s blog, Pub Rants, which is very informative.

Got any good query letter links to share?

Write On!