I have written a novel.
I came up with the idea in 2007 and wrote a chapter or two in 2008. Otherwise, I started writing heavily in 2010 and finished it completely (four rewrites included and four years worth of group critiques) at the end of 2016. It’s been quite a long process. I finally began querying in February of this year and it certainly has been a learning experience….a QUICK one. As many writers (I imagine), I was hoping that I would be that one author who queries only 10 agents and magically has their manuscript picked up right away. I didn’t want to work on any other projects because I wanted this manuscript to have my complete attention. So I devoted all of my time to querying and thinking about it.
Well, I am beginning to realize that when other writers encourage you to work on other projects, it isn’t because they have lost interest in their first ones or have given up hope on them. It simply is because the waiting game to find an agent can be discouraging. Working on other projects will help my craft. It doesn’t mean I love my finished manuscript less, I’m not cheating on it. I simply am mixing things up a bit so that when the day comes that it is picked up by someone, I will have been bettering my craft in the meantime to bring an even better A-game to editing and fine-tuning it with an agent. That doesn’t mean I necessarily enjoy splitting my attention. But it is keeping me distracted and away from obsessing.
That being said, I am a fairly quick learner and have good intuition. Before I began querying I had one giant concern, which I am sure any other writer will read about and say, “no duh, that’s a problem.” But to an unpublished writer who has never queried before….I was hoping that perhaps it wouldn’t be a huge problem. Ha. The problem under discussion being word count. Ah yes that happy area of words your manuscript should consist of depending on genres. Thankfully, my genre (fantasy), has a higher word count of about 100-120,000 words so to speak. Again, an an unpublished author this is merely what I have found with my research. Well, my manuscript is 171,000 words. Yikes. Again, maybe I’ll be that one author that an agent picks up simply because they love my storyline and my writing style!….*Naive bubble bursts*
Though I continued to query, I had a strong feeling that my word count was ruining it for me pretty quick. I have only queried 30 agents so far and received about 15 back as rejections (standard form) and the rest have not responded yet. Per my research, this is not a lot of agents but I had a pretty strong feeling I needed to change my approach. One of my top agents, Russell Galen, never responded to my query. I read that writers should NEVER do this, but I did it anyway because I figure, until I am a known author or query the same people over and over again in a short period of time, no one will remember my name. I’d rather take a chance and get useful feedback than keep going down the same path, making the same mistake. Ergo, I waited 39 days (to be exact) and then emailed Mr. Galen again. I thanked him for reviewing my query and hoped that perhaps a future project of mine would grab his interest. I also bit the bullet and asked that if he had a spare moment, if he could let me know whether my word count may be an issue for an unpublished author.
Lo and behold, he responded! He was very kind and stated that my word count most certainly was making my querying DOA to any agent. He also wrote that my story also just didn’t click for him (which makes me sad, but I can’t expect everyone to like my story). Nonetheless, that changed things for me. Though I had intended for my novel to be one novel, I decided that I needed to adapt. I do not want to wait until I get other books published before I try this one again because companies will then know my books will sell. I still want to try something before I give it up. I cannot bring myself to cut down over 50,000 words of my novel without completely changing….everything really. So I am splitting it into two novels. Not ideal, I realize. But doable. And I think it is worth a try.
I found a spot that is a decent spot to stop my story and I will work on selling that to an agent. If they like it and realize there will be a sequel, it works out because the sequel is practically done but for a rewrite of the beginning. I know that I should be trying to sell the first novel and that it should be a stand alone novel. This….can stand by itself but certainly does not address one of the main conflicts. So it obviously has to have a sequel. This is where I may be too much of a dreamer again, but I hope that my story is written well enough, and the storyline is so appealing, that someone will give me the chance and pick up Part 1. I believe it will sell and if it proves me right, Part 2 is ready to go. If this all proves to fall apart…well, I will adapt again. I learn quick and change things as I need. Maybe I will just have to accept it and try to get other manuscripts published before I try this one again. But until I give this a try and it proves foolhardy, I’m not going to give up.
I have found that publishing seems to be about making money. It’s not what I thought it would be. Obviously, the passion and structure in publishing is the love of books, but money is also a huge factor. If it won’t sell, people won’t represent it. People need to make money for anything to be worth their time and for publishing companies to stay in business. It’s just a fact. But I think that is what eventually kills writers’ dreams of ever being published. I have a fairly thick skin, but I think even I could become downtrodden after such a long time without any agent feedback/nibbles. Writing is about telling stories…connecting with strangers. Currently, it seems like trying to be published, connecting, and reaching out to agents is an extremely lonely place to be. When I got a personalized email back from Mr. Galen, it renewed my faith in that connection with people.
Apparently, everyone is trying to publish a novel. According to almost every agent website, they are swimming in query letters. I truly had no idea. So it has been disheartening receiving only form letters with no personalized feedback. I am not sure if some people respond to agents who personalize their feedback and try to argue with them, but it seems pretty rare to have feedback from an agent. This bums me out. I do not intend to argue with agents about how they feel about my manuscript. They’re going to feel whatever the hell they are going to feel. I just wanted to know whether there was something in particular, beyond my story just not clicking with them, that I could work on or needed to know in order to give my manuscript a better chance. Whether it is just being told that the market is not buying high fantasy, my story is similar to another novel (God I hope not), or if it was honestly just the word count. I just wanted something to go off of as well as to know that there are actual people behind these standard form emails. So thank you Mr. Galen. Instead of swimming in an ocean without any idea which way I should be swimming, he at lest gave me a life boat.
So as I try and continue to find an agent for my manuscript, I am working on two other projects. One of which has been an idea since I began writing my first manuscript so I feel like I can bring the same amount of passion to it as I have my current one. To all you writers out there, keep pushing and adapting. It can be a lonely and disparaging place to be-querying. But I like to think that if you feel it deep in your soul, that passion to share your story…. it WILL happen. Maybe not in the way you hoped or on the timeline you wished, but it will happen if you refuse to give up on it.
The Writing LEOW 