One of the things I like about writing is that I get to make revisions before people see what I’ve written. Perhaps a beta reader or my editor has comments, I agree with their thoughts, and I make changes to my manuscript. From that point on, the manuscript is different, improved and nobody will ever see the old version. It’s as though the former version never existed, as though the manuscript was always as it is now.

Alas, it’s not the same situation with query letters. I research each agent, what they do and do not like, and I personalize each query that I send. Great, except that as I mentioned in my last post, the fish weren’t biting with my original query letter. So I modified it…a lot, to tell you the truth. In retrospect, I think my original query was too sterile. It was professional, and there was nothing wrong with it, per se, but it didn’t get the blood flowing. My query didn’t provide the prospective agent with a window into my brain so they could see what I’m trying to accomplish with this novel, and why it’s so important that it be said.

Now, after having written and sent many queries, I have the letter I wish I’d sent initially. It’s powerful, it’s moving, and I believe it will more effectively explain why Beautiful needs to be read. I wish there were a way to magically morph every agent’s copy to the newest version.

Addendum several days later: I received a couple of very quick “no, thank you’s” — unusually quick. So I just dialed my passion back a notch by deleting a sentence that I fear may be triggering worry. Somewhere, there’s a sweet spot. Agents want contemporary and raw, but apparently not too raw.

Yes, that was a damn good song by Pink Floyd, but that’s not the topic of this blog post.

You’ll remember that this blog is a peek into the mind of a new writer. Therefore, you cannot reasonably expect that mind always to be full of unicorns and rainbows. Sometimes I wonder if anybody’s listening.

I have been sending queries to literary agents since January 2019. To date, I’ve received exactly one response, from my dream agent’s assistant. She wrote a lovely email saying that the agent has many clients and “she wasn’t able to fully connect” with my project. Again, her email was polite and professional, maybe two or three lines long, AND she sent it within two months of my query. My other queries to date have vanished into the void.

This business of finding an agent to represent my manuscript (and hopefully future manuscripts!) to publishing houses is, I think, the hardest part of being a traditionally-published author. Writing is fun! Even the times when I have writer’s block are more fun than waiting…hoping…praying that an agent will read my query, request the full manuscript, and say, “Yes, I can sell that!” I’m proud of my first novel, and I believe that a literary agent who reads it will like it. Of course, I’m only sending queries to agents who have indicated that they’re looking for this genre of manuscript with the kinds of characters I’ve written.

Speaking of writing, my second novel — a sequel to Beautiful — is coming along wonderfully. So far it’s about fifty thousand words. I haven’t come up with a title yet. A couple of characters from Beautiful have expanded roles in the sequel, and I brought in some new characters that I think you will love as much as I do! I’m very excited. I almost wish I could leak some details or plot twists, but I suppose that would be a bad idea.

My wife and I have been doing some serious traveling; in the past six months we’ve been to Alaska, Spain, Scottsdale AZ, South Africa, and the US Virgin Islands. The latter three trips were all since mid-January. I did not take my MacBook Pro on most of these trips. It would have been one more thing to worry about and possibly have stolen. When my laptop is not available, I write with my iPhone (Scrivener has an iPhone app) and a notepad. They’re obviously not nearly as convenient as a real keyboard. I hate to complain too loudly, though, because I read that J.K. Rowling wrote her first two Harry Potter novels longhand in a notebook.