"Discourse is fleeting, but junk mail is forever." --Joe Bob Briggs

Well, the end of the querying process is getting closer—and, with that knowledge, my shoulders feel a slight lightening of the usual, invisible weight. I sent the final set of email queries last weekend. And, with my web post on the Publisher’s Marketplace, the last thing on my to do list is to send out query letters by post with Self Addressed Stamped Envelopes dutifully enclosed. Once those are sent out, the Graces go to bed to sleep a fairy tale sleep of, quite possibly, years. Which is OK. I have faith that a prince—or princess, for that matter—will eventually trot along on a white steed and waken them from their slumber.

And once those letters are out, I can solely concentrate on the new manuscript. Turn a page, so to speak.

With the prospect of mailing out a dozen or so letters, however, I can’t help but ponder the strange relationship I have with paper. In my former career, it wasn’t unusual to have 30 banker boxes full of documents and be tasked with the job of summarizing their contents. The hours of my daily life were spent delving into an evidentiary morass, detailing the mundane and describing the meat of the matter. Mine was a life of fraud; thankfully, the fraud perpetrated by others but a fraud at my fingertips, nonetheless. The victims and their financial sufferings were familiar to me on paper alone. All in all, it wasn’t an occupation to restore your faith in mankind, not one that left you with positive thoughts on the long commute home every night—knowing that all of it, the awful ways people take advantage of and steal from others, break fiduciary trusts, and are motivated by sheer greed was, nonetheless, all reducible to clinically white paper, without a trace of sympathetic or philosophical language.

The truth is, I’m not a big fan of paper. Not the usual sort of white, bonded paper, that is. I’m big on recycling, absolutely high about hemp, and get misty over hand-made tactile treasures. But office paper? The kind that’s bleached to unnatural whiteness? Yeah, not too fond of the stuff. Without a doubt, my childhood years living in a pulp and paper town, spending my university summers working at one of those pulp and paper mills, really turned me off paper for good. There, I saw beautiful trees turned into pulverized mounds of wood chips, those wood chips then turned into a frothy mix of bleached goo, effluent ponds churning chemical-ridden sludge that would eventually get pumped into the mighty Fraser and Nechako Rivers and, finally, see massive rolls of what looked like toilet paper for Titans. Visually, it wasn’t easy on heart. The regular waft of sulphur and chlorine from the bleaching process wasn’t easy on the sinuses, either.

Years ago, I had written a short story for an anthology on labour—not the birthing kind of labour, but the labour experience of the key industries of the province. The labour behind paper was my theme…and now it seems that’s the theme of this blog entry, as well.

I guess there’s a dread. A dread of the waste of paper. As it is, with my email queries, of the 17 who responded back (either with form or thoughtful “no, but thanks” responses, or with requests to see sample chapters or the whole manuscript), 3/4ths of them responded within three days. Either I heard right away, or I have heard nothing. But it’s the wait that’s the worst part—and sending out letters only means longer waits (sigh).

Then again, it’ll be interesting to see if posted queries get more responses (any sort of response). I wonder if agents feel more obligated to send a response to someone who’s gone to the trouble of sending out query letters by post with Self Addressed Stamped Envelopes dutifully enclosed…

I guess we’ll see. I guess we’ll also see if the bubble gum chewing teenager at the nearest postal outlet understands what an International Reply Coupon is...

I'll Give You Desperate...

In light of what that writer said, as mentioned in the last entry—about not alluding to rejections in her blog for fear that she would appear desperate and her novel would come across as insanely un-likeable, un-publishable, and untouchable by angelic agent hands, I thought I would take the one step I said I would several weeks ago: post on the Publisher’s Marketplace as Writer Seeking Agent.

So, I’ll try it out for a month or two. With my Google Analytics set, I’ll be able to see if anyone—let alone agents—even bothers to use that particular forum. As I’ve said before, why should they? Agents have all those email queries land on their laptops the way I get junk emails for cheap Viagra prescriptions. If I had dozens of men bow at my feet every morning asking me to enter into legally (or illegally) binding relationships with them, why on earth would I bother to go to singles bars or on blind dates? I wouldn’t have the opportunity, motive, or even the energy.

But, as dubious as I am, I’m still curious about the reputation of the Publisher’s Marketplace. And, after a month or so passes, I’ll report back on the (indubitable lack of) traffic…

Maybe next time I’ll write about the power of positive thinking.

What Part of "No" Don't You Understand?

It’s funny how you expect things to happen, and then they don’t—or at least not quite. For example, I expected a rejection from Agent #2—the agent I sent the manuscript to at the beginning of the month (what can I say? My eastern European upbringing with parents who lived through World War II has imbued me with a healthy dose of negative thinking)—but what I hadn’t expected was the rejection to come in the mail, dated a week after the manuscript had been originally requested and emailed. I also hadn’t expected the rejection to be quaintly printed out on a 4x7-perforated piece of heavyweight paper.

There’s something more intriguing to me about the paper itself than its contents. The perforations are curious, making me wonder who else’s rejection was on the single, larger sheet. Given the size, I imagine that I shared the same rejection with three others—and I can’t help but wonder about those three strangers, the connection we have—or at least had until the perforations tore us asunder.

Here’s what the note says:

Thank you for the chance with THE GRACES OF MERCY & CIRCUMSTANCE, but I’m afraid it didn’t speak to me. Fiction is of course notoriously subjective, so I hope you won’t be discouraged by this, and will continue your search for representation.

I do appreciate your thinking of me and wish you the best of luck with this.

Cordially,
[Agent #2]

I wondered why the message came via the US Postal Service, too, especially since I sent everything via email. Then I realized that her agency—one of the largest literary agencies in the world—didn’t specify query guidelines. I had taken a shot by emailing her and lucked out when she wanted to see the manuscript.

Holding this note, this card-like missive, I realize there’s something about the feel of paper—like the feel of a book in your hands. It’s far more appealing than, say, staring at a computer monitor, feeling the effects of the flashing lights pierce into your subconscious, straining both your optic nerve and neck. Is that why I find this rejection appealing, simply because it is on paper? I doubt the agent read the whole manuscript—not in a week’s time—so the note doesn’t affect me as much as it might if I knew she’d made it to the last page, but I still have an urge to frame it—almost two weeks after its receipt—because it is so lovely to look at in its classic simplicity. Only the name of the agency appears at the bottom, not its Park Avenue and international addresses nor its various phone and fax lines. Plus, she signed only with her first name, which adds to its overall unpretentiousness…

It seems so old school—pleasantly so. It reminds me of the image of Jack Kerouac and his roll of paper, typing “On The Road” on his amphetamine high without having to worry about changing the sheets. It also makes me think that this is how great writers of the past would have received rejections—because I imagine everyone being rejected before being discovered. That makes them somehow more fascinating, the authors who could paper their walls with rejection notices and then smile smugly after they’d won a Pulitzer or stayed on the New York Times best selling list for years.

When I got the rejection, I remember thinking, oh well, back to the drawing board so to speak, as I sat with my morning coffee scanning through old posts on the various blogs I’m catching up on. Then, as coincidence would have it, I read the following from a writer:

I rarely…talk about querying and submissions on my blog, because I don’t want to look desperate or make it sound like my novel is one that has been rejected so many times that no sane agent would want to touch it.

Hmmm. It had made me wonder. Querying and the subsequent rejections and non-responses is pretty much the basis of my entire blog. Does this make me sound desperate? Like an utter outcast in the land of fiction writing?

I hadn’t thought of it that way.

So, two weeks after pondering that statement, here’s my response: writers have a common experience in the underbelly realm of rejection—so why not embrace it, share it, and then conquer the fear of it? The more you fear rejection, the more you try to avoid it—which only means you don’t dare expose yourself to others and you then become paralyzed. And not daring…well, that’s just down right counterproductive, isn’t it—especially when daring is at the core of querying in the first place?

Secondly, there’s a great deal of hubris in thinking that agents actually bother to read every wannabe author’s blogs. How would they have the time let alone the inclination when their email boxes are full of dozens of daily queries?

I say, who cares? The literary world is full of great writers who received tons of rejections for novels that still matter, and the world is full of extraordinarily talented writers who never get published simply because they’re not lucky…or aren’t related to someone famous…or haven’t been photographed drinking peach schnapps with Osama bin Laden. So be it. Let’s move on, shall we?

Yes, I think I’ll frame this rejection note. Because if this lovely little card is what we’re so afraid of, dear Lord, how do we ever manage to leave the house?

As a postscript, I sent out a quick email to Agent #3, the one who requested the first 50 pages of the manuscript about a month ago, just asking if she’d be interested in seeing the rest of it before I sent out the next batch of queries (because, really, it’s the last 50 pages that has all the action). She responded:

It takes us quite a bit to read when we are busy. I will try to read ASAP but feel free to keep sending queries in the meantime. Please just don't sign with anyone before giving us an opportunity to complete reading.

My best,

[Agent #3]

So, you see? If a complete stranger can have faith in the impossible happening, why shouldn’t I?

Besides, if it was that easy to find an agent and that easy to get a first novel published, that would make a pretty boring story—at least in my books.

Wanna taste?

Finally. The sample chapters are posted here for your viewing pleasure (or displeasure, depending on your palate).

Let me know what you think. Do they make you want to feast on more or do they leave a bad taste in your mouth? Too much salt, not enough pepper...or is the texture just a little too, well, funky for consumption?

My Kingdom for a Wooden Shoe

I don’t like to brag but I’m not usually perplexed by technology or the computer-ese jargon of elite IT secret societies. What does perplex me, however, is the HTML language in the context of the painfully useless and inaptly named Blogger Help.

Help desk? Is that what Satan calls his podium at the gates of hell? Satan, with his little concierge nameplate pinned to his heartless chest that says, “Ask me where to go”?

I thought that, while waiting for the anticipated rejection from the latest agent, I could post some sample chapters here, then research other agents in preparation for the next batch of queries as soon as that polite “no thanks, but other agents will no doubt feel differently” is received.

But I’m stuck. I can’t figure out how to post the sample chapters as midget widgets to the right of your screen, accessible as separate windows rather than as a full-blown artery blogging-clogging post below.

The so-called “help” tells me how to hide posts, to copy and paste a string of text in the HTML template. Great. But where? The template is two pages long. Do I paste at the beginning or at the end of my rope? I then find another reference that says a similar string of text needs to be pasted after the first {body} but before the first {header}—

but neither the specified body nor header is in my expanded template. Apparently, I am without arms and legs (I already knew I've irrevocably lost my head).

So here I am. Trudging through the blogging bog, unable to post sample chapters as mere handy dandy links rather than as additional semblances of “War & Peace”, and convinced another rejection is forthcoming—that is, in precisely two weeks when I send a reminder email.

For some reason, Mark Twain appears in the room, standing next to me. He is atypically—but not surprisingly—speechless. But he’s wearing wooden clogs and is about to throw one at the monitor…or is he aiming at my head?

“Ha!” I laugh, as I duck under my desk. “You forget—I am headless. And I have no body, funny man. Oh, and by the way, this is a non-smoking house, if you please…”

But I digress—because I don’t know what else to do. Except to walk away, slowly, from the computer, then run away in a zigzag manner.

What's in a name?

Someone asked me the other day what the title of my novel was.

“The Graces of Mercy and Circumstance,” I replied.

“Wow! That’s a mouthful,” he frowned and walked away, clearly afraid that I would elaborate. (That day, someone also laughed at my use of an allegedly non-existent word: “unmown”. Clearly, it was not a great day for literature or the English language.)

Had the man not run away before I could have defended my title, here’s what I would have said.

I love phrases that stir up multiple meanings—not double entendres, but triple, even quadruple, entendres. A phrase that can be read simply for what it is or, if you’re so inclined, can be shredded into tinier bits of a greater whole, put back together, and leave your mind reeling with myriad images.

The three characters of “The Graces of Mercy and Circumstance” are imperfect personifications of the three mythological Graces, the handmaidens to Venus, who represent beauty, charm, and creativity.

Karin is physically beautiful, although she’s either unaware of it or doubts it altogether. She spends most of her energy exercising—in particular, running—to the point of exhaustion. This is how she copes with her regrets in life and then, later, the loss of her son. As she gets older and more embittered, she and her body become increasingly hardened to the world.

Trisha, on the other hand, charms everyone with her cooking—especially with her specialty: comfort food. She learns early on as a child that her baked goods appease the people around her but she partakes too much in her own delicacies in an attempt to comfort herself, as well. By the time she’s in her late thirties, her doctor has told her she’s pre-diabetic and a good candidate for heart disease if she doesn’t lose weight. Trisha has a hard time giving up the one thing she believes everyone loves her for and subconsciously refuses to lose the protective layer of fat that envelops her.

Alaina, the third of the main characters, studies photography at a fine art school after high school as she’s drawn to the creative expression of her camera, but ends up as an event photographer with her own business. Eventually, her creativity is stultified with repetitious wedding ceremonies, demanding clients, and rigid, predictable poses. Gradually, her profession feels more like commerce than creativity. She quits her photography business but is then plagued with boredom. When she picks up her camera again, she rediscovers her creative energy during her long morning walks, as though she has just noticed the landscape around her. It’s on one of these morning walks that she’s serendipitously reunited with her childhood friend, Karin.

So, although Karin, Trisha, and Alaina represent the graces of beauty, charm, and creativity, their graces are flawed by personal circumstances.

As for mercy, there’s the concept of God’s mercy—when God chooses to forgive instead of punish—as well as the grace of God—the bestowal of unmerited blessings, such as the salvation of sinners. The women are faced with the option of extending mercy upon the recipient of their intended act of vigilantism but ultimately—and without giving up too much of the ending—they’re spared much of the punishment that could have befallen them as a result of their sins, at least temporarily. Nonetheless, they start out—and end up—with the power to act mercifully toward themselves and others; however, the power to either forgive or punish will weigh on them for the rest of their lives.

Yes, I guess he was right. It is a mouthful.

Scientist Meets Fisherman

Two days into the experiment and, so far, I have the same result as the very first batch of query letters I sent out in February; that is, a response the next day for the whole manuscript.

So, expanding on the fishing analogy, it’s like there are two fishermen, both strapped in their respective boat seats for an afternoon of marlin fishing. One is encumbered with too much gear: his rod’s heavier than the other fisherman’s but not as strong, and his lifejacket is too bulky and chafes his armpits, leaving him uncomfortable and rigid. Using the same fishing line, hook, and bait, however, they both manage to get simultaneous bites from their trophy fish. Neither gets anything more than that one teasing nibble (although both get painfully sunburnt).

The encumbered one feels a bit smug because his equipment, as flawed as it is, got him the same results as his streamlined partner—who, of course, invested more in his lightweight gear. Still, since they’re friends, they know they’ll have a good story to tell their buddies back at the hotel bar even though they’re saddened to return home from their once-in-a-lifetime fishing trip empty-handed.

Suddenly, someone appears next to the men on the boat. He holds out his arms and, amazingly, a marlin jumps out of the water and right into the man’s embrace. Even more amazingly, the marlin looks at the stranger, as if to say, “Take me. I’m yours.”

So, in the end, it may not be the gear that matters. As long as you have a good hook, line, and sinker—even if they’re all made of weighty stuff—you should at least get a bite. What really counts is being able to take the fish home, stuff it, and hang it over your fireplace.

Hmm. I think something just got lost in that analogy…

The story makes me wonder, though: since I’ve got the same result as the first cast of query letters, I may have already assumed that I’ll end up with the same conclusion: empty-handedness. Or, more likely, it only feels that it would be utterly magical, if not impossible, for such a rarity to land so easily in my hands. It’s like magic dust that sparkles as it spills through your fingers.

Still, if you’re going to write a novel—and conduct science experiments—it’s good, if not intrinsically necessary, to believe in a little bit of magic.

A Science Experiment

I'm conducting an experiment. After revising the query letter, thanks to the feedback on the The Public Query Slushpile, I've come up with two letters: the long and the short.

I prefer the short version (being diminutive in stature, is it any wonder?) but some agents request a synopsis. Some also request sample chapters while others simply want a stellar sales pitch in a mere few sentences--something akin to an ol' one-two punch in the breadbox.

So here's my experiment: Having sent out 10 queries this morning (7 short, 3 long--two with sample chapters), let's see which version gets the better response rate...and if that response rate is any different than the original query.

If there's no difference, then so be it. I only have another 13 agents to research on my list. Of those, maybe half will get queries. And that'll be it for this mad scientist. Onto the next project--especially since the Petri dishes sitting on my brain's windowsill need attending to. It's time to get back to the other project before the mould permanently sets in.

Although I do wonder...if the blogging public could help me so proficiently with my query letter, I wonder if there's a critiquing blog for sample chapters? Hmmm...

Which reminds me, I still have to post some sample chapters here. Maybe next time...

The Full Meal Query Letter: A.K.A. “The Hook, Line & Sinker”

Dear [Agent],

Three childhood friends, now mothers in their late thirties, commit an act of vigilantism against a complete stranger when they become convinced he has abused his stepdaughter and murdered his wife. The three women are swept up by their newfound sense of control and power while they plot against the man, but their so-called “perfect plan” goes terribly awry during execution and they discover, only when it’s too late, that they didn’t know all the facts. Thanks also to their late night activities in a stolen van, the women unwittingly become suspects in a separate murder investigation of a police informant and find out how tenuous their beliefs—and their relationships with one another—have been.

In the end, the man at the center of the women’s vigilantism has a history and identity that none of the women could have ever imagined.

The story starts with Karin, Alaina, and Trisha as children. When they reunite decades later, Karin grieves the death of her only child in a car accident in which her husband was driving in the direction toward his mistress’ house. Trisha confronts childhood traumas involving an alcoholic mother, a father she has never met, molestation by her grandfather, and the regret of giving her baby up for adoption when she was a teenager. Alaina struggles with the guilt of her past failure to speak out against her adopted father’s sexual abuse of boys and, then later, the secret and questionable paternity of her oldest child.

After Alaina’s son reveals that one of his classmates has run away from home because of the horrific deeds of her stepfather, the women’s weekly “girls’ night out” takes on a whole new and tragic misplacement of energy.

THE GRACES OF MERCY & CIRCUMSTANCE, complete at 84,500 words, is commercial women's fiction set within small towns in British Columbia, Canada.

Although I am an unpublished novelist, I spent several years writing investigative reports on the professional and personal misconduct of lawyers. I also have a degree in English literature from the University of Victoria.

I'd be more than happy to send you my complete manuscript for your review. Thank you for your time and consideration.

The Abridged Query Letter: A.K.A. “The Hook”

Dear [Agent],

"Girls' night out" takes on new meaning when three thirty-something mothers turn to vigilantism to escape the pain of their lives.

Childhood friends Karin, Alaina, and Trisha struggle with guilt and grief until they get swept up in a newfound sense of control and power while they plot an act of vigilantism against a complete stranger. When their so-called “perfect plan” goes awry during execution and they inadvertently become suspects in a separate murder investigation of a police informant, the women find out how tenuous their beliefs—and their relationships with one another—have been. Only when it’s too late do they discover that they didn’t know all the facts about the stranger before they took the law in their own hands but, in the end, the man at the center of their misguided plot has a history and identity that no one could have ever imagined.

THE GRACES OF MERCY & CIRCUMSTANCE, complete at 84,500 words, is commercial women's fiction set within small towns in British Columbia, Canada.

Although I am an unpublished novelist, I spent several years writing investigative reports on the professional and personal misconduct of lawyers. I also have a degree in English literature from the University of Victoria.

I'd be more than happy to send you my complete manuscript for your review. Thank you for your time and consideration.

The Kindness of Strangers

Thank God for it! Turns out my friends are too afraid to tell me what shite my query letter is but, luckily, the post on The Public Query Slushpile garnered very useful critiques from people I've never met (but would love to buy them a round).

So, after several hours of re-working the letter based on the sage advice of an objective (and no doubt well-read) audience, I posted draft 2. Don't be shy, people. Tell me it still sucks. I can take it. And if you're afraid of the size of my well-developed, Eastern European biceps, you can post a comment anonymously...

All the world's a stage...so where are all the critics?

Awesome...I found a blog where people can submit their query letters and have them critiqued by complete strangers. The Public Query Slushpile is such an incredible idea and an immense service to us lowly, burgeoning writers.

Criticism is what I need. Yes, I'm getting a few bites on the query letter, but I want more (hmmm, is this how Mina Harker felt every time Count Dracula wasn't home by 3 a.m.?). Without criticism, I can't tweak the letter. And if the letter's fine, then it's the story that's not interesting enough. And, well, then...it'll definitely be time to finish manuscript #2 if that's the case. The story is what the story is (kind of like "stupid is what stupid does", not easily changeable after the display of utter idiocy).

So I hope people comment to my query letter that I just posted on The Public Query Slushpile site (but if all I get is criticism on the shade of my lipstick, I'll have to say it again: Mother, I'm a grown woman now and, no, I do not look like a clown)...

Oh, and since I love the whole soliloquy, here it is:

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

When is Enough Enough?

I woke up this morning realizing one thing (apart from how sticky my eyes are thanks to allergy season): I won't query the manuscript forever. I won't be one of those writers who query hundreds of agents and then hide under the covers when all of the effort is to no avail.

My brain must have done some macro and micro-processing overnight since a to-do list formulated, a set of instructions, all with a clear end in mind.

So here it is: I have reviewed the client lists for over 200 agents, narrowed the list down after considering apparent compatibilities with their past representations, and only have 35 left on the list that I have yet to query. I'll likely narrow the 35 down further after researching their query guidelines (some may not be taking submissions at this time; others may only be looking for Christian-based fiction AKA mysteries and miracles).

I also have a handful of agents on my list that only take written/snail mail submissions (I suspect they have relatives or stocks in the pulp and paper industry) and will dutifully send those out after the electronic queries have been sent--which saddens me to some extent since there are some agents very high on my list who have smartly utilized the ploy of accepting only written submissions likely in order to curb the amount of queries they get (who could blame them? After going through Miss Snark's Crap-o-Meter query examples, I nearly stabbed my eyes out with the nearest sharp object, which happened to be my own fingernails).

I'll also try posting a few sample chapters on this blog, and then post the site on Publishers Marketplace, under their page of 200 other writers in search of an agent. But I won't do that forever (not at USD$25 per month if it gets me no where. I mean, c'mon...rejection has it's own price. That's just adding insult to injury).

And that'll be it. A girl has her limits. And when they're just not that into you, big girls can accept that and move on. Right? Right.

Besides, I'd rather expend my energy on the latest manuscript. I still have the entire climax to finish on the first draft...and I don't want to delay gratification. Manuscript #2 still has to go through another three drafts, then critiques from a few unluckily chosen guinea pigs, and then at least a fourth draft (a method I like to employ--I am nothing if not methodical. Oh, and short--but that's just genes).

In the meantime, I'll continue with my 3 to 5 queries per week until the agent list is exhausted. And I'll just keep amassing manuscripts on my hard drive until something gives.

What that something will be, only time will tell. But I suspect it'll be the micro processors.

The Electronic Slush Pile

Since February, I’ve only sent out 20 queries, I just realized—12 since March 30th. Yes, it takes time to research agents’ past and present clients, to read all those book reviews and sample chapters on the web, to scan the posts on the Absolute Write forum to see what other wannabe novelists are saying about their experiences with specific agents. 12 still sounds pretty paltry, though, now that I look at it. Paltry especially in light of what one agent noted on her website, that they receive, on average, 30 queries a day.

That’s right—30 queries a day.

Which supports what I’ve often suspected. Everyone’s got a novel (not to mention a blog, for shame). Everyone—including their dog—has a story they’re trying to peddle. Suddenly, the experience seems cheapened. I feel a set of red patent leather 4-inch stilettos squeezing my fishnet stocking clad feet, toes scuffed and heels ground down, as I stand on some darkened street corner, whistling “Love For Sale” to passing sailors.

Well, that’s an image out of the 1950s, to be sure. And, from what I can gather, that’s when the relationship between novelist and literary agent really came to fruition, likely as more writers came out of all those post-war Parisian cafés and Madrid bullfights, at a time when everyone thought they could write like Hemingway with moving monosyllables.

Personally, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Give me a fresh set of eyes, an objective, tell-it-like-it-is professional to give me a dose of reality and set me straight, someone who makes it their job to foster relationships with editors and publishers, and tells me what to do, where to be, how many dollar bills to shove under my bra strap. Gives me more time to do what I want: write, that is.

Besides, I am still far too new to this to think like a weary and seasoned streetwalker. Me? I’m still the happy hooker. And two-thirds through the first draft of my next manuscript, I can whistle “Que Sera Sera” to my dog as he sleeps, curled up on my feet, keeping my toes warm while he dreams to the clicking of the keys on my laptop.

Russian Roulette with 8 Bullets

"Finding a literary agent is like moving to a new town and having to find a contractor to remodel your house and a mechanic to fix your car all at once. It has a strong element of Russian roulette." ~ National Writers Union

Guess how many literary agents work in New York City? According to Google maps, 6,351.

When I saw that figure pop up, I recalled the same feeling I had back in the early 1990s, scanning through a barely-read back issue of The Economist, and reading that there were over 50,000 practising lawyers in Washington, D.C. 15 years later, that number may have tripled. Still, that’s fine—most could be working in some politburo think tank churning out opinions on how water-boarding doesn’t infringe constitutional rights, or defending politicians who engage in acts of public indecency or other conflicts of interest—but what if you lived in D.C., needed a nasty divorce, or paperwork filed for the purchase of a 400-square-foot apartment, or your neighbour accused you of harbouring illegal aliens in your basement? Where would you start to find a good lawyer?

Well, that wasn’t my plight. It was worse. I was looking for a good literary agent—but here in Vancouver, we know next to nothing about literary agents, let alone good v. bad ones. We see what’s on the best selling lists, listen to our friends when they say they’ve just read a good book, or hear about some novel for the first time when it’s already on the big screen. At least with lawyers, there’s word of mouth—everyone’s had the misfortune of needing one or two in their lifetimes. 2,400 miles away from New York, we have no collective experience of agents—apart from Estelle, Joey’s chain-smoking agent on “Friends” or Ari Gold on “Entourage” (who, of course, contemplates practising law at one point).

Luckily, there’s the Publisher’s Marketplace where you can see who the top deal makers are, do reverse searches on authors and find out who their agents are, track the most popular agent web pages or blogs, read their clients’ book reviews, and do your best to determine if what you have is remotely compatible with what an agent has accepted in the past.

So that’s where I started. After researching many agents’ client lists and submissions guidelines (and choosing only those who accepted emails because I was curious to see if anyone would even respond), I sent off a modest amount of email queries—8 to be exact.

Then I sat back and contemplated how long, or if, I would hear anything back. (Time to start the next manuscript, I thought. This could take a while.)

The next day, I got a response. An agent asked to see the whole manuscript, asked if I could email it to her.

Shocking. I hadn’t expected such a quick response, especially not from an agent who had recently represented a first-time writer—one who just happened to be one of Oprah’s Book Club selections.

So off the manuscript immediately went, travelling the 2,400 miles through cyberspace at the speed of light, without the destruction of a single tree. Later that day, I also got two rejections from other agents: one saying she wasn’t considering submissions due to her full roster of clients (a form, automatically-generated response), the other from an agent’s assistant saying my pitch didn’t seem right for their list but thanks for thinking of them just the same. But I didn’t mind—I’d already sent the manuscript off and wanted to hear from Agent #1 before sending it off to anyone else. A week later, I got two other form rejections but, still, no sweat off my balls, as they say.

And then the wait began.

We Canadians are known for our politeness (damn Lester Pearson and the Suez Canal Crisis). It may end up being our downfall, as it has been the downfall of our pipelined natural resources, but I continued to wait, saying to myself, “She must be swamped with queries and all the other agent-like things she does. I’ll give her 6 weeks.”

6 weeks, it turns out, is a long time not to send out other queries, not to invite more rejections. But I waited, to be polite (why ask someone to consider a query when Agent #1 might agree to take it on?). I guess I was hopeful—dubious, because it simply couldn’t be that easy to find an agent, but hopeful nonetheless.

As soon as 6 weeks passed, however, I sent an email reminder. Agent #1 wrote back:

Many thanks for following up! I’ve had a chance to look at “The Graces of Mercy & Circumstance”, and I’m afraid that I won’t be offering you representation.

As you may know, I’m just beginning the agent-ing process, and I’ve found that I’ve really got to be 110% behind a novel in order to best represent it (especially in these rather tricky times). I think you’re onto something here, and I’m sure others will feel differently.

Best of luck to you!

(I just double checked…she did say I was “onto something here”—not “on something”.)

As for the other 3 of the original 8 queries, I haven’t received any responses from them. One did note on her website, however, that if she didn’t respond in 3 weeks, then consider it a rejection.

I think it’s safe to say that any lack of a response after 3 to 4 weeks can be taken as a “no, but thanks” from any agent, regardless of whether they specify that on their website or not.

Still, considering I doubted I’d get any responses at all, I figured that one request for the manuscript, 4 rejections in less than two weeks, and 3 non-responses was pretty good.

And is a 37.5% non-response rate a good thing?

Turns out, as the weeks have followed, yes it is…

I've got a story...

When I finished the fourth and final draft of the manuscript in February, I didn’t feel jubilation or excitement. A gauzy haze of “what now?” was the vague emotion. I had simply enjoyed writing the story up to then, escaping into the world of three childhood friends who make a catastrophic group decision in response to past regrets and abuses, and who then have to face the consequences of their momentary lapse of judgment. Mob rule had swept over the politics of my imagination on a daily basis for several months, and then WHAM! Resolution took form, followed by an ending to the story, and then an awakening from that heady space of mob mentality. Suddenly, my three friends had left the house, leaving behind 315 double-spaced pages detailing their trials and tribulations.

The question remained: Was the story compelling enough, the characters engaging enough, and the wordsmith worthy enough of publication? I liked the story and the characters, but isn’t it up to the agent, editor, and ultimately the reader who have to say whether it’s enough?

Ten years ago, I had finished a manuscript of a rather unconventional novel—it had ample internal conflict between the two main, starkly contrasting characters and great moments of catharsis, but it didn’t follow the traditional storyline arc and, what really peeved me, the characters weren’t clearly visible in my own mind’s eye. They had huge cerebral cortices, but big holes in their hearts, lard-covered hands that couldn’t grasp concrete objects, ever-changing hair colours and wardrobes, and no distinct mannerisms. To my amazement, an editor of a small, subversive publishing house in Vancouver asked to see the manuscript despite its flaws. Several weeks later, she sent the manuscript back, saying it needed more work, and provided a page of suggestions. The editorial advice was priceless—and free. I spent six months re-working the manuscript, and re-submitted. She said it was vastly improved and would pass it on to the editorial board. Six months later, I got a rejection letter from the publisher saying the story didn’t fit their “publishing program” that year.

I didn’t write again—until last year. I’m still not altogether sure why I stopped except that I needed to work; more specifically, I needed money to pay the rent. And, although my 20s were plagued with fluctuating self-doubt and delusional visions of myself as the second coming of Christopher Marlowe (coupled with a Gogol complex), I was no Anthony Trollope, writing the Barsetshire novels while keeping a full-time job at the proverbial post office. Plus, my full-time job involved a great deal of writing so perhaps that particular urge had been placated.

When I quit my job last year, the writing automatically flowed, but this time without grand delusions of creating capital “L” Literature. I just had a desire to entertain myself with a good story and to make new imaginary friends.
So, when I suddenly had a manuscript on my hands, I remembered that generous editor from ten years earlier. I looked her up and found that she is now at a self-publishing outfit charging $4 to $6 per page for her editorial advice.

If I had the $1,260 to $1,890 in cash, I’d pay for her help again, to provide details of what may be wrong with specific sections, to give me a road map for the reader to travel along, identifying where the road should be smooth, where potholes should jar the ride, where the incline could be steeper, and where mountains should appear.

It still raised the option, though: to self-publish or not? It seems cost-prohibitive, but I still can’t dismiss the possibility. Especially when I think of Terry Fallis who won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Honour here in Canada last year for his self-published novel, “The Best Laid Plans”.

But, I thought, let’s see what an agent can or cannot do first. It’s a fairly commercial—as in marketable—story, so how difficult could it be? (Ah, naïveté.)

So the search for an agent began...

Bully for the Underdog

The recent You Tube phenom, Susan Boyle—the dowdy, heavily-browed, 47-year-old virgin from some UK village, has just reached the 16 million mark in total viewers with her debut performance on “Britain’s Got Talent”.

This strikes me, particularly these days, as strong evidence of one thing: we love the underdog.

Surprising, though, in this case considering she’s a middle-aged, fashion-challenged woman with what appears to be remnants of a home permanent tragically rippling through what’s left of her greying hair (oh how sadly I relate! I don’t think my hair’s ever been the same since that home perm when I was 12 years old…damn 1980s). Surprising, indeed, considering the hours devoted on TV to hard-bodied models and celebrities, and cutesy-pa-tootsy pubescent vixens and their foxy male counterparts. All the iron-flattened hair extensions, silicon-filled breasts, and narrow waistlines in the world couldn’t have prepared me to believe the popularity of a Susan Boyle could ever occur.

But perhaps here’s the reason: we’re jaded—finally. We’ve finally seen enough of the unreal, plastic folks that inundate our popular culture that we cheer when we see an average person do something unexpectedly talented and catch that lucky break.

Or at least that’s what I hope for.

In addition to relating to Boyle for her follicular-challenged existence, I relate to her for another reason. I have written a novel and, since February, have been trying to catch that lucky break, as well. Like Boyle, I decided to go big or go home (or, more accurately, stay home), and query literary agents in New York, New York—because it’s a helluva town, apparently, and why not? I thought. What’s the worst that could happen? A bunch of form rejections and non-responses, for sure. But what if? What if I could find that one daring agent who would actually agree to represent someone from Small Town, Canada, who routinely misspells words like “cheque”, “neighbour”, and “gynaecology” and uses the metric system to describe all things relating to volume, distance, and weight? And what if that agent could actually find a publisher who would be equally daring to buy the manuscript? Hmm…wouldn’t that be like sweet Susan Boyle, tears welling in her eyes when Simon Cowell tells her what an extraordinary little tiger she is?

Brings tears to my eyes, that’s for sure.

So, this will be the context of my blog: detailing what this frumpy, 40-something woman does to catch a break. But I’m not asking for 16 million viewers (which I know I’d only get if my horrific death was captured on a closed-circuit camera next to nesting eagles—I imagine a runaway train or, worse, a taser-yielding gung-ho gang of coppers). I’ll only offer a glimpse into what happens when an average person of average ability attempts to get a manuscript published in the Mecca of Literature (New York City, that is, and not the other literary Meccas of this world: London or any Dublin pub).

Hopefully, there’ll be a happy ending. If not, then hopefully I’ll make others attempting to do the same thing feel better, either with a sense of shared experience or relief that, by the grace of God, mine is an experience unto my own.

Still, I can’t help but suspect the next time we see Susan, she’ll be cleaned up, dolled up, and girdled in. Hell, I’d do the same (I’m not averse to showers but I’d need some real incentive to wear a dress).