I realize that I start too many of these blog posts lamenting at how long it’s been since my last post and then committing to be more regular with them… and I should just embrace that, that’s not going to happen. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be trying to post more often, but I’m just going to stop saying I’m going to do it. That’s reverse psychology Kyle!

I’ve submitted to several agents by this point, roughly 6-7 I would guess. Querying is hard, and in all the worst ways. It’s like how career development courses tell you that when you apply for a job, you need to send a cover letter and address a specific person at the prospective company. What they don’t tell you is that finding out who you should be addressing (because we all know “to whom it may concern” is a pointless line) is next to impossible. Sure, I suppose in theory including the name of the hiring manager for a company in your letter might signal your interest in a position, but unless you luck into that individual’s name on Linkedin, is it really that much better to just have Sally’s name who is a Jr. HR Representative? Somehow I don’t think so…

But I’ve gone tangential again. My point is that to “properly” query agents, you’re supposed to do all the research regarding who that agent represents and indicate that you’ve done so in your query. So that details searching around on the internet, combing through interviews, and hoping that the agent’s publisher’s marketplace page is up to date. Which means you’re probably spending at least an hour, if not more, just doing research before querying an agent…

To be fair, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It does give you a sense of the kind of work an agent represents, which is pretty important, since you do probably want to find somebody who knows how to properly represent your manuscript. But that doesn’t make this process any more interesting. And don’t take my word for it, remember, I’m no pro at this part of the process either.

Unfortunately I haven’t heard anything back from my queries, which is a pain. I understand that these people are bogged down with submissions, but I would think that the least you could do is send a rejection notice. The problem with hearing nothing is you’re not even sure if the submission made it across the internet pond! And when there’s no feedback, you don’t know what you can improve on… which irritates me too, but then again, I love feedback.

Book 2 is progressing very nicely, in fact, it’s going exponentially faster than book 1 did. I’m almost to a readable draft for alpha readers and I predict I’ll have a completed manuscript at least 3 drafts quicker than I did book 1. Like I said in a previous post… writing that first one really does teach you some pretty important lessons.

I just finished doing developmental edits for a novel for a friend, and it reminded me how much I enjoy doing that work. It’s great for gearing me up to write myself. Unfortunately, I’ve finished it so now I need to track down somebody else who wants an overly long critique of their precious work…

But that’s all for today. Write on everybody!