(and everything else I’ve been up to…)
Quiet is an optical illusion. It’s where the busy work and disappointment happens between happy announcements that supply the little hits of dopamine that keep me going and are worth sharing.
It’s been a busy summer, though you wouldn’t know it from my feed. I finished up the polishing on The Handwriting Artist at the end of April, before my arbitrary, self-imposed deadline of May 1. Things went a little crazy when the Inklist was released right before Thanksgiving of last year, when The Handwriting Artist won the thriller category in the Writer’s League of Texas’ annual manuscript contest. When the Inklist was released and the winners were announced, I had five literary agents reach out to express interest and ask where I was in the process, in addition to the agent who judged the contest and gave me a meeting as part of my grand prize, who also said he wanted to see it when I was done.
SIX agents were interested in ME?! Those are some good odds, right? I followed up with all them the day after I finished, and they all asked to see either the full or partial manuscript. Yes, friends, my very first day of querying, I had four fulls and two partials out.
I fell into this trap after I was a finalist in the manuscript contest in 2023, in another category. “My manuscript is a prize winner before it’s even finished? Finding an agent will be so easy!” (Narrator: it was not that easy.) Only this time, I already had six agents on the hook. It had to be easier this time around, right? RIGHT?
All four full requests ended a very complimentary rejection. I have yet to hear back on the two partials. And that’s how I find myself back in the same place I was in two years ago, back in the trenches doing cold queries along with the rest of my author battalion and my prize-winning manuscript.
I bought a last-minute ticket to the Agents & Editors conference earlier this summer, when it looked like those six agents weren’t going to pan out. With my WINNER ribbon on my conference badge and my name in the program, I got a few nibbles over $17 plastic cups of wine, but no bites.
But like I always say, all I can control is the work.
So what do you do while you’re waiting for your yes? You write something new.
I’ve finished a satirical romance and a satirical thriller, so now it’s time for a campy horror novel. I’m a little over 12,000 words in, so the clay is starting to resemble something that looks like a story. It’s still rough, but I am in love with the premise and leaning hard into the setting – it takes place in my college town in a karaoke bar that used to be a roadside porn shop. It’s a ghost story of sorts, or at least, that’s what I want you to think.
Wish me luck in the trenches while I write my next prize-winning manuscript! It’s rough out here!
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