The Third Round

A very conclusive Third Round of queries was sent out on February 6^th, 2013, and I say that because for now I am content with the idea of waiting.  This was another small round, but one of increasing amount which brings the total queries out now to a whopping twenty.  For the Fourth Round, which will happen after a certain thing occurs which I'll mention here in a bit, will consist of twenty and will bring the query total to four rounds equaling forty.

More rejections have come this time around, making me think that this Third Round has been crafted well enough to be accepted regardless of the yeas or neas.  Slowly but surely the rejections are trickling in, and I couldn't be more thrilled!  The material is circulating this time, quite possibly being a topic of discussion in some New York offices as agents shrug and make their decisions with their interns and fellow agents alike.

This is fun to imagine.

On the other hand, it may be time to review the submission guidelines for the first two rounds and go ahead and either resubmit or mark them as "Rejected."  It really doesn't make a difference when one considers that some agents have a policy of no response = rejection, and so why not clean up my list for this new revision that I ... uh-oh.  The cat's out of the bag.

Yes, I am doing another revision of the manuscript that I'm currently submitting because quite frankly, I can and because I've done lots of reading lately and I need to bring certain things up to par.  The Internet has been a great resource in this regard, following Twitter feeds of certain agents that literally walk you through their query review process and reveal what they did and didn't like.  For an example of this, check out Ann Collette at the Rees Literary Agency on Twitter @Ann_Collette.

The Internet has also been invaluable to the imparting of wisdom to us writers, especially the ones who are knee-deep in the query process.  While finding it hard for me to work on my next book with all of this query uncertainty, I stumbled across Noah Lukeman, President of Noah Lukeman Literary Management, and his blog where he says among other things:

Finally, there should never be any downtime in your writing.  Writing is a muscle, and the more you write, the better you will become.  When you finish one book, turn immediately to the next, and don’t use a submission as an excuse to take a break and not do the hard work of continuing to write every day.  A writer should never be "waiting" -- only "writing" or "submitting."  In fact, the word "waiting" should not even exist in the successful author’s vocabulary.

Wow, huh?  Because of this very blog I have not only started up on my new book again, but I am simultaneously doing a very brief and more-readable revision of the book I'm submitting.  It's as if I'm starting over again, and in this case, I couldn't be happier.

The reading research also continues with the recent completion of the very-successful industry goliath, Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James.   I will say this:  I understand the appeal, but this book was so horribly written that as a writer I found it hard to finish.  It has thus gone right up there now with some of the most densest of dense English prose that I've ever had to wade through.

Fifty Shades of Grey walks that fine line with me of learning what I don't want to do, yet seeing what it was that someone did do in order to get published.