The Work of Writing

I am on the hunt again. In the last three days I have queried six agents in hope of finding one who will take on David's Song (and the other two books in the trilogy, that are written and people are asking about but that at the moment I am too cheap to publish myself). I have often told Doug that I feel a little guilty spending time writing because it feels like too much fun. I can see my seven-year-old self with my collection of Barbie and Ken dolls acting out scenes for a novel. To me, writing feels like play.

Finding an agent on the other hand is work. I found a website called QueryTracker that will help you find agents who specialize in your genre. (Make a mental note Sarah.) For romance there are four pages of agents. I began with agents who only accept online forms from their websites. I diligently filled them out explaining the premise of my book in less than 50,000 characters (which isn't a whole lot). Then did the same with my bio in even less characters. Then I sat down and wrote a query letter. Trick with Query letters is that you have to sell your novel and yourself to complete strangers on one page. You have to grab the agents attention with something brilliant and witty and then in two to three paragraphs do your sell job. Once you think you have a good letter then you start searching for agents. That means that you visit their websites, their blogs, you read interviews that are still available through a Google search even if they are ten years old. Afterwards you make your selection and start firing off the emails, personalizing your form query to each agent. I did this several months ago and received only one response - a rejection. I am starting again with hope that a new query letter and lots of prayers will turn up one agent who likes the story.

What I really want to do is go back to playing with my dolls, but I suppose success at anything requires some work. Even people who love their jobs will say that sometimes it is simply work. And if I do find an agent who will take me on . . . then they will do the work to get me published and I can go back to my play. Sounds like a good deal.