I had a moment this weekend while cleaning my apartment, thinking absently about all the writing I wanted to do and hadn’t for one reason or the other (mostly because I worked instead). And into my thoughts slid this trickle of longing for having my book be an actual real book paired with a dose of self-pity that it wasn’t.
Then, meeting my own eyes in the bathroom mirror, I said aloud: “Natalie, you haven’t even queried. You have to query.”
I’m going to call it a healthy intervention because what the fuck is my brain doing getting all morose and feeling not good enough when I haven’t even seriously taken the next step and put myself out there. Sure I started dipping my toe into a couple of things like PitchWars (in which a new critique group was born) and the twitter pitch wars #PitMad (no bites), but that doesn’t mean I’ve actually done the work and sent out queries to agents on my list.
I do have a list at least — or the beginning of one. I’ve done some research on agents whom I think would be a good fit for my book, but I need to continue to add to it. And I have a query letter too that I wrote in the fall, though it could probably use a polish.
The barrier for entry into query hell is simply that I have not done it yet. I have an excuse that I was to do a light revision first — and I will do it — but the truth is there’s no reason for me not do it at the same time I have queries out there. Literary agents can take ages to hear back from, good or bad, and you don’t submit the full manuscript upfront.
So this is my accountability check — some queries are going out by this time next week. It doesn’t have to be twenty . . . but it has to be something.
The truth is all my fears about rejection and my story staying what it is now — only mine — might be true. But right now this is what Strength means to me: giving it my best shot. It’s like that adage about the man praying to win the lottery — you still have to buy the fucking ticket.
In the meantime, here are some last sentences I wrote this past week. Don’t get your hopes too high — there’s not too much more to this “new” story than this yet. Time and imagination aren’t showing up for me this month; or rather, I’m not showing up for them.
- 1/13: My palms came away smeared with eye-liner.
- 1/14: Only in stories.
- 1/15: I wiped the snot from my nose and tried for a smile.
- 1/17: Loudly, spectacularly, and for a moment I’m not even me, I’m outside of me, watching the failure with secondhand mortification.
- 1/18: His grip tightened and suddenly I knew what was going to happen before it did.
- 1/19: First I brushed the cheerio dust from the sheets.
- 1/20: Not tonight.
With Love,
Natalie