Of course a drawback to maintaining a public image while working on your novel is the fact that often you have no idea what you’re saying and therefore often appear to contradict yourself and look foolish. What you have to realize is that there’s nothing you can say with any certainty, especially something like “The novel is finished.”

Because it isn’t finished, the novel. That’s exactly what I’m saying. That, at least, I can be certain about.

The realization came at two separate moments, in two very different stages. Sometime in June I became all too curious and picked up Rebellious Bird—this manuscript I’d queried eight literary agents about early in the year—and read through the first few pages. It was like encountering this friend from high school who’d been tolerable then because you too were a loser, but now, with so much behind you, his presence had become shameful. It didn’t at all seem like a book I could’ve written, but this was all due to very minor things. I started editing the novel and found that only a few alterations could make all the difference in the world, could breathe life into it and make it less formal and stuffy, because it was formal and stuffy, like it was trying to be another writer’s book. So that’s what I started doing, reading through it, picking apart sentences, experimenting with language.

Meanwhile I’d given the book to my significant other. This was back in February or March, I don’t remember. He’s not a literary person, meaning getting him to read fiction is sometimes like convincing compassionate and educated human beings to vote for Michele Bachmann. So he read it slowly—and this was my first warning. By the end of July he’d finished it, and we sat down in the back yard to talk about it.

Taking criticism from a loved one is no easy task. A writer I know has a longstanding friendship overseas. They’ve known one another for over a decade—she’s always recounting fond memories of their apartment in Chicago, years ago—yet when it comes time for them to edit each other’s work, they stop speaking. They stay out of touch for weeks. My first reaction, when my partner and I discussed my novel, was rage. You didn’t read it closely, I was thinking. You missed the underlying themes. You didn’t give it the attention it deserves. Instead of saying any of this I sat there fuming, listening to him tell me that he wasn’t invested in two of the three central characters, that there should be tension where there isn’t, etc. The novel, he said, is stretched out over too long a time span, and it suffers.

An instinct you may have, as a writer, is to try to process criticism as it’s happening. You may hear something and instantly try to think of a solution. What’s terrifying is when you reach the point where everything you’re hearing is overwhelming, when there is no solution—at least no easy one. That’s the point at which you shut down and give yourself over to the moribund arc of the fabled literary bipolar disorder.

When the anger faded, I was crushed.

Here was a book I’d worked on for thirteen months straight. Here were six drafts of varying severity that were torn apart and stitched back together. Here were characters I’d grown to love and admire, and most of them elicited nothing more than apathy. How could I have wasted so much time?

But the time wasn’t wasted—not at all. After we came back inside and I moped for a while I came to the realization that this was only my first attempt at a novel, that while I’d written dozens of short stories I’d never completed anything like a novel before, so how could I expect to have done it without flaw or failure?

I started thinking about it in the shower, the novel. I started coming up with all these solutions—these avenues to explore, these changes. Without any warning I was no longer depressed—not even upset—but invigorated. More than invigorated—you could even call it ecstatic. I had an opportunity again. The novel had more potential. I could be creative again. I could pay attention to all the nagging little voices that had been in the back of my head for months. They’d been there, the voices, and they’d been saying all those same things that Michael said, and I hadn’t listened. I could take the novel and make it cohesive, make it fluid. I could write a better fucking book, and that thought gave me an entirely new outlook on life (as dramatic as that sounds).

Since that day at the end of July I’ve been pecking away at a revised outline for the novel. A lot of the same scenes are there, at their root, but they’ve been altered to better fit into the story as a whole. One character’s sexuality has been flipped, and suddenly he’s sympathetic, while at the same time giving more depth to another character. I feel like I’ve been freed from the confines of the novel I wrote last year, and that now I can use my imagination. There’s nothing like it, imagination. I recommend it.

The next few months are going to be given over to rewriting. I have a six page outline with extensive notes. The first six chapters have already been revised (they didn’t change much), and the twelve chapters after that will all be rewritten. Sometimes you have to realize—you being the amateur novelist—that nothing you put on the page is permanent. Sometimes you have to get over that fear of changing everything, because once you change everything, you understand just how magnificent it is to have that freedom.

I’ve missed writing my novel, and I’ve missed talking about it. Let’s make the last month of summer the most literary month of all.

***
Photo by Casey David

Photo by Glen Edelson[/add_caption_link]

As of today, I happen to have several friends who are in the process of querying literary agents. These are people so insane as to attempt writing novels, and furthermore so disgustingly self-disciplined that they have seen their novels through until the very last page.

But the fun is not over for these hard-working lunatics. Oh no. Now they have to write their query letters. This is a one-page letter asking a particular agent to represent their book. While it may seem like an easy task, the query letter is an art unto itself.

As an expert in query-letter writing, having personally harassed over a thousand literary agents in the greater Tri-State area, I thought I’d share a few samples of flawed query letters so that you may learn from my mistakes. Don’t worry. These are not letters that I personally ever sent.

Well, not all of them.

Too loud:

Dear Sir!

I need your attention right now!!!

You have to represent my book immediately!!! This isn’t a joke! I need YOU! To represent! Me! And/or my BOOK!!!

THE MURPHYS TAKE MANHATTAN is hot off my printer and scalding my palms! I’m not kidding! My palms are covered in blisters! This is the most shocking story about the most amazing family in the history of the most horrifying world!

The family’s name is the Murphys!!! You will not believe what happens to them! But it is nonetheless harrowingly believable!!! At the incredible but all-too-possible opening of the book, the Murphys move to New York City, the COOLEST city in the world!!!!!!!!

Right away, something awful, terrible, and extremely bad happens! There’s an earthquake!!! Everyone explodes!!!!!!!!!!!

Can you imagine the horror??? Probably not! That’s why you need, ME, a writer, to imagine it for you!!!

I have enclosed my shockingly well-written 450-page manuscript for you to read right now !!! I CAN’T WAIT TO HEAR WHAT YOU THINK!!!! May I call you? Don’t worry! I plan to anyway!!!

Have an awesome day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Becky Tuch!!!!

Too quiet:

To Whom It May Concern, Unless It Doesn’t Actually Concern You, In Which Case I’m Really Sorry To Bother You:

Hi. I hope I’m not interrupting your busy day. I also hope that you weren’t greatly troubled by clicking on the email to open this electronic query. Perhaps one day if/when we meet in person, I might massage the pads of your fingers.

Anyway, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to ask you about representing my novel. It’s not very good. It’s also longer than you’d probably like it to be. And it’s probably written in a stupid font. I was told that Courier looks writerly, but if this is a misunderstanding on my part, I’m really sorry.

The title of my novel is The Murphys Take Manhattan. It’s a dumb title. The plot’s pretty boring too. I had it workshopped 75 times and I’ve been revising it for the past six years. I think it might be the best I’m capable of.

I’m really sorry.

Please let me know if you’d like to see any pages or an outline. You probably won’t.

Even this query letter is terrible. I’m really sorry.

With sincere regret,

Becky Tuch

P.S. I hate my name and would be totally open to changing it.

P.P.S. That might be weird.

P.P.S.S. I’m really sorry.

Too casual:

Yo yo G-Money!

It’s me, all the way from Bizzoston to New Yizzork. I’m finally getting in touch about my WIP.

It’s not a WIP anymore, baby! Now it’s a full-blown W.

So check it. The Murphys Take Manhattan. There is a plot. So much stuff happens you wouldn’t believe. And characters, plenty of them. They talk and change and grow and sext. Yeah, dawg! So much sexting you wouldn’t believe. Teenagers, grown-ups, grandparents, everybody sexting, sexting, sexting. It’d be worrisome, if it weren’t for the fact that this novel is so damn good. So good you wouldn’t believe!

Think Armageddon meets Friends meets Brokeback Mountain meets The Wire. With sexting.

So when you wanna get together? Call me.

Or send a sext.

Peace out,

Bext (rhymes with you-know-what)

P.S. Sext!

Too formal:

Dear Madame,

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Rebecca Lynn Tuch. With your kind permission, I would like to request your representation of my latest opus, The Murphys Take Manhattan, in which I have no doubt that you will find the various attributes of the most exceptional works of high-literary high-upmarket high fiction.

In regards to the narrative structure, you will find in my work something of the following sequence of events: A family of the appellate Murphy relocates to the coastal city of New York, only to find themselves the unwitting victim of that most tragic of events—an earthquake of Richter measurement nine. In the selection of words that I have carefully arranged in a meaningful and syntactical order, my belief is that you will find such vital elements as descriptive setting and well-paced narrative prose.

Additionally, you will experience a catharsis three quarters of the way through. This will likely be the result of numerous colluding forces: a well-timed epiphany experienced by a lovably flawed protagonist, a remarkably operatic denouement, and the friendliness, accessibility, and edgy-but-timeless appeal of Courier, my chosen font.

Without further ado, I would like to conclude this letter by emphasizing my ravenous yearning to commence publication of my writings.

With high regard,

Rebecca Lynn Tuch, née Tuchverderber

Too much information:

Dear Agent #192,

I found your listing in the Barnes and Noble Guide to Second Tier Agents. The book cost me $29.95. I am hoping that you will be interested in representing my novel, and also that at some point over the course of our professional relationship, you could pay me back for the cost of this book.

My novel, The Murphys Take Manhattan, is inspired by several traumas I suffered as a child, adolescent, and Adult Child (of Adult Children).

The first bad thing that happened to me was at the age of five. When I asked my mother when dinner would be ready, she responded by wrapping me in a sleeping bag and placing me inside the refrigerator. Who knew that refrigerator doors could be locked from the outside? Certainly not I.

Subsequently, when I was seventeen, my father was laid off from his job. My family’s poverty coupled with my father’s exceptionally large forehead soon made us the laughing stock of the neighborhood. Devastated by his tarnished reputation, my father came to believe that only one thing could save us. Thus it was that he performed the operation on my club foot. When you meet me, you will likely notice my tapered wooden leg with the wooden ball attached to the bottom.

“Why, her leg looks like an exclamation point!” you will think, and you will not be wrong.

Numerous tragedies have shaped my Adult Childhood. First there was the slamming of planes into the World Trade Center. Then there were two wars in the Middle East. Recently, there has been another war in Libya, a terrible earthquake in Japan (a country I’d never even heard of until a few weeks ago!), as well as worldwide economic crises, riots, homelessness, hunger, and disease.

Things have gotten so bad that I recently called my mother and requested that she put me back in the refrigerator for good. Unfortunately, she refuses to acknowledge the traumatic incident, insisting that I am only remembering it this way because I am, by nature, “emotionally chilly.”

I know what you’re thinking. With such a rich personal history, why not write a memoir? It’s a question I’ve asked myself many times. The short answer is that I prefer the novel form. As for the long answer, please see the attached document, a compendium of essays entitled “My Life is So Crazy I Should Be Writing a Memoir But I’m Writing Fiction Instead: A Collection of Personal Essays.”

Because of all these experiences, I believe I am uniquely qualified to tell the story of a family living in New York, facing natural disaster. What is family life, afterall, if not a euphemism for Tornado of Shit?

I look forward to your response to my query letter (and the attached sixty-five pages of essays elaborating upon my query letter.) Additionally, I would appreciate you blocking out several hours for our first meeting.

Thanks in advance for the $29.95, as well as the hours of therapy our relationship will provide,

Becky Tuch

Too little information:

You.

Me.

Book.

Fame.

Gratitude.

B.

Photo by Emilian Robert Vicol[/add_caption_link]

Although one doesn’t necessarily want to quote Tom Wolfe if one can help it, in this case it’s rather irresistible:

That’s the kind of thing writers always want to know: What are other writers doing?

Undoubtedly it’s one of the symptoms of such a solitary line of work. Being so alone we want to know about the habits of other writers—their fixations and trials, their daily spectra of emotions and thought processes. It may be that struggling and aspiring novelists suffer from this voyeurism more than others. For the purposes of this experiment that is what we will assume.

Over at Writer Unboxed, author Lydia sharp has proposed the “7 R’s of Positivity for the Unpublished Novelist.” She encourages us to—among other things—remind ourselves of our successes: “Reminding yourself of the good others have seen in your work is an effective way to squelch any self-deprecating thoughts before they become so ugly that you consider giving up.” She begs us to reignite our passion: “Don’t underestimate how a small shift in perception or viewpoint can light a proverbial fire under your ass and put you back in the race.” In addition, we are to rejoice, redirect, remove, redefine, and rejuvenate. These are all necessary steps toward a healthy mental state for the unpublished novelist. Speaking from personal experience, it’s painfully easy to spiral into a detached and melodramatic state in which all you can feel is your heart pounding, in which you’re screaming as loud as you can and no one is listening or even turning around, in which you’re absolutely convinced that you’ll never—not for the rest of your life—see an acceptance letter of any kind. We all have to maintain sanity and Sharp’s simple list goes a long way to remind ourselves of that requirement, though she forgot something that might be too obvious to even mention. But we’re going to mention it anyway.

It’s crucial that we relax. Waiting for responses from agents and literary magazines and awards committees and in some cases graduate schools it’s no surprise that our hearts do what they do. You’re all too familiar with it, that sensation of your blood turning to mercury and tightening up all the already too tight places in your chest. Maybe today will bring good news, you’re always thinking, and when you do receive a response the rejection fills you with inconsolable doubt. You obsess over it, placing so much importance on the outcome—you absolutely must sell this book. You absolutely must find your way into a good magazine. The alternative is failure, is an eternal day job so disparate from the things you love that driving in every morning ties another knot in your noose. You convince yourself that your life is an unhappy one—all because of this seeming stagnation.

Over the first weekend in April I went backpacking on the north shore of Lake Superior. Our cabin was a backpack in only site and was built right on the shore of a small frozen lake. I woke up early the next morning. The woodstove was still warm. There was snow coming down over the lake. I went outside and stood on the porch and just watched it. There are so many clichés built around the idea of getting out of the city, of getting away from your life, but of course most clichés become so because of some element of truth. In the complete silence looking out over that lake I asked myself if it was really worth getting so bent out of shape over something like a query letter or a short story submission. When I came back inside I read for a while by the fire, then wrote a few pages in my journal. I realized, by some miracle of the heart, that I need to stop doing this to myself. I need to relax. We all need to relax.

Of course by relax I don’t actually mean relax. I mean that we must change our outlook and perception of this whole process. In truth, what do we find most relaxing? When are our minds at their most recumbent yet fulfilled? It’s not the business side of writing—not at all. Do any of us really enjoy writing query letters? That involves some kind of extroverted act—a form of reaching out to another in such a direct way that it feels alien. What we prefer is the more indirect route—the separation of communication. There’s nothing we writers love more than writing. There’s nothing more relaxing than pushing sentences across the page. That’s what we need to do.

As mentioned above, relaxation is simply a state of mind. It’s the absence of worry and anxiety. It’s the moment at which you remember that there’s only one thing you can do and that is write. Once a short story leaves your desk—once a query letter meanders off into the ether—the only thing left to do is turn back in on yourself, scour the dark places of your heart for inspiration, and keep dragging sentences from its depths. Even if the work you’re sending out is rejected you must remember that one doesn’t become a better writer by wringing one’s hands and imagining all the possible consequences of a little envelope in the mail. One becomes a better writer by writing. So go back to your desk and get creative. You’ll be happier that way anyway, and what matters more than happiness? Even if it takes ten or twenty years to get that acceptance letter, at least you’ll be doing something you love all the while. So relax. Shut out what you can’t control and get back to work. It’s what we live for.

Photo by Alan Cleaver[/add_caption_link]

The process of writing is thrilling. Even in the last stages of revision the amateur novelist is overwhelmed by the potential, by all the ways in which this novel could be perfect. What makes writing bearable is the fact that the writer is in complete control. Everything that goes into it is yours. Every design is yours—every clause and simile and iamb. There’s nothing that’s beyond you and there’s nothing that can elude you. As long as you are working on the novel the possibility of perfection is still there.

Unfortunately there comes a time when you can’t stand it any longer. In pregnancy these are the days when your ankles crack in the morning and you can only lie on your side, when even the thought of getting up in the night is unbearable but wholly necessary. Get this thing out of me, you are thinking, and one day—it’s all very sudden—you have a beautiful baby novel slick with blood and sweat.

Now you have no control. You are sending your novel out into the world and what is completely unavoidable about this is the waiting. An agent’s response—if he or she does respond—generally comes within two to four weeks, but in our amateur novelist’s experience is usually closer to four. During those four weeks all control has been surrendered and everything about the novel is now out of your power. And you thought the mood swings during the writing process were unpleasant. One day you scribble the usual angst in your journal and three days later you’ve never been more optimistic. You write letters to your friends and acquaintances in which you profess yourself to be unable to take another day of waiting. As you haunt the front hallway waiting for the mail, constantly checking your e-mail on your phone, that day passes, and of course nothing changes. The tectonic plates don’t move and the sun doesn’t vanish and the rivers don’t turn to blood. You keep waiting.

What does one do in this situation? In your letters you keep mentioning that in all this chaos there is only one thing still under your control: writing. If it’s so easy to identify, why can’t you internalize it? Why can’t you forget about the agents and the editors and the literary magazines and simply peck away at the next short story, at the outline for your next novel? Why is it so easy to get caught up in the fantasy of acceptance letters and manuscript requests?

Regardless of the temptation you must exert that one remaining element of control. You have to keep writing. The rejection letters will come in and the cover and query letters will go out and you will keep trying. In the meantime you must write. It’s the only way, you’ve come to understand, that you can be happy. Write every day if you can because every day needs some hint of hope. That’s what it all comes down to really, that little doe-eyed hope that keeps offering itself up for immolation, over and over, every day. You watch that hope crumble into all its little snowflake ashes, knowing you’ll offer it up again tomorrow. You’ll keep trying and you’ll keep writing because that’s what you do, at least if you want to call yourself a writer. We’ve all heard it before. Writers write. It’s what separates us from the “writers.”

So no, there’s no need to panic.

Readers of my earlier articles will recall my preference for secrecy. Until recently, nobody knew anything about Rebellious Bird. An overzealous psychologist would be happy to explain this as an extreme fear of failing, of keeping others at an appropriate distance so as not to let the book—or its writer—become vulnerable in the event of abandonment or disaster. An overzealous writer will simply say it was none of your business.

But things have changed. Now it is your business. More importantly, it’s an agent’s business. My book is no longer an artistic endeavor over which to grind one’s teeth and ingest uncomfortable quantities of caffeine. It is no longer a work in progress. It’s simply a work. It has ceased to be my art and has now become my product. It is something I have to sell.

Where creativity and business intersect is where you have to bare all the secrets, where you have to stop clinging to this romantic idea of letting the book speak for itself. The agent search demands that you compress the entire extravagance of your novel—the entire complexity—into a terse 150 words. This is the plot hook—the synopsis—and it’s dreadfully important. It’s also, by chance, dreadfully hard to write.

Writing the plot hook takes a certain skill—again where creativity and business intersect. You not only have to be a writer but you have to be a salesman. You’re putting a spin on your novel to make it exciting, to make the agent or editor want to read beyond those five to ten pages included in your query, if they’re included at all. You have to do everything in your power to convince this reticent reader to request additional material. You have to work whatever charm you can summon from deep within yourself.

Photo by derrypubliclibrary[/add_caption_link]

As I’m sending out query letters I’m constantly revising my plot hook. A side effect of this is that you always feel stupid for sending out the previous incarnation. Still—you persevere. Even though there are a finite number of agents there are still a great many of them. Maybe by the time you finally have the art of the plot hook enslaved by your own concise brilliance you’ll find that one agent who has been waiting his or her entire career for a book like yours. That’s what we all dream about, isn’t it?

Some off the cuff advice:
1: Always include your protagonist’s name, if he or she has one
2: Try to give some hint of the time and place, either directly or indirectly (if the agent requests a manuscript that he or she thinks is set in 16th century Europe and it turns out to be in modern day San Francisco, he or she might question your ability to communicate)
3: An obvious one that believe me it’s possible to overlook: INCLUDE THE CENTRAL CONFLICT OF YOUR STORY—don’t spell it out, per se, but make the book seem worth the risk of reading
4: Don’t compare your work to other writers, especially canonical ones—it just seems arrogant
5: Stay away from abstractions as much as possible (“A complex argument against sadness” or “A re-interpretation of what it means to feel angry”)
6: Write your synopsis how you wrote your novel—with the same ecstasy and precision—don’t make it dry and academic

So—that said—we keep on querying. Let’s wish ourselves no small bit of luck and go out and sell a novel.

***
1: Please be advised that I’ve broken this rule

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the novel. What it is, what it does, and what it means.

My musings crystallized in a writing workshop last week when my students asked me to talk about “narrative arc.”

Normally, in workshop, I am quick to share definitions and advice: Characters should want something tangible. Descriptions must develop character and move the story forward. Protagonists should be in danger, and for pity’s sake don’t use dialogue tags every single time someone speaks.

But on this question—“What is narrative arc?” I found myself unusually hesitant.

“I could tell you some standard definitions,” I said. “Like how your character should want something and not get it, and the wanting and not-getting goes on and on for many chapters until the character has an epiphany and everything changes.”

They were taking notes as I spoke—always a horrifying thing to witness.

“That’s kind of the traditional model,” I added quickly.

And then I threw my hands in the air. “But I don’t want any of you to follow the traditional model. Or, what I mean is, I don’t want you to feel constrained by it. Because what it’s easy to forget is that a novel can be and do many, many things.” I told them about novels constructed as a series of vignettes. We looked at a five-page novel excerpt consisting entirely of descriptive sentence fragments. And of course, there is Georges Perec’s brilliant novel written entirely without the letter “e.” Finally, I said that there was plenty of advice about this kind of thing on the internet, if they wanted it. But I personally was reluctant to tell them, “This is what a novel must be.”

After all, what is a novel, exactly?

More importantly, if there is a definition, who created it?

Who decided, for instance, that characters ought to have rich inner lives? That plot must move forward in linear time? That character growth can be measured by the acquisition of internal attributes such as ‘self-awareness,’ ‘understanding’ and ‘compassion’? Who decided that growth is even a virtue at all?

In Terry Eagleton’s wonderful overview of literary history, Literary Theory: An Introduction, the critic tells us that “In eighteenth-century England…What made a text ‘literary’ was not whether it was fictional…but whether it conformed to a certain standard of ‘polite letters.’’

Taking a radical critical position, Eagleton argues that our notions of ‘literature’ were originally formed by society’s elites.  “With the need to incorporate the increasingly powerful but spiritually rather raw middle classes into unity with the ruling aristocracy to diffuse polite social manners, habits of ‘correct’ taste and common cultural standards, literature gained a new importance ….The criteria for what counted as literature…were frankly ideological.”

In other words, since people were not going to church as much, what would continue to soothe and pacify the masses? The answer was clear: Beautiful stories.

Nowadays, I highly doubt the guys at Big Publishing House are sitting around the boardroom saying, “Hm. How can we indoctrinate a spiritually alienated middle class? I know! Let’s publish a Da Vinci Code sequel!”

What I do know is that in much of today’s memoirs and literary fiction, we see displays of love for children and animals, a desire for romance, a need for connection and better interpersonal relationships. We see the dangers of excessive indulgence–drugs, alcohol, food, sex. Throw in a personal quest where a character’s struggles are emotional or psychological (as opposed to social or political), plus the hunger for an “authentic” soul/self/identity, and you’ve got it–a recipe for a novel designed for a non-revolting, well-functioning middle class!

Perhaps by now one might wish to shout, “Hey! Who cares? I just want to tell my story!”

That’s great. The wanting-to-tell is a writer’s best resource. Go ahead. Tell that story.

But also, now and then, it might be useful to consider the structure you will use for your narrative. What is the shape? How does it move? Where did that shape originate?

And if and when you do break the rules, consider this: might you also break free of history?

Exercise. Sex. August. I’m used to things that make me sweat. Querying agents? I didn’t see that one coming. Though I suppose I should have, being a generally anxious person. On Tuesday of last week I initiated the search for an agent and by the time I started composing the first e-mail my fingers were trembling and my glands were expelling moisture as though I’d been poisoned. I don’t want to say I’ve never been more nervous in my entire life. There are certain milestones in childhood and adolescence that in retrospect were far more terrifying. Yet I was nervous—exceedingly nervous. Maybe the persona of the agent has been so built up in my head that the inhumanity of it all is overriding my sense of reality. Either way I couldn’t stop thinking about this calculating, maleficent, heartless creature reading my pathetic query while they sip coffee in their New York office, their finger poised over the delete key. Intimidating is the perfect word for it. I felt completely in over my head. I felt weak.

But I did it. I’ve sent out four query letters over the last few days. For those readers unfamiliar with the process of gaining representation, it goes something like this:
1: Compose a query letter¹ and wait for a response (or silence)
2: Agent requests a partial
3: Agent request a full manuscript
4: Agent calls for a brief interview
5: Contract

That would probably look better in a flow chart. Regardless, that’s more or less how it goes. I found that the website Agent Query was the perfect place to begin my search. Agent Query is a database of—unsurprisingly—agents, including the genres and styles they represent, past works they have represented, submission guidelines, and contact information. I recommend that anyone looking to gain representation utilize this website to its fullest extent. What I do not recommend, however, is letting Agent Query be the last word in your decision. Would you submit to a magazine through Duotrope without visiting that magazine’s website? Of course not. The same is true for the great agent search. Do the appropriate research on your search targets. Does the agent have a profile on his or her agency’s website? Does the agent maintain a blog? Has the agent appeared in any interviews? Has the agent written a book? More often than not, when a writer submits to a literary magazine without knowing anything about the magazine, the editor knows it instantly. I imagine the same is true for literary agents. Know your agent. Do your research. There are, after all, a finite number of agents, and you don’t want to piss them all off by bumbling your way into their inbox.

That brings up another view that I’m slowly developing. Because there are a finite number of agents that are right for your material there are consequently a finite number of query letters that you are going to write. Every source I’ve consulted recommends conducting your search slowly and patiently. If you spam 50 agents in one day and you receive no responses, you’ve just exhausted 50 agents. The odds are that you’ll want to revise your query letter as you go along. You might even revise the opening pages of your book (agents often request that you submit the first 5-10 pages in your query letter). If you send off an unrefined query letter and writing sample to those first 50 agents, you won’t get the chance to query them again with the same project. Take your time. Some agents take weeks to respond, if they choose to respond. Wait and see.

All this knowledge, of course, does nothing to allay the fear of composing and formatting your query. Even the process of searching, of reading about these agents and finding out what they like, of viewing their previous clients and imagining what a perfect fit you’d be, is terrifying. I think there’s a certain level of risk involved. You’re placing a bet on your skills as not only a writer but a salesman. On one hand you could win a response—a request for sample chapters. On the other hand you get nothing—cold silence—and you cross an agent off your list. Somewhere in the back of your mind there’s the prospect of contacting every available agent and receiving nothing but silence from all of them. And then what? Do you write another book? Do you even have the willpower to write another book? And then there’s the other possibility—that you get a response, that the agent is interested in sample chapters. How do you read that e-mail without some cardiac disaster? Do you immediately take out your novel and read those sample chapters thirty times—read them until they’re memorized? How can you part with them, knowing that they could fail you? How can you not part with them, imagining that they could lead to that second question—the request for the full manuscript? And here I always thought writing was the hard part. Waiting, as the song says—that’s the hardest part.

But that’s what we do. We wait.

***
1: For more information on composing a standard query letter, see the article at agentquery.com

Two and a half years ago I had an idea for a short story. I spent a good month trying to hash it out, threading out various plots and introducing a variety of characters. Then I realized that 5,000 words wouldn’t cut it for this story, and in late 2008 I decided to turn it into a novel. The title was something I’d been carrying around in a notepad for a while, and for a story of the loneliness of love Rebellious Bird seemed too perfect. I wrote the first two chapters in January of 2009—15,000 words that were probably the easiest 15,000 words I’ve ever written in my life. Everything came so naturally. I really felt like I was attuned to what these characters wanted, to who they were. Then I didn’t touch the book for a year. In January of 2010 I started the third chapter, and three months later I’d completed my first draft—a 105,000 word accomplishment that I never thought possible. In June I started a second draft. In August I started a third. In September a fourth. October a fifth. I started having frequent nervous breakdowns—a sense that I had no idea what I was doing. In November I put the novel in a drawer and tried to forget about it. I kept thinking about it, though—I would always think of something to change. On New Year’s Day of 2011 I took the novel from the drawer and started working again. Since then I’ve added a few scenes, corrected countless others, and eliminated all those mysterious “He coughed and…” constructions. I don’t know why my characters are always coughing.

On Sunday, at Lori’s Coffee in St. Paul, I finished my sixth draft. Normally the completion of draft feels like a minor accomplishment for me. I can only think of the glaring problems that need to be fixed in the next draft. There was always something that I missed, some discordant conversation, some snag in the plot. I didn’t feel that on Sunday. I didn’t feel it yesterday. I skimmed my novel this morning and I don’t feel it today. Can I go on not feeling it? My feelings on the novel have been transient from the beginning, hence the frequent tag to these posts “literary bipolar disorder.” But this feels different. For the first time I feel like there’s nothing left to do. I don’t feel unsettled or fidgety. The idea of letting someone read it doesn’t horrify me. Somewhere a part of me believes that I’ve done all I can do.

To be honest I don’t even know how to feel at this point. Maybe I get up and go outside and scream into the sky. Maybe I blast David Bowie’s Modern Love on the stereo and dance without restraint. Maybe I immediately open a new document and start the next novel. Maybe I take the bus over to the bookstore and spend all the money I have saved. Maybe I go out for the nine course meal at La Belle Vie that I promised myself. Or maybe I just sit quietly smiling on the couch for a while. How long does one celebrate before taking the next step?

A few months ago I started drafting a query letter. It’s not quite how I want it yet, so that at least gives me something to do. Then the long search for representation. It’s so strange to think about that, to imagine actually taking that step. It’s hard to believe that novels actually get published, that these things actually happen to people, to writers. But it does—right? It must. I read recently that the publishing industry is favoring debut authors.

Right now I really like my novel. I’m sure there are things that could change—things I haven’t thought of. I applied for a grant to cover the costs of a professional editor, so if I get that I’m sure I’ll have more work to do. But right now I really like it. I’m proud of it. It’s hard to believe that I’ve done something like this, created something like this. At least now I know I have it in me. At least now I know I can do it again. And again. For the rest of my life.

The next step: the query letter.

“You know I’ve always been a dreamer.” So goes the lyric in “Take it to the Limit” by The Eagles. Many of us will find it pertinent to our personalities—it goes without saying that being a writer demands that one be creative and that being creative demands that one have an imagination. So of course we all dream. What makes dreaming difficult is knowing when to stop, when to set aside a dream in favor of the real, the actual, the possible. In a letter to a friend I championed the habit of dreaming but acknowledged the importance of separating our dreams into two categories: aspirations and pure fantasy. It is my aspiration, I told her, to one day write the Great American Novel. It is my fantasy, I went on, to fill a stadium with people and get them all fired up about literature. Today—right now—I need to further cleave my dreams in two. I have to relegate my imagination to the confines of my novel. Thinking of interviews, book critics, and advances has only brought me to a complete standstill—a paralysis. It’s time to forget all that and shut out those dreams and write. Just write.

The stack of drafts

The worst part—and I mean worst (you can imagine this word with a heavy tinge of disgust in my voice—almost a growling noise in the throat)—is not knowing what to do. I’ve found that few things are more frustrating than finishing a chapter and not knowing whether to trash it or accept it. This is the part where you hear about the writers who drink, the writers who shoot pigeons, the writers who sit back and consider—really consider—their skills as cashiers and baristas and the outwardly friendly but terribly defeated smiling census takers. How can you really be certain about anything? How can you claim that a scene works the way it is? This is the part in which the amateur novelist encounters an existential disaster, embraces nihilism, and considers gruesome things like writing poetry.

So you have to make decisions. You can’t not make decisions. You can’t lay there static and sweating under the weight of that manuscript into which you’ve already donated 1,000 hours of your time. You have to remember that the novel isn’t going to write itself—and because you wouldn’t dream of letting anyone else lay a finger on it, you, yes you, are going to have to finish it.

So I stepped back and thought about it. Writing, as we all know, requires something akin to bravery—maybe even bravery itself. You have to be heroic enough, valiant enough, to believe that there’s nothing broken that you can’t fix. Another friend in another letter reminded me that there’s nothing I can’t do when it comes to this novel—it’s mine. It’s me who ultimately makes the decisions, not the novel. So I came up with a revision plan. It’s nothing extensive and it’s only limited to what’s directly in front of me. I’ve had it with thinking ahead, with setting target completion dates, with goals. At this point all that matters is writing a damn good book. If it takes me another ten years to write a damn good book then I’ll be here, sharing those ten years with you. It’s not in my power to control what critics think, what an agent fancies, what a publisher will pay for. The only things in my power are the words in front of me. The only thing I can do is write.

Stay tuned.

Patience has never been one of my virtues. In fact my impatience could be called a vice, could be called destructive and undermining. Carrie Fisher reminds us that even “instant gratification takes too long.” My fellow impatient writers undoubtedly understand this all too well. We all want an immediate payoff. We want to get the job done as soon as possible and see our life change forever when in fact there are two things that all of us must one day realize: 1) The job will take as long as the job wants to take, and 2) The life we imagine is oftentimes more fiction than the book we’re furiously stitching together. Yes—today I am unraveling my dreams.

I stumbled across an article recently in which struggling writer Alix Christie articulated my own sentiments. She proposes the idea that right now, at this moment, there are ten million novels being written:

The figure is an invention, but backed up by rough math. A quarter of a million new novels are published annually across the globe, 100,000 of them in English. This represents, in turn, a quarter, maybe, of the manuscripts that agents try to hawk. Agents, as all writers know, take only a small proportion of the work they’re sent, perhaps a tenth. Ten million scribes in search of a reader may not be so tall a tale.

As if this estimate wasn’t enough to discourage a sensitive moody and let’s be honest unstable young writer such as myself she reveals that recent changes in the publishing world have given way to even successful authors earning “far less money from books than they used to.” To many of us this is no surprise—myself included—but it’s a fact that’s often easy to overlook, to conveniently forget. I think it goes without saying that in working so hard we want to be validated. We want to be saved and ferried away into a new and exciting world. Over the last few days I have tried very hard to get myself to accept the fact that writing this book will not make me successful. At heart I’m an unrealistic person—not at all pragmatic—and so I have untamed and extravagant dreams. Like any of us I too want to be saved and accepting the fact that writing cannot save you is a difficult task. I’m still working on it.

My dreams make me impatient. In my last communiqué I announced that I would be starting a sixth draft. Looking back on it now I realize just how destructive my impatience and ergo my dreams have made me. What have I overlooked for the sake of finishing sooner? What have I neglected because it was “too much work” to change? When I edit the conscious mantra is that nothing can be left untouched or unquestioned but in truth I fear that I’m not digging deep enough. At the beginning of the year I set a deadline for myself—write a novel in 2010. What a strange and arbitrary thing to say and how representative of my own ignorance. These things take time and I have only just begun.

I need to take a break from novel writing and remember what it feels like to read one

It makes me think about who I am as a writer. Christie, in her article, waxes pensive on the nature of our shared passion:

I’ve come to see how helpful it can be to see ourselves as striving toward some mastery in craftsmen’s terms. The guilds have always known that it takes years to become skilled at a craft… split into years of formal training and then the “wander years.” Learning from mistakes has always been an inevitable part of the education.

I am learning from my mistakes. My impatience has caused me a lot of anxiety, frustration, and depression. My desire to escape this life and start another has left me with a weak and melodramatic book. I have high standards because I want to surprise my readers. I don’t want to be overlooked. Like any of us, I want to do great things. Strange and beautiful things. Again, these things take time. It may be ten years before I publish anything because it may take that long for my fiction to develop into the fiction it deserves to be. In the meantime I will keep working—stories, experiments, drafts of new novels. I’ll go back to Rebellious Bird sooner or later and give it a fresh glance. Just not now. Not this year. I have time. If I can train myself to stop obsessively seeking validation I have all the time in the world.

This is your amateur novelist, signing off indefinitely.