Getting the Call: Hope Gillette

Here's the story of a new friend of mine who has been very generous with her time. Hope's first book will be releasing in August. She also writes YA fantasy and has been practicing and perfecting her craft since childhood. I wish her all the best on her upcoming book and invite her back for a release party.  

 
I was ten when I first summoned the nerve to showcase my writing to the public. At that time, “the public” consisted of the three younger girls sitting near me at the back of the school bus. With more than an hour ride to and from school, I had taken to writing in a notebook, and one day my constant scribbling was met with curiosity by my peers.

While I was initially reluctant to read them my stories of mystical places, otherworldly beings and strong heroines, I found myself reading almost daily on the bus and running up the hill to my house to finish the next chapter for the following day.

That love of writing and the thrill of enthralling an audience kept me typing through my entire school career and into my professional life. It is a steady flow of creativity that never stops—even now that I have signed a contract for my debut novel, Journey Through Travelers’ Tower.

I wrote J3T, as I call it, to prove I could write something outside of the cookie-cutter fantasy genre. While I will always harbor a deep love of elves, dwarves, dragons, wizards, and princesses, I knew if I wanted to break into the young adult market I was going to need something unique.

During an evening thunderstorm, a story about the childhood fear of monsters evolved into a multi-dimensional world unknowingly entering a struggle between good and evil. Into this world were born Quin and Klass, two orphaned sisters with a latent ability to Read. This talent sees them through separation, battles, torture, enslavement, love, and the final triumph and union of their world.

Satisfied with the story line and the characters, I completed the manuscript in a record number of months, sent it to an editor, and polished the final copy to be sent for review.

I don’t remember getting the call from my publishing company as much as I remember receiving an email stating they enjoyed my novel and wanted to offer me a contract. I had queried publishers directly, having received advice from fellow authors to avoid the hassle of agents if at all possible. (This is something I recommend new authors research. I make no recommendation either way.)

Leery of skipping the middle man process, I queried a small sampling of publishers and was pleasantly surprised to receive interest back from the majority of them. Due to certain exclusive review policies, I selected the presses which seemed most reputable and those without a listing on Preditors and Editors!

Among those was Divertir Publishing, a small press out of New Hampshire. While the company was still growing and relatively new in the commercial world, a wonderful mention of them in Writers Digest clenched my decision to submit sample chapters.

After a refreshingly short review time, I received an email offering to publish my novel. For someone who had been writing for decades, I was speechless from the knowledge my story would one day be available to the masses. I read the contract thoroughly and then had it reviewed professionally. Content none of the provisions seemed a cause for concern, I signed on the bottom line and opened the door to professional writing.

You might think that’s where the story ends, and for many people the journey does conclude with a publisher taking over the reins on a project. For me, however, because I was an unknown author starting with a small press, I knew I had my work cut out for me.

I immediately started posting my short stories in online forums to generate a following. I submitted my writing to contests and online magazines. After placing in the top 100 in a national Writers Digest competition, I found that little slice of credibility opened up many more doors. I was able to get my work published in international circles, and as I became more confident in my writing, I was able to eventually quit my veterinary job and become a freelancer writer.

Now, as a writer for national and international companies, my name is no longer that of an obscure author, but of a woman who has a complete professional and creative writing resume.

As for my YA novel, its debut is still a dream come true for me, but I have learned to express my love of writing in so many other ways along this journey. Getting the Call changed my life unquestionably; it has touched every aspect of my personal and professional life, and I look forward to the challenges and accomplishments that are sure to come.

 Find Hope at her website.

Cool Hand Luke or the Three Stooges: Which are you under panic?

Mrs. Eggbert

A brand of panic hit our household the other morning. Among the shifting kaleidoscope of pets that comes with having children, my daughter stuck with birds. Gerbils and fish came and went along with tadpoles and butterflies. The dogs are mine. My husband prefers the dogs but stands on the sidelines on this one. Anna and her brother have their birds, cockatiels to be exact. We recently lost two friends of eight years due to age and diet problems. The dramatic teenage angst escalated until they bought a replacement. This replacement has a fancy name relating to a Japanese onamonapia, but I call him Eggbert. We have Eggbert and Mrs. Eggbert.

Eggbert

Eggbert is a sorry sight. He underwent extreme wing clipping at his pet store and the result is scraggly. Feathers are growing back or falling out. He has one particular feather atop his head which sticks straight into the air. A single long feather on top his head—I kid you not—he is a unicorn bird. When he tries to fly, he plummets. The other morning, something startled our new Eggbert. He bit the turf in a most undignified manner. We picked him up and set him back on the desk. My daughter likes the Eggbert couple to keep her company when she’s on the computer.

I was writing when I heard screams. “Mom! Mom! Come here NOW!”

Mr. Eggbert flapped his wings and blood went everywhere. Later, I found it on the carpet, two different set of walls, the computer screen, all over the desk, my daughter’s hair. God knows, I’m afraid to check the ceiling. Brand new Eggbert had broken a blood feather. In bird language this is a severe hemorrhage. Birds don’t clot, period, end of story. Unless you stop the bleeding, they die. A few grams of weight, there isn’t all that much to them.

Eggbert before feather horn

I ran for the flour, a known clotting ingredient (look it up). My daughter went into full panic mode a la three stooges. “Oh! Ah! What do we do! There’s blood on me!”

There’s one thing I’ve learned from nine years spent in a classroom. Don’t show panic. Don’t even think about it.

We dipped that Eggbert in flour until white clouds circled out heads. He had broken a wing feather. It was deep, tucked under other feathers and close to his body. Hard to locate. Birds do not like being dunked upside down to get at the inside of their wings. More flour flew. More bleeding. We switched to corn starch. Half a day later—what—it was only thirty minutes? Okay. Thirty minutes later, Eggbert was on the road to recovery. Daughter happy. Mother cleaning. All well.

Just remember, you never know what form or shape a crisis can take, nor how serious it could be. We can be tested at any time. In writing terms, consider how your main character would react. Books are full of crisis, large and small. Is your character ready for them? Will they be Cool Hand Luke or the Three Stooges?    

Getting the Call: Robert Lewis

This story gave me chills, though I can't believe he did it without beta readers. There's talent! I'm glad to welcome Robert Lewis--our first male guest Yay!-- as he shares his story. I also met Robert through Agent Query Connect. (The place to be if you write, people. Go there.) You know him there as ThrownBones. His novel, Untold Damage, releases April of 2013. I  hope he'll come back for a release party.

The Call.

            It’s actually really funny, because after over a decade of working towards getting an agent, I never really got “The Call”. I got “The Email”. My wife got “The Call”, as it came to our home in the middle of the day while I was at work. She happened to be home because she was recouping from rotator cuff surgery.

            Let me give you a little bit of history before I continue…

            Previous to the thriller that landed me my fabulous agent, Barbara Poelle, I had written an urban fantasy novel. I’d shopped it EVERYWHERE I possibly could. I literally queried like two hundred and fifty agents. Yes, you read that correctly. Only received a few requests for partials, maybe one full. All for nothing.

            About halfway through those agents, I realized I would need another book.

One day I was sitting at my desk wondering what that book would be. On the corkboard I have above my desk were two pieces of writing. One was a short story I’d placed in an online literary journal. This story was about a junkie shooting up in a confessional and it was called Needle Priest. It was my personal favorite. The other was a bit of flash fiction from the POV of a child killer as he fed his latest victim before killing her. That one was called Little Visitor. It was up there because it was THE ONLY piece of writing that I’d ever done that my wife felt had that magic “something”. I was literally sitting there looking from one to the other… junkie… child killer… junkie… child killer… junkie GOES AFTER A CHILD KILLER!

But how can I make that happen, right?

            Because he was an ex-cop.

And so Mark Mallen was born. Out of sheer desperation. After that, the book came pretty quickly. I never showed the book to anyone, really. No one ever read the drafts. I workshopped the opening chapter one time. Other than that, the only people to ever read the novel were the agents who had requested partials or fulls. And no, I do NOT recommend you do it that way. I felt I could do it because by that time I’d been writing long enough (over ten years) to feel confident enough in my inner critic. And also? Honestly? I felt in my gut that THIS one was going to be “The One”, the book that got me an agent.

            Anyway, once I was done, I went over to one of the greatest websites around for writers, Agent Query. The agent database on that site was invaluable to me. I worked like a dog on the query, and even took the plunge and used an outside editor to look it over and help me with it. I ended up using The Editorial Department. They were fantastic. It wasn’t cheap, but I really wanted to get this one right.

I started sending out queries in January 2009. I sent Barbara an email query on February 28^th, along with a partial of the first thirty pages. Barbara was on my “A” list because when I was researching her, I found a LOT that I loved. She didn’t mind turning a “maybe” into a “yes” and this worked for me as I felt that if I didn’t have a “yes” of a book on my hands, I sure as shit had a “maybe”. I also read that she had told one prospective client that she would get into a monkey knife fight to represent that client’s book. How could you NOT love her, right?

By this point, mid-March or so, I had a handful of fulls out. I nudged Barbara via email on April 30^th, using the original email so if she needed to, she could reference back to our conversation easily. And by nudge, I mean politely nudge. These are very busy people, with a stable of clients, a barn-full of manuscripts, and a warehouse of queries to read. I gave her eight weeks or so, then nudged. She emailed back that very day, thanking me for nudging her and at that time requested the full. I sent it off, feeling like this was going to maybe be good.

            May 15^th , the day it happened, was graduation day in the college department where I work. It’s literally the busiest day of the year, hands down. I was running around like a mad dog. Got a chance to check email once. I think it was sometime in the early afternoon. There was an email from Barbara, saying she’d just called her husband to cancel their dinner plans as she was loving the hell outta the book and that she would call me when she was done. Well, you can imagine how THAT made me feel, right? I gave her a very enthusiastic, though professional, response telling her that I was happy to hear she was enjoying the book, and that I was looking forward to chatting. About an hour later, as I was exiting the building to where I work to set up the champagne and food for the graduating students and their parents, my cell rings. It’s home calling. I answer, thinking that my wife needs me to pick up something on the way home to help alleviate the agony she was enduring after her operation.

            “Hey,” I said.

            “You have an agent,” she replied.

            And you know what? I almost cried, right then and there. Seriously. I mean… I’d been looking for an agent for well over thirteen years if you add in the years I’d spent writing screenplays. I’d been writing six days a week, on average forty-nine weeks a year in all that time.

Yes, I had to fight back the tears.

My wife then told me that Barbara had chatted her up a bit, and that I should check my email, which I immediately did. And there was “The Email”. I now have that email pinned to the corkboard over my desk, and have ever since that day.

That was May, 2009. It took us another 2.5 years until I got my two-book deal. And the book that landed me my agent wasn’t even the book that sold! I had to write two MORE books before we got to one that did it. One thing to always remember: a really good agent believes in you and your talent, not just the book. They want to help build your career.

One last thing: you have to play the long game here. Just assume it’s going to take a long time. That way if it doesn’t, then cool beans and you’re happily surprised. And if it does take a long time? Well, then you’ve already been prepared for that eventuality.

            My story is, if anything, a really a good example of never giving up, never giving in. And if it can happen for me, a guy who was dyslexic as a child and dropped out of high school mid-way through his second year, it can happen for anyone.

            Happy writing!

Robert Lewis is represented by Barbara Poelle of the Irene Goodman Agency. The first novel of his Mark Mallen series, titled Untold Damage, arrives 04.08.13 via Midnight Ink. 

Memory of Light: The Wheel of Time Turns

cover art by Michael Whelan

My favorite epic fantasy series has its final offering coming out January 8, 2013. I’ve been reading it since the first book written by Robert Jordan was published in 1990. That trade paperback edition is falling apart I’ve read it so many times. Now thirteen books later and over twenty years, the final offering makes it way to press in a few months. It’s a sad and exciting thought.

Anybody who had read any of the Wheel of Time series knows that Robert Jordan died with the series unfinished. That his wife and editor, Harriet, handpicked the writer to finish the series. Brandon Sanderson took Jordan’s work and added two more books to the collection. He adapted his style to Jordan’s and made the series his own while staying true to Jordan. I’ve read that Jordan left very detailed notes on the direction and the grand ending. Soon that ending will be mine to own.

Jordan’s writing contains unbelievably deep characters, told from so many points of view. It’s J.K. Rowling on steroids. Yet each point of view holds its own whether villain or hero. Others may complain of the tangents he spun from the main plot, but I took it all in because he made me care about the characters.

Jordan also loved dropping tantalizing hints. Prophecies, visions, dreams, all gave clues to what might happen three volumes down the line. If only you paid close enough attention you could decipher his intent before it happened. In some ways reading became a treasure hunt. A challenge to accept and beat. Jordan made you work.

At thirteen large volumes, this isn’t a series that lets word count dictate to it. It tells the story that needs to be told, going truly epic in scope. So big you need a who’s who to keep track of all the names. Like magicians, they keep so many plates spinning in the air the readers are dazzled and endlessly entertained.

More than twenty years. Beloved characters will die and other will live. I have my suspicions. No matter what, it will be bittersweet.

Getting the Call: Jean Oram

     I'm so pleased to mix things up a little after the holiday week and bring you an agented non-fiction writer. The method of getting an agent is a little different for non-fiction where the proposal and your platform are so important, but The Call emotions are the same.
    Jean, it sounds like your book and blog would appeal to so many people. Especially in the summer, it is so hard to come up with ideas that get kids involved and away from the electronics. Thanks for sharing your story!

Edit: Check out Jean's post on Questions to Ask a Literary Agent.

Getting The Call for my nonfiction children's 1,001 play ideas book is a bit of a long, rambling story.

How the Book Idea Came to Be:

When my daughter was about a year old I saw an idea for a bean plant teepee in a magazine. (You grow beans up a bamboo teepee frame to make a mini fort.) My daughter wasn't old enough at the time to enjoy it so I snagged it out of the mag and slapped it in a notebook.

And thus The List began. Within two days I had HUNDREDS of kids play ideas written down. They literally poured into my brain after glueing that one magazine picture in the notebook. My mom laughed and said I was writing a book. At that point I was a school librarian on maternity leave, but not a writer. A book wasn't a bad idea though.

The First Queries:

About 700 play ideas later, I typed them up in my computer and queried them straight to a publisher. Yeah. This long list with a few instructions. I got rejected. I shrugged and carried on with life. I had tried. (And I think a part of me knew the book wasn't what it should/could be yet.)

A few years later I got into writing novels. That's when I learned about query letters (what makes 'em good), how to write a bit better (okay a WHOLE lot better), what a literary agent was, etc.

After querying a few novels, I decided… I should give away my list of kids play ideas. So I whipped up a website, put some of the ideas on it and pretty much forgot about it. I didn't even publicize the poor site. I just let it languish. Oh, and I blogged about some of the ideas for awhile. Like, one a day for over a year and burned out. 

It all lacked something.

Plus, I was way too chicken to really tell people about my site and get enthusiastic about it all. Way too scared. And I needed to build a platform and put myself out there if I wanted to do this. As well, I still didn't quite know what my niche was. Play ideas, yes. But? There was something missing. And, of course, a part of me (read that: a large, secret part of me) hoped people would magically discover my site and make it that whatever it wasn't.

A Push From Friends:

Around that time a friend in the publishing world, Molli Nickell, encouraged me to query literary agents. She started sending me information on how to write a nonfiction proposal and offered to critique my proposal for me. So, I wrote one. She provided feedback and off it went to agents. I can't recall exactly how many, but it was like 10 or so. It didn't feel right to pursue it at that point.

WEbook came along and I entered some stories and then tried their querying system. I queried some fiction projects and also a few nonfiction queries for kicks. No replies. Again, shrugged and moved on with fiction work and improving my craft. The timing didn't feel right.

By now many years had passed since The List began and I was pregnant with #2. My critique partner and friend, Calista Taylor, was approached by literary agent Neil Salkind of the Salkind Agency after finding her online. He was looking for someone to write a steampunk craft book. (Coming out this fall!) She signed with him and got a book deal in a matter of days and then asked him if he'd be interested in my project. (Got to love friends who believe in you!)

He told her to ask me to send a query. So I sent off a query as well as my (updated) proposal in case he was interested. (Meanwhile I was worried how this was all going to pan out since I knew I could end up on months of bed rest and possible a lengthy hospital stay with this pregnancy--what was I going to do if this whole book thing worked out?)

He was. Within five days we had a signed contract for representation.

Getting The Call:

Neil replied to my query within a day or two (with apologies for taking so long if you can believe it) and asked if he could call me. That morning he had to delay the call by a few minutes. Why? He was selling a book. (Good omen? I dunno, but I like it!)

It was strange. I wasn't really nervous. I was calm and felt almost like it wasn't real. My mom was over working on the stained glass piece she had made me for my birthday when Neil called to discuss my project. I wouldn't let myself believe that he might offer to represent me.

We chatted for about 10 minutes and in that time he totally pinned my project in the bigger market and what he saw happening in the world of parenting. It was incredible. It was inspiring. It was like someone cranked the shutters on my mind all the way open. (I couldn't believe I hadn't seen this and that he still saw the potential in my lame and misguided query.)

During the call I couldn't think of any questions to ask. And those that I did I ask, I think I asked twice. Everything he said just made sense. Plus he was way ahead of me. He was already brainstorming foreword authors and had a new title in mind. Did I have any thoughts on what we could add to the title?

Um… Uh? Hello brain? Any thoughts?

It was like I had been ambling along down the sidewalk and he'd zoomed by in a speeding a car and grabbed my hand. Problem was my (pregnant) brain was still back there ambling on the sidewalk, struggling to waddle fast enough to leap back into a position where it could do some thinking.

There wasn't much for me to say or to ask, but I felt I had to say something. The call doesn't last 5 minutes! (He offered to represent me in the first five.) And how do you accept? What do you say? What words do you use? I accept you because you complete my project? You are the missing piece?

The poor guy probably thought I was mental. My mind was galloping with all these new thoughts and my mouth felt like it needed to move!

But I didn't gush. I was professional--if a little slow sounding.

After The Call:

The big thing about The Call was this: Neil understood the vision I had for my book. He shared it, but also saw it in relation to what was going on in the world around us. He got it more than I did! And suddenly I could see what my project really was and how it could make a difference in the world.

I was inspired.

This. Could. Happen.

I went upstairs after the call (still a bit stunned around the edges) and said to my mom, "I think I have a literary agent. I have an agreement to sign." And then I sat down, watched her work on the stained glass on the dining room table. (And later went and made notes, printed out the agreement, signed it, and sent it back.)

Now:

It's been a year and a half since The Call. In that time we've come very, very close to a publishing contract in a very crowded and specific market. In that time I have learned A TON! Currently, I am updating my proposal. (Neil provided all sorts of great insight and tips on how to improve that 54 page document for our first go 'round and now I am adding things in that I have done in the past year and a half.) We plan to hit the editors again this fall, if not sooner. Wish me luck!

Thank you Michelle for allowing me to share my story on your blog. And thank you to Neil for all his hard work. Here's to more editor queries this fall!

BIO: Jean Oram is a mother to two healthy kids--and didn't end up on more than a day of bed rest after all. Wahoo! She loves to write and is currently working on breaking into the magazine market to help expand her audience and nonfiction platform. She loves to ski, play, climb trees, read, moderate for her writing friends over on www.agentqueryconnect.com, pin play ideas on Pinterest (www.pinterest.com/jeanoram), talk play with parents on Facebook (www.facebook.com/Itsallkidsplay), tweet funnies and play articles on Twitter (www.twitter.com/kidsplay) as well as blogging about silly play and other great fun things for kids on her website and blog (www.itsallkidsplay.ca). She also has a blog about writing (www.jeanoram.com).

Confession of a Slacker

This week I wrote nothing despite being within two chapters of finishing my work in progress. Oh, I edited some chapters, and I critiqued other people’s writing for the fantasy and science fiction marathon. My work in progress has arrived at the big climax scene. It should have been a priority. Instead I made excuses.

It’s a holiday week. It’s too hot. (Three days of record high temperatures.) No exercise outside makes my head too foggy for good writing. The kids need my attention. All true, of course. Truth didn’t exactly make me feel any less guilty. So I decided I’ll start tomorrow. Unfortunately, that was Thursday and two more tomorrows have gone by. The guilt load increases.

I really want to get the manuscript finished. To be finished means editing and being able to send off to beta readers. It means getting closer to querying agents and getting those rejection letters. No matter how good you are the rejections will still outnumber the requests.

Perhaps I secretly don’t want to finish. Horrors!  Stalling out of fear?

Perhaps I don’t think the finished product will measure up to my vision. Crap. More fear stuff.

Perhaps I just gave myself permission to take a break, to slack a little. Maybe you can’t rush inspiration. Hmmm.  Let’s go with that.

 I’ll start tomorrow. 

Founding Father Soap Opera Trivia

Many of the founding fathers had quite dramatic lives. Their biographies are fascinating. Here are some trivia facts I picked up over the years to brighten everyone’s Fourth of July and get you in the spirit.

George Washington

George Washington never had any children but he adopted his wife, Martha’s two from her first marriage. He is the only president to be elected with unanimous consent of the electors. He refused the title His Excellency the President of the United States for the more modest title Mr. President. George Washington missed the turn of the century, dying in December 1799 of complications from a sore throat. He is the only founding father to free his slaves which he did in his will. His adopted granddaughter married a man named Robert E. Lee, (yep, the same one) their estate was confiscated when he went over to the rebel side and it became Arlington Cemetery during the Civil War.

Benjamin Franklin ran away from his apprenticeship in Boston, breaking his contract. A renegade. He  escaped to the young city of Philadelphia and became a wealthy printer. Though he never said, historians speculate he turned outright rebel to the crown after being publically humiliated by the English government while assigned as the ambassador to mend our relationship before the beginning of the War for Independence. Benjamin Franklin had an illegitimate son, William, which he raised with his wife. When the war broke out, William stayed a Royalist becoming Governor of New Jersey. Benjamin disowned him and held that grudge for the rest of his life.

The first president to live in the White House was John Adams. George Washington spent his terms first in New York City and then Philadelphia as part of the compromise that saw our capital city built in the middle of Virginia wilderness and close to Washington’s home of Mount Vernon.

The man who wrote the preamble for the Constitution (you know, We the people, in order to form a more perfect union) had the unusual name of Governeur Morris. He lost a leg in a carriage accident. A lady’s man, in later life he married a woman much younger than himself.

The man who financed the War of Independence, Robert Morris, backed up the new country’s notes with his own fortune earned in the shipping business. Robert Morris later ended up in debtor’s prison when that fortune failed. His is not a name you hear anymore, but the war would not have been possible without him. He found ways to supply our troops.

Aaron Burr

The former vice president of Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr, fatally shot our national’s first Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, in a duel over politics. (You can see Hamilton on the ten dollar bill. Hamilton was illegitimate and self educated.) Burr never won another election and very oddly, tried to collude with both Spain and Great Britain to start a war over territory in the Louisiana Purchase area. Burr was charged with treason but acquitted.

During the War of 1812 with Britain, British soldiers captured Washington DC. They burned the Capitol building and the White House, putting the flame to the White House after drinking toasts and eating the dinner left for President Madison. You’ve probably heard how Dolly Madison refused to leave even as troop approached until she save the painting of President Washington. Heroic woman, the title of First Lady was well deserved.

John Adams

Perhaps the oddest and my favorite strange fact, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on the same day—July 4^th, fifty years after the Declaration of Independence. Friends for years since they met in Paris as ambassadors, a dirty mud-raking election where Jefferson defeated Adams drove them apart. The name calling was much worse than today's brand. Only after the deaths of Jefferson’s daughter and Adam’s wife did they again correspond.  While living, Thomas Jefferson had to sell his library to pay his debts. His estate was sold after he died, along with his slaves, to pay his bills. John Adam's last words were "Jefferson still survives". He was mistaken.

Getting the Call: RC Lewis

I'm so glad to bring you a site moderator from Agent Query Connect, RC Lewis, one of the bosses who snap fingers to keep people in line and answer questions. (Just kidding on the finger snapping. She goes for the toes.) Once again, AQC is the place to hang out to rub shoulders with the agented and famous. RC writes YA, and I'm certain we will be hearing more news from her in the not distant future. What a fabulous author head shot, by the way. I love the black and white.

I've dubbed the day I got The Call the best-worst day ever. It was awesome in the end, but I thought it'd kill me.

It was a Wednesday. I had a full day of work at school, and I was also looking for a new job out of state, so I had two phone interviews scheduled—one during my morning prep time and one during lunch. I also had to sit on an interview panel for an applicant to be my replacement in the afternoon, and Wednesdays meant staying at school until five. Lots of end-of-the-school-year things to do, too, so I already knew it'd be a busy day.

Just before the end of my morning prep time (and that first phone interview went nicely, thank you), I got an email from one of eight agents who had my full. She wanted to know if there was a time we could chat.

Commence panic mode.

After a little back and forth, we decided she'd call me at seven that evening. Plenty of time for me to get home, get settled, and carry out a professional phone call. I proceeded to tell myself it might not be THE Call—some agents like to call and hash out possible revisions, get a feel for the writer without necessarily offering representation, right?—and carried on teaching my physics class.

The rest of the school day was semi-normal, if hectic. No substitute showed up when I was supposed to go sit on that interview panel, so there was a bit of running around. The interview was long, and I didn't get much done after school, but finally I hit the road to head home.

Major backup on the way to the freeway. A traffic light at a major intersection was out, making it a four-way (well, more like twelve-way) stop. No problem, just delayed me maybe ten minutes. Onto the freeway!

MEGA backup. They decided to start a major road resurfacing project that day, during rush hour. This was a much bigger delay. I should've gotten home just after six. I walked in the door at 6:52.

I took a deep breath, kicked off my shoes, and answered the phone when it rang.

The Call was great. We talked about the manuscript—what she loved, questions she had. We talked about what I want to be as a writer and how she works as an agent. We talked for over an hour, and I've probably forgotten half the conversation. (I do remember that my critique partner texted me five minutes before we finished to say, "Are you STILL on the phone???")

For me, it turned out to be The Calls. After notifying other agents (and ending up with a total of eleven fulls out), the following Tuesday became Agent Phone Call Day. I talked to four more agents that day alone—one of them cold-called me during my prep time, which was cool, but startling.

In the end, I signed with the agent who offered first (Jennifer Laughran). Not because she was first. A couple of the others made it REALLY difficult for me to decide, and I had to think hard through pros, cons, and what I really thought would be the best fit.


You can find RC at twitter or her blog, Crossing the Helix, besides AQC.

Bravely Disappointed

I fully expected to have a report on how I liked the movie Brave for the blog today. Then my daughter and my sister wimped out on me. They didn’t feel good. They had other plans. It’s a girl bonding movie, people! My suffering husband offered to go with me, but I couldn’t do that to him. He went for a bike ride instead, and I stayed home in the air conditioning.

   I know this is a girl bonding movie because of Tangled. Tangled became my all time favorite over the top animated movie when it released. Loved the romance, loved the humor, loved everything. (I’m a great big kid, sue me.) I saw it infinite times. On dvd from Netflicks, at the dollar theater with my hubby, and lastly saved forever on my dvr (blessed dvr). However, first I saw it with the girls, daughter, sister, mother. Girl bonding!

Yesterday was supposed to be another such day. Instead it became a ‘we’ll go next weekend’ thing. Bummer. Disappointment. Sigh.

Okay, I’m an adult. I can wait. Good things come to those who wait. Right? Right?

Today dawned and I’m over it—mostly. Waiting and disappointment are part of a writer. We learn to take the disappointments, absorb them, and move on. This girl is moving on, but she’s gonna hold a couple of family members' feet to the fire this weekend.

Getting the Call: Amber Leah Brock

If there is one thing to be learned from these posts, it's the value of persistence. I'm glad to welcome a new friend and writer of historical fiction, Amber Brock, who has this quality in abundance. She wasn't afraid of tweaking her manuscript until it sparkled enough to catch an agent. And she also names her picture file "Me" which means we think alike. Her novel sounds like my kind of story, I'll be looking for it on shelves soon.

In October 2011, I “finished” my historical novel, Blessed Among Women.  I thought, hey, this is just like what’s in bookstores!  I need to get this to a publisher!  Then I did a little research and found out that you don’t send a novel to a publisher, silly, you send a query letter to a literary agent.  So I sat down to write a query letter.  And boy, did I bomb.  I’m deeply ashamed to admit that I went after some of the top agents in the field with a poorly-written query letter and a 55k word “novel”.  When their assistants got done wiping tears of laughter from their eyes, I got form reject after form reject.

So I dug back into the novel and made additions that enriched the story, and then completely re-wrote the beginning when my beta readers made the comment that it was a good novel “once they got into it”.  To me that said the beginning was too slow, so I concentrated on my strong suit (dialogue) to make the opening punchier.  Then I joined the “Where Past is Prologue” critique group on Agent Query Connect and learned invaluable lessons. 

In January I started the querying process again and got my first requests for pages.  Hooray!  Then I got form rejects on pages.  Ouch.  So I set it aside—stepped back, worked on other projects.  I thought I had shelved the novel, but it kept whispering to me from my Documents folder.  I read Writing the Breakout Novel, On Writing, Self-Editing for Fiction Writers and, for the thousandth time, Bird by Bird.  Then I thrashed my novel into submission based on what I learned.  I attacked my query with the same fervor, and then started sending again in March. 

That’s when things really started to happen. 

I started getting requests—I was still getting rejections, but now they were personalized, with real suggestions to help my novel, and invitations to re-submit.  I incorporated those suggestions and then sent another batch.  If it sounds like I sent a lot of queries, it’s because I sent a lot of queries.  Over 130.  Maybe even way over 130.  130 is when I stopped counting.  If you can’t tell, I’m deeply stubborn.  Plus I had tons of support from my husband and family.  I’m glad I kept going!

So I sent my just-good-enough query plus the first 30ish pages to Clare Wallace of the Darley Anderson Agency (among others—I sent out batches of ten).  Within a couple of days, I got an email from the agency’s editor, the delightful Vicki LeFeuvre.  She and Clare and read the first part and wanted a synopsis and a full on exclusive. When they read the full they approached me with a suggestion for revision that would draw the novel more to the “faction” side of historical fiction (basically, they wanted me to draw in more of the true historical element that inspired the novel).  I considered it, decided I’d give it a shot and see how I felt about the changes. 

Well, they’re the experts for a reason.  The suggestions strengthened the novel enormously.  I sent the revision and got an email from Clare a couple of weeks later.  I was actually standing in the grocery store when I opened the email!  She said she wanted to talk about representation.  Let me tell you, there is no better feeling than standing in the frozen foods aisle reading those words.  Several days later my phone was ringing and I was trying to keep my cool. 

We talked for about thirty minutes, but I knew immediately that she was the right one.  Her vision for the novel perfectly aligned with mine, and she was excited to hear about the other projects I’m working on.  She sent me the contract later that afternoon.  I haven’t stopped celebrating since!

Author bio:

Amber Leah Brock is a sometime Spanish teacher who moonlights as a novelist.  She lives in Atlanta with her English teacher husband and their three crazy rescue dogs.  Her novel BLESSED AMONG WOMEN is loosely based upon the unique love triangle between Henri II of France, his wife Catherine de’ Medici, and his lover Diane de Poitiers.  You can follow her on twitter at @AmberLBrock.  She whines about writing at allmyfriendsarepretend.blogspot.com.  

Aliens, Dragons, and Wraiths, Oh My!

Check out this new blog created by my friends from the AQC Speculative Fiction forum. It's a group of writers giving tips and ideas from their own writing experience. My first post is up today. This blog has quite the catchy title. Aliens, Dragons, and Wraiths, Oh My!

Photos from Japan

I've been flooded with company this weekend in a good way, but there hasn't been time to do a regular blog post. Here are some pictures from Anna's trip to Japan. She'll be home on Tuesday night, and we are looking forward to having our girl back.

An actual love shrine in Kyoto.

Where you purify before entering a shrine.

A castle in Shiojiri.

Anna with her homestay family and samurai.

Huge Buddha. A person is the size of his thumb.

A little shopping.

Getting the Call: Precy Larkins

I get to introduce another fellow member of AQC's Speculative Fiction Forum. I have to say that forum is the place to be if you write fantasy, paranormal, science fiction, or horror. It must be in the water because they're getting agents or publishing deals right and left.

A big thanks to Precy Larkins for sharing her story. Our husbands must be cut from the same cloth, because mine refuses to get excited anymore. When I give him any news he rolls his eyes and says he's not getting his hopes up. Now I can make him read your story and say na-na to him. It does happen.

For me, I didn’t get The Call, but The Email.

Rewind back to May 3^rd. I woke up early because I had a doctor’s appointment that morning. The day before, I’d received great feedback on my query so I decided to send out two, just to test it out. While waiting at my OB’s clinic, I checked my email because I’m highly neurotic like that. Or maybe it was the pregnancy hormones making me extra neurotic. Anyway, there was a partial request sitting in my inbox. I might have fist bump my husband, who was there waiting in the lobby with me. Since he’s not a writer, he merely smiled. Sheesh.

The next morning, I woke up two hours earlier than my wake up time. Are you beginning to see a pattern here? Sans eyeglasses or contact lenses, I squinted at my iPhone screen just to see if there was an email secretly delivered while I was asleep.

There was one. And it went something like this: Your query intrigued me so much that I read your partial first thing this morning. Would you please send me the full manuscript?

I grabbed my glasses and headed downstairs to the kitchen. Yes, I confess: I write on my kitchen table. Ever since I got a laptop, the kitchen has become my office. Which is really nifty since, you know, snacks are within reach…but that’s for a different story. Onward.

I sent the full with fingers crossed. In the meantime, another full request came in my inbox. It was shaping up to be a very good day. But then it was the weekend, and the crickets learned a new song in my inbox. My eye probably twitched a lot during that time. Hm. Can’t remember.

Tuesday! Tuesday came (and we’ll just skip over Monday because nothing ever happened that day, except for swollen ankles) and this time, I woke up four hours earlier than usual. I think I was dreaming about emails and possibly zombies along with them. Anyway, I of course did the most sensible thing to do when one’s groggy and highly disoriented from having just woken up from a nightmare: I checked my email.

It was The Email. The one that said I’m no idiot and someone other than my mother likes my book. No, wait, the word was LOVE. Someone loves my book. All of it. It wasn’t a “hey, I like your book but I’ll like it better if you’ll just twist a few scenes around” kind of like. It was a “I was totally captivated (CAPTIVATED!) from beginning to end”.  

I waddled down the stairs to get to my laptop (because, you know, I needed to see it bigger and make sure that I wasn’t hallucinating from squinting too much at that tiny phone screen). It was real. And then I panicked. I didn’t even have a list of questions handy! I thought I would be waiting for months before anyone with my full sub gets back to me with their feedback. This is where your writing friends come in. This is where you’ll send them a freaking-out email with Help Me! stickers plastered on every space of your letter, and they’ll respond back with much squeeing and a handy-dandy list of what to ask Fabulous Agent Who Loves Your Book.

Because Fabulous Agent is based in Germany, there was no The Call, but lots more of The Email going back and forth.  After letting the other agents who had my query and full submissions know I had an offer of representation, I had to wait again. Ten long days with six more fulls out. Eventually, the deadline came, and with all loose ends tied and out of the way, I was able to type those wonderful words to Fabulous Agent: I accept your offer of representation.

This was my first ms to query, and I landed an agent within six weeks! I couldn’t believe it. Still can’t believe it sometimes. J

Author Bio:

Precy Larkins is a mother by day, a dreamer by night, and a writer in between. She grew up in the Philippines, a country steeped in superstitions and rumors of enchanted beings roaming the woods. She now lives in Utah with her husband and three kids. She’s represented by the lovely Julia A. Weber of J. A. Weber Literaturagentur GmbH.

Precy maintains a blog and a Twitter account, where her friends know her affectionately by her nickname, Cherie. Her Young Adult Contemporary Fantasy novel, HIDDEN, is a story of a girl battling demons in her head only to find out they are real. With dark magick and soul-suckers on the loose, and a boy who can’t be trusted, she must use her visions to survive the world hidden beyond her own.