So I've been trying to figure out exactly what's going to become of this blog. It started out as a resting place for my sample chapters, but then I started to kind of have fun toying around with it. I think it is gradually becoming an online diary of sorts, describing my journey from desperate, starving artist to (hopefully someday) successful, published YA author extraordinaire. So I guess I'll give the background and then share how things progress from this point.
My journey so far has consisted of:
-a year of writing (I started Jasmine Powers, Super Geek in July '09),
-a LOT of revisions (I've been trading chapters with 3 online critique partners and reading at a weekly in-person critique group),
-and a fair share of queries sent out. I'll just say that if I hit 100 query rejections with no agent, that's when I give up the ghost and trunk this book. And I've still got a long way to go, so I'm feeling pretty good. Got a lot of rejections on my first round query because frankly, it was horrible and I just didn't know enough to realize that then. Took a long pause for the cause and did a new round with my current, much transformed, many times revised version.
With my current query, I've gotten a good number of requests and one particularly helpful rejection on a partial, which led to some revisions which I think really improved the story. I've also had a few form rejections (not right for my list/ just didn't fall in love with the story/voice/concept/ME. Ok, no one said they didn't fall in love with me, but really that's what it felt like) and those were tough. I am usually pretty rational and constantly remind myself that I read and enjoy a lot of well-written books which I don't fall in love with, and I know that it's in my best interest to be patient and find that perfect agent who loves my story the way I do....BUT....I still have moments where I feel like this:
(video not mine, embedded from YouTube)
I've been remaking the song in my head to be about writing my experience. Once I get an agent, I promise I will make a remake of the video w/ my aspiring author version of the song and post it here. One more fun thing to look forward to!
