I quit my job














Break time is over










The dark side of this process and a little advice for those thinking of trying…

If it isn’t obvious by previous posts, I have been in the process of looking for an agent for my novel. A couple rejections and some possible interest has been received until today. I understand rejection, I understand the competitiveness of the industry. I understand it all. What I will never understand is the snobbishness and the blatant rudeness that seems to plague the world in every industry.

Today I received the most rude and snobbish rejection I think I have received in any industry I have ever been in. I will not divulge names or agencies as I believe it is in bad practice, a belief I almost destroyed today after reading this email. The basis of the email was a rejection, which is not much to be bothered by, but the condescending tone and word usage nearly sent me over the edge. I am a respect driven individual. I will always show respect to those who deserve and show me the same respect. This agent though obviously does not subscribe to the same practice.

I was told by this agent that my query letter was extemporaneous and I needed to spend time looking at sample queries. For those of you who do not know the word extemporaneous, it means that it was done with little preparation or forethought. First, let’s start at just the word use. I have a very large vocabulary. This is from spending hours looking in thesauruses for different words to use in my novels other than the basics, it is also from the intense studying I did three years ago when I took the GRE to enter graduate school. A consequence of this is I am often told that I sometimes come off as condescending or snobbish as I will use large words that many do not know the meaning of. It is unintentional on my part, it is just the language I am used to using in my everyday life and academic writings. I found myself in my friends shoes today when I read this email. I know what extemporaneous means, but the tone of the email was what made the word sound more like a cruel and humiliating laugh rather than a simple, “this letter needed some more work for me.”

Does this person think I did not spend hours upon hours looking over sample letters, reading blogs and websites and each submission page of agents to make sure that the information contained in the letter was not exactly what was asked for? I followed guidelines, I put the information that the agency asked for and I receive a response saying that I threw together a letter with no thought or preparation. I spend hours on my query letters. Maybe it is a personal thing with me, but I saw this as a huge disrespect to me. Would someone really think I would be so careless with something so important to me that I would send out a letter without thought? That I would slap together some sentences and not care?

The disrespect and condescending tone of this email nearly pushed me over the edge. For an hour after receiving it the small, ill tempered and irrational part of me screamed to write a scathing response email. I wanted to rip this agent apart, I wanted to educate her on how to treat someone who wanted for nothing but to chase their own passion. Luckily, I am not the ill tempered and irrational girl I used to be. Five years ago I would have sent a response email with no problem. Now though, I stopped and told myself that I would regret it.

Why would I regret letting out the frustration and anger and disrespect I immediately felt upon reading this email? This questions brings me to the second part of this post. Some advice on what I have learned so far in this process.

1. Don’t write a generic “Dear Agent” query letter and assume you can send it out to every agent. I read blogs and looked at samples and still find myself having to rewrite every time I want to send to a new agent. If it is generic, they will know! They are agents and they read for a living! They know when you are being generic and when you have actually taken the time to write a specific letter to them. Does this mean you have to spend hours each time you want to send a letter? Probably not. It means you need to read the submission guidelines for each agent and make sure that your letter meets their requirements.

2. Don’t send a letter that you are not 100% ready to send. If it doesn’t feel right yet, don’t send it! There isn’t a deadline on this. Don’t send it just to get it out there, if you do this then you knock that agent off the list of people you can submit to later after you are 100% happy with your letter.

3. Read sample query letters. Most agencies will have links to sample query letters they like. These letters will literally tell you what to write in yours. They wouldn’t link you to them, if they didn’t like them or they weren’t successful queries to their own agency.

4. Don’t be ill-tempered and irrational. The world is full of those snobbish, rude and disrespectful people. No matter what industry you are in or deal with, there will be those people. The problem is, you have no idea who that person knows. If I had sent a response today like my temper had wanted me to, I could have ruined any chance I have at finding an agent. Sending that one email to one agent could mean much more than just ripping apart one person verbally, it could have been viewed has me thinking I do not care about the opinions of people in the industry I wish to be part of, or that I think I am better than they are in some way.

Even though I have had this one bad email, all others have been respectful, nice and encouraging. Which I guess is my last piece of advice, don’t be discouraged. If it doesn’t work out, you can self publish and still get your story out there. Keep writing and keep trying.










The Other Side:








I’ve been contemplating the word loyalty recently. A few months ago I was told that I was loyal by a married friend of mine (Let’s call him Joe) because even if another guy was around who was better looking I would not abandon him to hang with the more attractive person. The first thing that is odd about this is that I am engaged (getting married in about a month) so other men around me, I barely  notice unless they are a friend or client of mine. I contributed the comment to a night of far too much alcohol and not enough food or sleep. It was not until it was repeated by Joe that I realized he was REALLY hitting on me. Some background on Joe, he is an older man who is married to a good friend of mine and they have a mutually “open” relationship. I put “open” in quotes because the wife will tell you that even though they flirt and will kiss and do other things, they do not sleep with other people, while Joe says that they do whatever they want. First clue your relationship is very wrong, you blatantly look the other way while your husband makes a fool of you. Joe has also said that he only got married again because he “felt [my wife] deserved that]. Second clue your relationship is wrong, your husband admits he really did not want to get married. 

The loyalty comment was made after a very lengthy explanation about how I am loyal compared to another of my very good friends within our circle. My other friend (we shall call her Jane for this posts purposes) Jane, is the same age as I (mid 20’s), single and is looking for a relationship that could lead to a very happy and loving future for her. Joe, in his constant ambition to try and sleep with every girl hits on Jane constantly, makes her seem like the most important girl in the world and while she is around refers to her as one of his most beloved friends. The second she is not around, Joe will call her disloyal for flirting and talking to other men whom Jane is interested in while Joe is around. Joe goes as far to put down the men and in a way condemn Jane for considering even speaking to them, or say it will be “bad karma.” In essence, Joe becomes jealous and angry when Jane does not show Joe all her attention while he is around. This is not the only time Joe does these things, Joe also says a lot of rude things about another girl, though I do not like this girl, but then will flirt, hang out with and help her in anyway he can. Yet, the second she walks away he goes back to disliking her and making comments behind her back. 

This all leads me to believe that the story is no different with me, once I walk away Joe probably has a lot of very rude things to say, especially since I make it clear almost every time I am around him that he does not have a chance at sleeping with me, even though he makes advances and invitations quite often. But why take the time to call me loyal and give me a long speech on how I am such a loyal person in front of numerous people only to probably complain and make comments the second I turn around? 

What is loyalty then? To me, loyalty has always and will always be a promise to my friends and family to love and cherish them and help them in anyway I can when they are in need. Joe seems to take loyalty as meaning you will hang on his every word and suck his junk. If you had asked me two months ago if I was loyal to Joe, I probably would have said yes, I am. He is a friend, I cherish him and would help him if he needed it. That has seemed to devolve as of late as I have had on numerous occasions been present as he put down my fiance and out right tried to tell him that he was bad at his job because my fiance does not perform his job as Joe thinks he should (mind you, Joe is a part time bartender and spends 90% of his time wasted on tequila while my fiance is a full time armed security guard) and my fiance also does not always respond to situations in a positive way. Where as Joe thinks he can ignore something and it will go away, my fiance will confront the issue and try to fix it. Both approaches have their pros and cons, but let’s face it, when you just ignore things they tend to blow up further. 

Loyalty would be NOT talking down to your friends, as Joe tends to do. Loyalty would be to go to your friends if you have a problem, Joe just tells everyone else the problem. Finally, loyalty is respecting when a friend says no to something and not constantly pestering them about something, Joe tends to want me to go to “privet parties” him and his wife have knowing my fiance works nights and would not be able to attend, that we are not in any type of open relationship and that my fiance and I keep our privet life very….privet. 

So I may be loyal to him, but in what ways is he loyal to me? Or to anyone else? I am starting to believe that he values my loyalty because he lacks the ability to be loyal. 


It’s a weird thing when you complete something you have worked on for years. That moment when you type the final word of a story you imagined for the first time when you were barely six years old. It is bittersweet though. What do I work on now? For twenty years I have imagined a world beyond what I lived in and just over the past few years have I taken to really spending time writing it down. Tonight I typed the final word and it was amazing. To finally get the first part of the story down and complete was great. The next steps ahead are what terrifies me though. What if I just spent years writing out nearly 77,000 words just to find out I suck as a writer and that no one will ever read my story? What if I spent all this time just to be rejected by agents and publishers and be stuck with a manuscript that will never see the light of day. 

I guess that is why this is so bitter sweet for me. I love my story, I love the world I created and the plot and the characters, but I imagined them, so of course I love them. How do I make other people fall in love with them also? Especially since some agents do not even want a sample, they just want a summary. How do you make someone understand the progression and growth and depth of your characters and your story when all they want is a 1000 word summary and then if they want to read more they will ask for it. Pouring your heart and soul into something and then having to sell it like some sleezy used car salesman just so you can get the full manuscript read is counterintutitve to my nature. I hate forcing things on others, but I feel if I do not force it that it may not happen. The agents that ask for a sample I feel more comfortable with. I like knowing that they will at least get to read part of the story before they reject it or ask for more. It seems a more natural, though I would say ten pages is a little on the low side to really get a feel for the book. I typically say twenty five pages is when I decide if I like or dislike what I am currently reading. Twenty five may be too much or agents to read every time they receive a submission

They other part of the submission process I find annoying is that some agents say they will not even respond if they do not wish to read the manuscript in its entirity. I understand that not every submission is good enough yet, or is a good idea, but to not even take the time to write a simple email and say that you are not interested seems rude in a way. Someone has put time and effort into their submission, could you not spend a few moments to write a stock response that tells the submitter that though you appreciate them submitting you are not interested at this time? Otherwise they could sit there for 6-8 weeks just wanting a response. I would rather receive a letter saying an agent was uninterested than never hear back at all. 

The sweet side to all of this is that after twenty years the first story I ever wrote is at its full potential. Not only is it at its full potential, it has a sequel that needs to be written. Though the first book has been completed, there is a second and possibly more if I leave enough open ends. I even left room for a prequel if I feel like moving backward in time within my world. I have so many options that I am excited for where to move next. I have the second book in my head, and there will most likely be a third. I can’t see myself drawing the story out much further. I was never one to enjoy series’ that continued long after they should have ended. 

I have a road ahead of me when it comes to the publishing process, but I also have a road ahead of me to work on other aspects of my story. Both roads are equally exciting, and luckily I can travel both at the same time. 

A 15,000 word week

With only about another 40,000 words to write for my novel at the beginning of last week, I was surprised to look at the word count yesterday to realize that I had managed to write 15,000 words last week alone. It is pretty rare that I have enough time and enough focus to get that much work done. Something last week clicked though and it all started when I took the time to write out the full character plots.

When you write a story with a lot of charcters and character twists and about characters who have more depth than 90% of the people you have met in real life, it can be really confusing. I have a list of 7 main characters. These are the characters that the story focuses on and revolves around. If you take any one of these characters out of the story it will dramatically change the entire story line. I had been putting off doing this step because I had not made all the final decisions about my characters. I hate feeling like I am committed to a character story line when all I want to do is write a story that is organically flowing from my mind as I write.

The whole process took me under an hour to do. I simply started by listing the characters who I thought could not be taken out of the story without having to rewrite the entire story. I then wrote about that character up to the point in the story I had completed. After this step, I simply continued with how I wanted my characters to end the story. The different twists and turn each character would take, the secrets that each character held and if those secrets would be revealed by the end of the book. It was like a million lightbulbs were turned on inside my head at the same time. I could not even remember writing as much as I did that week. I know I had written about how much I hated outlining chapters in my Writers Block post. I still hate the idea of outlining so much that I have restricted my own creativity, but there was something about putting all my ideas about the characters on paper that opened my mind to the point where I wrote without effort for hours upon hours each day. 

With my story nearing completion, I am also looking to the next phase, finding an agent. As my research into different agencies has shown me that each has varying submission processes, most do require not only a synopsis of the story, but also a character description list. Taking the time to write these descriptions then became beneficial twice, it helped push my story to the next level and past two-thirds of the way done and put me one step ahead in trying to find an agent hopefully.