sarah eve kelly

This morning, in aid of putting off the monumental number of things I must accomplish today, I was reading my old LiveJournal posts. It may be a surprise to some of you that I have a LiveJournal account, and rightly so: I’ve been a very silent member since about 2003. I only signed up to read other people’s entries, and never got into the habit of posting myself, except when what I had to say wasn’t interesting or confident enough for my website.

I had a comparatively lucky querying experience. I started in June 2008 with a very mediocre draft of my novel, and signed with my agent in early October. Still: the summer of 2008 was the longest summer of my life. Also it rained a lot. But on 16 June - almost a year ago, now - I did a brave thing: a sort of querying version of counting my blessings. For all you out there at some point in the process, it might be an interesting read, so I’m posting it here.

I find it especially poignant because my agent is currently submitting my manuscript to editors (Dear Editors: I’m Really Nice), so I’m waiting in another way now. So, herewith: the state of Sarah’s mind on 16 June 2008, about a fortnight into the querying process.

&&&

I feel the need to say this while I’m still in the tall grass, viz agentless: I think the process of finding representation is a good one. From everything I’ve read, and everything I’m going through, I can’t imagine a more symbiotic way of acclimatising the virgin author to the publishing world.

Not sarcasm. I really mean it.

Here’s what you do: you finish your book (this is very important), you edit your book (also important), and when it’s the best you think you can make it (which is different from it being the best it can be), you spend approximately two months (in my case) putting together a query letter and synopsis (this is dreadful). After this, you trawl online for hours and hours building up a shortlist of agents you’d like to query (in my case, all across the ocean, because there isn’t a single British citizen who isn’t sick to the tits of Anne Boleyn, it seems). Adhering to guidelines and personalising each letter, off they go, your first ten queries, into the world.

And then you wait.

Boom: rejection #1. Boom: rejection #2. Myself, I created several folders in my Gmail: “Queries”, “Submissions Awaiting Response”, “Failed Attempts” (this is where I put my rejections instead of throwing them away), and glee of glees, “Partial/Full Requested”. They are cross-referenced. This, and smoking: the only fully organized parts of my life.

I’m still waiting. The waiting is horrible. Horrible. I can’t stress it enough with the horrible. But I get this slightly nauseating feeling that it’s good for me. Because it seems that publishing itself is a waiting game: one needs to be accustomed to waiting. It still means that one lives on New York time and one refreshes one’s email until the page crashes. I’ll have to be a bit more grown-up than I am now before that stops happening.

But here’s the other thing that’s good: once you’ve got an agent, you’ve got an agent. In the Panglossian case (”our noses were made to carry spectacles, and behold! So they do”), it seems the author and the agent come together in the best of all possible worlds, to each do what each does best. In the author’s case, to write, to learn, to follow instructions; in the agent’s, to sell, to mentor, to set up High-Powered Meetings with Important People. And each side is equally motivated, for whichever reasons. As I read it earlier this morning: your agent has no reason to sit on her hands. She’s just as invested in selling your book as you are.

I thought once I sent my manuscript out to Important People I would go mad finding errors in the text or worse yet, thinking it was worthless - curiously, this hasn’t happened. I’m starting to genuinely see the merit and the novelty in the story. I wonder if maybe I’ve been on drugs for the past month.

I know this probably sounds hopelessly naive. But when I’m feeling good about this process, I need to record it. For posterity like. So there it is. On this Monday, with the smell of sweet fig and cinnamon toast in the air, at 9:58 am in London and (sigh) 4:58 eh em in New York, I feel good. We’ll see how long it lasts.

Related posts:

1. lashon hara
2. victory
3. the auction block
4. hug your agent (if she’s into that)
5. drawing a line for historical fiction