This post is pretty long overdue. I’d been putting it off for various reasons mostly because I still couldn’t believe it happened. But it did, and here we are so buckle up because this tale spans roughly four years.
I want to preface this by saying that I didn’t think I’d become a writer, it was a hobby for me. It wasn’t until college that I started dabbling in writing short stories, but it was all for personal enjoyment and I never shared them. I never expected myself to follow through and write an entire manuscript.
So with that in mind, let’s cut to…
The idea:
I will venture to say that August 24, 2020, will forever be a day that changed my life all because I got bored and wanted to draw a picture to pass the time.
It wasn’t of anything in particular, just a woman taking a stroll through the jungle, holding the leash of her leopard companion. The more I drew, the more enraptured I became with the idea of this character. Who was she? What’s her story? I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
My leopard lady quickly became the antagonist to HERITAGE and dreaming up her background was the easy part. The hard part was developing a protagonist. Nothing worked and for months the development stopped there. It wasn’t until one day I had the strangest idea of making the story a family affair that suddenly I had ideas left and right and felt ready to start writing.
Drafting:
It took me TWO YEARS to get that first draft out of my brain and onto paper. I realized very quickly that writing a full novel was no small undertaking. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, and like a marathon - you’ll need to pace yourself.
Some chapters were easier than others and flowed like water as I typed away on my tablet. Other parts…not so much. I chose to delve into some heavy topics with a fantastical twist and finding that balance made me grow as a writer. Plus add on the daunting task of worldbuilding and threading overarching plots to span a series - it was challenging. In the end, my first draft was 94,000 words total and I was done.
Querying and Pitch Contests:
I am no different than any other writer. I thought my book was “the one”. That I’d be some special unicorn and immediately gain rep. Ha!
First off, I was pretty naive even at this stage. I didn’t know what a query was and had to search online for what made one special. It was like an ad for my novel, a quick snappy summary that would catch your eye and make you want to read the whole thing. Like those little inner flaps on the books from the library.
Surprisingly enough, it was harder to write that than the book. My first query letter was so pitiful I wouldn’t dare post it anywhere. But it was a starting point to get a version that I felt would get someone’s interest.
I used Query Tracker to get started on finding agents. It was fairly intuitive and would help me do what it promised - track those queries. I was like a kid in a candy store, filtering through who to query first and researching those I’d want to avoid.
Little advice: research agencies, research agents - be cautious.
After finding a good pool of agents I sent out a small batch of queries into “the void” (I have to admit, it’s recommended to only send 5-8 at a time, but I sent 10ish).
It was out of my hands now.
I got my first rejection one day after sending the first batch and I was happy. Genuinely happy. It meant the agent read my query when it could’ve sat for months or I could’ve been ghosted entirely. Even in the failure, I was seeing the win. I just hoped it would catch enough for a full request or even a partial like a fisherman anxiously hoping to nab that big fish.
And…no.
It was all rejection. That happiness faded pretty fast.
So I did the next best thing and made a Twitter account. I learned that sometimes authors have gained rep through pitching contests like #DVpit or other Twitter pitch events. Plus I could start to build a platform (although I’m no media guru).
In my experience, the pitch contests are both fun and terrifying. You meet wonderful people, but how do I condense a 94,000-word book into 280 characters??? It felt like an impossible task but below I have an example of pitch that I felt satisfied with:
The agents that liked the pitch gave me specialized links to submit my query to them, or as a couple have done - immediately requested my full manuscript.
But…
They were still rejections. Most were templated, some had genuine feedback, and a few were rare revise & resubmits (R&Rs for those that know).
Even after months of this horrible merry-go-round of negative feedback, I was still determined to tweak my query and find that agent. I kept querying because I knew that there had to be someone out there. But as I kept hearing “No”, I started to doubt myself. I questioned my abilities. Like maybe I wasn’t cut out for this and I was wasting my time.
So finally, I took a break.
A long one.
The constant rejection was taking a toll on my mental health and with a wedding on the horizon (because my boyfriend proposed to me), I decided to focus on the significantly happier parts of my life.
I shelved my novel and didn’t want to look back at that dark and terrible chapter ever again.
Trying again:
Another year passed. I was a changed woman. New job, new marriage, new name. I had completely moved on. And yet, there was a lingering voice in my head whispering to me “try again”. I pushed it away. I was done and I wasn’t going back.
So let’s cue the part where I go back.
I picked up my manuscript and wanted to dig into it post-mortem to see where I went wrong. I started to read my novel with fresh eyes. These didn’t even feel like my words or ideas anymore so much time had passed. Good thing too. I had new ideas sparking and a different direction that I wanted to explore. So I started drafting once more. With the holidays around the corner and publishing being a bit slow, I felt I had all the time in the world. And this time it was for me.
I re-wrote the entire novel save for a few precious scenes and cut the new draft down to 85,000 words. It was time-consuming, but also…fun? I think that’s what I missed. The fact that I do enjoy writing for the fun of it and it is what made me start this journey in the first place.
It took until roughly late February 2024 for me to feel like this new draft had something special. I made a fresh query letter based on my changes and felt ready to put myself back out there.
In this new attempt, I sent 5 queries. I didn’t know who to send it to because I made the mistake of running through almost every potential agent the first time around. I knew I’d have to re-query some folk. It was a bit embarrassing, like talking to an ex. “Hey…how have you been? You look good…”
But I swallowed my pride and prepared myself because I still believed in my work. I had queried the Corvisiero Literary Agency before but not Catherine Ross. Enough time passed to let me try again so I did, and I was admittedly nervous to get another rejection.
But it wasn’t a rejection email that landed in my inbox. It was a FULL REQUEST. I was blown away and immediately sent my her my manuscript. It was about a day later that she followed up saying she wants to meet me.
My brain short-circuited. She wants to meet me? She wants to talk about my manuscript? OMG it’s…
The Call
The call! It’s like the stuff of legend. I was shaking with excitement and needed to pinch myself. I didn’t know what to say or do, I had to research again and prepare myself. I needed to be professional and cool and calm, and who was I kidding - I was downright giddy.
Honestly, the whole thing was surreal. Catherine loved the book and wanted to represent me and for the first time it felt real. My book would be published. But work still needs to be done. I knew Catherine was the agent for me when her edits not only saw the complete vision I have for my novel but opened my eyes to what can be done to make it the best it can be.
I felt seen. Someone else gets it. Gets me.
I had a few other agents that I took time to nudge before accepting my offer in March 2024 and I’ve never looked back.
My advice? You wrote your book for a reason. Don’t give up on it. Take a break if you need to but please keep going, I promise you - it will work out in the end. Don’t believe me, look at my stats.
Querying stats:
Time in the trenches: 1 year 8 months
Total Queries: 108
Rejections: 91
Full Requests: 3
Partial Requests: 3
Offers: 1
Thank you for reading! Stay updated via my website for information on my writing journey. I also post short stories time to time to keep the creative juices flowing.
I'm so very proud of you. You are a great writer who's destined for greatness.