Quinn Blogs

All right, it’s officially on. I just dropped my first Hubris query letter into the mailbox. Technically I still have a few revisions to do (a friend of mine recently delivered a full critique that’s been very helpful), but I probably have a good month before I hear back from this agent, so now I can keep up the rewrites with an added incentive to stay on schedule.

Much like when I started writing the book, this doesn’t feel all that momentous.  It’s just another query, number 62 or something like that.  The only difference is that it’s a new book I’m hawking this time.  Well, that’s not entirely true; I do feel all the optimism I felt when I was first sending out queries for The Northerners, because Hubris has yet to feel the sting of rejection.  It’s nice to have a clean slate, and I’m actually feeling really confident about this one, but I’m definitely not done with disappointment yet.  I’m trying to be a professional writer, after all.  Disappointment will be my lifelong courtesan.

That sounds like a more morbid thought than it actually is.  I’m just being realistic.  If I didn’t think writing was worth all the rejections and letdowns, I wouldn’t be doing it.  In a good story, characters don’t earn their highs until they endure some brutal lows.  Sometimes real life is just the same.