Quinn Blogs » The Northerners

Ready for Primetime

Quinn — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 16:50:45 +0000

Last night I finished my first big revision of Hubris. There were only a couple of major changes: I had to do a complete rewrite of the critical first page, remove the second chapter and place its exposition much later in the story, and cut out about a third of one lengthy middle chapter. I ended up cutting out more than I added, so this draft is about 2500 words shorter than the last. The whole process was slow and sometimes grueling. I don’t like revising, and I never will, but it feels great to have it finished.

The manuscript is now ready (I hope) for the scrutiny of my beta readers: my girlfriend, friends, and family. We’ll see what they have to say. I’m quite proud of the story; it’s a lot more ambitious than my first two novels, and I think the end result is more accessible and compelling. But I’m way too close to the text now. I need a few outside perspectives before I can do any more work on it.

So, now I can relax and spend the next few months on my other projects, or just on reading, watching movies and playing video games. I feel like I’m on vacation.

In related news, I got a rejection letter from the agent who was interested in The Northerners. But! This was a good rejection, because he called it a “near miss” and said he liked my writing, but just wasn’t interested in this particular story. He encouraged me to send him my next novel, and I will.

So The Northerners is not likely to get published anytime soon, but all that querying was still worth it. I went from having no contacts or prospects to having two agents who explicitly asked me to send them my next book. If my beta readers really like it, including my writing-inclined acquaintances who I can count on to be demanding*, I might be querying again as soon as this summer. We shall see.

* Even if you have demanding friends, your best bet for unbiased criticism is to join a writing group. One of these days I’m going to follow that advice.

Third Time’s the Charm?

Quinn — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:41:02 +0000

Just as I was about to start my first read-through of Hubris (and still am), I received another partial request from an agent interested in The Northerners. I was just about ready to give up on querying The Northerners – I was even saying so as I opened the envelope, since I was convinced it was another rejection – but once again I spoke too soon. Of course, as I’ve learned, a partial request only means that I’ve gone from about a 99% chance of rejection to more like a 90% chance of rejection, but hey, I’ll take it.

Thanks to this agent, I’ve learned something new: some agents actually do reply positively via mail. I’ve heard some authors advise you to not bother including a self-addressed stamped envelope with your query; it’s a sign of self-respect, they say, and if the agent is really interested they’ll call you or email you, since they only use the SASE for rejections. Well, here’s a nice counter-example. Now this advice is not just questionable, but demonstrably wrong.

I was never really convinced by the no-SASE argument. Even if the agent only wants the SASE for rejections, why would you want to immediately antagonize them? When you’re just another unsolicited query in a big slush pile, you’ve got enough going against you as it is. There’s nothing wrong with being professional and giving the agent what they asked for.

Anyway, we’ll see where this leads. This has renewed my faith in the querying process if nothing else. I’ll keep my fingers crossed, but meanwhile I’ve got Hubris to read and revise. Let’s hope it’s worth shopping around.

More on The Northerners

Quinn — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 04:02:25 +0000

OK, I know I said the next post would be about my new book, but I thought it would be worthwhile to talk about my experiences so far in a bit more detail: the writing process, the learning-about-publishing process, and the submission process.

I wrote the first 50,000 words of The Northerners in November of 2006. That’s about 175 pages in a printed book, depending on the size of the pages and the print (Of Mice and Men and The Great Gatsby are about 50,000 words long, to give you an idea). I finished the first draft, at 75,000 words, about two months after that. The next year and a half I spent showing the draft to various friends and family to get their feedback, and rewriting accordingly. Despite the fact that I had been making up most of the story as I went, I was fortunate enough to have a pretty solid structure from the beginning. Most of my revisions dealt with adding details: fleshing out characters, describing the setting better, etc.

During that time I did Nanowrimo again, in November of 2007. I wrote The Northerners Book II (for lack of a better title), which clocked in at 63,000 words, in a little under two months. Unlike the first book, this one came out more than a little misshapen. It was too short and not very cohesive. I also later realized that I need to change the ending, which meant significantly rewriting the second half of the book and parts of the first half. That’s probably a better example of what happens when you write a whole book in such a short period of time. I haven’t gotten around to the revisions yet; my priority instead has been getting the first book into publishable shape.

Of course, I didn’t know the first thing about the publishing industry, so I hit the ol’ Internet. I got a year’s subscription to the Writer’s Market for a birthday present, which also comes with a huge doorstop of a book that contains some useful advice along with an extensive list of agents and publishers. I started reading agent blogs, particularly the following:

Miss Snark (defunct since 2007, but the archives are a wealth of info)
Pub Rants, by agent Kristin Nelson
The Rejecter, by an anonymous agent’s assistant

Good reads all, and full of useful advice. I also acquainted myself with two great resources to keep writers from getting scammed: Preditors & Editors, a great big list of agents and publishers and their varied reputations, and Writer Beware, which tracks scams and scammers and even has a regularly updated blog. These are vital reads – there are a lot of people out there trying to take advantage of newbie authors, and they might be harder to spot than you think.

Once I had a manuscript worthy of submission, and I felt that I knew enough about publishing to dip my toes in the water, I used AgentQuery to sniff out some potential representation. Then I wrote up a query letter – probably the most difficult and painful writing I’ve ever done – and started sending The Northerners out into the world.

In nine months, I’ve had two requests for partials (the first few chapters of the book). I’ve had one request for a full (the whole book). Both agents passed, for a total of 37 rejections. And this is not unusual.

But I’m still at it. I’ve rewritten my query letter a couple of times, and I did some significant rewrites to the first 50 pages of my book (since most agents only ever see the first few pages, if that, you really want to polish your opening to a mirror shine). Those first few rejections were a punch to the gut, even though I was sure I was braced for it; but my skin is a lot thicker now, and my book is better than it was. I’m starting to learn that rejection is not failure – it’s the bread and butter of a writer’s existence. You’re better off getting used to it sooner rather than later.

At this point, I would say I’m sober about The Northerners and its chances for publication. I still haven’t used all my resources, and it only takes one agent to say yes. However, it may not see the light of day this time around, and that’s OK. You can’t buy this kind of experience. I’ve learned a lot and I wrote a book that I’m proud of; when I eventually do get published, I’ll be ready to dust it off and give it a second chance.