i am nowhere near finished with the first draft of my wip, and already i've butterflies in my stomach when i think of querying. honestly, i don't plan on being anywhere near ready to query until early next year because i'm being very conscientious to not rush the process.
it's not unusual for me to write a novel in just a few months. what is unusual for me is to spend an equal amount of time editing once the novel is finished. this time, however, i refuse to get carried away by the excitement of querying. i refuse to be my own worst enemy when it comes to getting an agent.
there are quite a few agent blogs i read regularly, all of them with excellent advice. a subject each one of the agents write about with regularity is the querying process, because honestly it's a subject most unrepresented writers are obsessed with, myself included. i've always been very good at querying. what i need to do now is bring my writing up to the level of my queries!
right now i have two readers who give me notes on my chapters as i write them. i've made both major and minor changes according to the feedback i've been given. it's the first time i've been so interactive during the writing process and i'm already seeing the difference it's making, which is why i get so excited whenever i think of an agent reading my query and (hopefully) requesting the manuscript.
i've never worked as hard on a novel as i am with my current wip. i think about it night and day. i work on it whenever my son naps or goes to bed. i am constantly shaping my characters and the plot as i go about my normal business.
and i'm happy to do it.
3 comments:
ikw, kudos for spending time to revise and reshape your manuscript! In the excitement of creating the first draft, it's so easy to think that everything is in place. But then we get a little time and distance on it, and the flaws show up.
It's great you're having fun with revisions, too. When you're that immersed, even when you're not actually working on the novel, part of your brain still is. It's a fabulous place for a writer to be.
Had to go find out what querying is. What fun.
christine - it is a fabulous place to be! and it means so much to me that you visit my blog!
random thinker - it actually is fun, at least the beginning stages. it reminds me of junior high, when my parents would allow my friends and i to go hang out at the mall by ourselves. we'd work ourselves up and get excited at the prospect of meeting boys.
querying is like that for me: getting excited at the prospect of landing an agent!
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