NO MUSE IS GOOD MUSE

In the interest of efficiency, and due to some issues I was dealing with in my personal life, there was a time recently where e-mail queries were working better for me. So one Thursday night in May, I sat on our bed with our laptop and sent out seven queries.

I sent out four e-queries the first night (Thursday) and by 9:00 a.m. the next morning, I already had a request from the Kirsten Manges Literary Agency for the full manuscript (she said she enjoyed my query and would be "delighted" to consider the manuscript) and from PMA Literary and Film Management (their agency seems HUGE!), a partial (my synopsis "intrigued" them)!! The only problem was that Kirsten Manges wanted an exclusive.

The next night I sent out three queries and by Monday (which was a holiday for me, so I was off work), David Austern at Liza Dawson Agency requested the full manuscript!! Two requests for a full and one partial from seven queries. And all from NYC heavy-hitters.

I was, like, so stoked!!

So on Tuesday when I returned to work, I e-mailed Kirsten Manges and told her that I would love to send her the manuscript, but that I couldn't grant her an exclusive because I already had several partials out and one agent was already looking at the full manuscript (Serendipity Literary Agency in Brooklyn). I told her that, depending on her preferences, I could send her the manuscript anyway, or wait until all the responses were in and then grant her an exclusive. She e-mailed back and said what if I e-mailed her the first three chapters on a non-exclusive and then if the manuscript became available at a later date, she would be glad to look at it then. In that message she said my original query was "wonderful."

I was walking on clouds, I tell you.

So I e-mailed her the first three chapters and my synopsis. I also e-mailed David Austern a copy of the full and several hours later, he e-mailed back and said that he "didn't fall enough in love with the characters to be (the book's) most ideal champion," but that I was "a good writer" and that he'd "be interested in looking at my future projects." 45 minutes later Kirsten Manges e-mails back and says that she read the pages over lunch and was sorry to say that she "wasn't the right person for this project."

A month or so later, PMA also passed with some nice words of encouragement. By the way, Jenny Bent and Rachel Vater also passed in the last few months in a very kind and encouraging way.

In true “writing life” submission style, all of the requests—both full and partial--were eventually rejected, but the key here is that each person had something extremely positive to say about what I had going on, whether it be about the query, the synopsis, or the writing style itself.

I'm not there yet, but some of the heavy hitters were telling me that I'm doing something right and, for now, that's enough to hang my hat on (not literally; I was speaking figuratively, whatever that means. . .)

More later. . .