This Seems About Right.

http://theoatmeal.com/story/twilight

Dragged to a Halt Again...

Sorry about that. I'm involved in a weird project in Second Life (a non-disclosure agreement spares you the hideous boredom of my explaining it), and all my time has been sucked into a virtual void.

No news on the query front. I am working on my A-Team, Oh, Please submission list. And I have a can of chocolate frosting ready for the first rejection. That was my old rule: whenever a rejection came in I got a can of frosting. I had to have another query in the mail by the time the frosting was gone. With e-submissions I might have diabetes by the time this is over.

Speaking of optimism, I wanted to mention one important fact about novels: there is at least one good reason why any novel ever written should fail. One absolute, everyone-knows-it truth that should lead to rejection for any book. It's different for every book, of course, but you can come up with any number of them:

"I'm sorry, Mr. Faulkner, but readers in the north don't want folksy southern tales these days."

"Ms. Rowling, YA readers are girls. They want female main characters."

"Get out of my office and go learn how to tell a story, Mr. Joyce."

It's easy to get wrapped up in all the reasons a book shouldn't work. And it's a good thing to bear in mind while waiting for agents to give you a bunch of new reasons you've never thought of why yours won't.

Where the Rubber Hits the Road.

Or something like that involving a fan, which is less inspiring and hopefully less apt.

The first query is out. I do like the email query. It does add the terrifying prospect of the auto-reject, but so far all is quiet. I have a list of a few agents I'm going to query individually for a while, then I'll put together some multiple submissions. I know it's not the way you're supposed to do it, you're supposed to do multiple submissions from the first, but hey, why not lower my odds right from the start?

The query is under 200 words, which works. I think. I hope. Sigh.