Dear Alice,

I have written proof that what one person loves, another hates. I had an agent request the manuscript of my children's book a couple of months ago. I sent him an email copy right away but didn't hear anything at all from him (which according to querytracker.net was unusual) so I sent him a hard copy the last week in November. I got a handwritten rejection from him a few days later. His nearly-illegible note contained some interesting and, in a way, ironic feedback. Just a couple of days before his note arrived, the critique arrived from the Spirit of Writing contest. The judge raved about my word choice and mental images and he/she especially loved my ending. The agent hated it. He didn't understand what the "silver cup" was. Um, a silver cup. He didn't like that he got to the end of the story and there was another clue to another treasure. The judge liked that the reader could use the clue to daydream about what else was out there and that I'd left the door open for a sequel. Proof positive that what floats one boat, sinks another.

I've stopped querying on both manuscripts at this point. It's too close to the holidays. It will probably be the end of January before I pick up again. My niece and I are taking off for NYC right after New Year's so I can do some research for my current WIP. I'm getting closer to figuring out just who Angela is, which is a good thing since she's my main character. It's turning out to be a much more emotionally charged story as she is rejecting her culture and wants to be "normal". Part of her hates her specialness yet she has embraced it at the same time. My difficulty will be keeping it light and playful yet deal with the unhappiness that is also there. It's coming in slow bits and pieces. I won't start the actually writing until after I get back from New York. If you'd told me that I'd be taking six months off to just think about it when I first started working on it back in June, I'd have told you you were crazy! I'm beginning to learn that writing is a process that truly takes years.

That's all for this time. I'm off to a Christmas open house at the neighbors and then need to plan how to fit in all the Xmas running around I need to do for tomorrow. I'm leaps and bounds ahead of many people I know, yet it still seems like I'm behind. Maybe it's just the rural living and every errand taking half a day to get done. 20 years and I still haven't left behind my suburban clock.

Someone likes my writing!

Dear Alice,

I found out this week that my children's story placed 3rd in its category in a contest held by one of the writers' associations I belong to. It will be published in an anthology of the winners. I also get to participate in presentations/readings at local libraries with the other winners. The downside is that this will happen in January and I'm having surgery the day after I get back from New York. It took me a month to recover from the last one but this one should be less invasive. The timing sucks as I could either have the surgery the day after I get back, probably exhausted from the travel and time change, or have it the next week and then be too tired to do any of the readings. I'm hoping that I'll be able to be a slug for the few hours after I get home from NYC and won't go into the surgery as drained as I was in July after the writers' conference.

My writer's block for Angela is lifting. I'm getting to know her character better and am glad the block stopped me and caused me to refocus. She'd become way too wimpy before the block set in. I still get the feeling I won't really know her until I get to New York.

Take care and I'll write again soon.

5 Months Later

Dear Alice,

It's been five months since my last post. In that time, I've done probably 100 edits, totally rewritten chapter one 3 times, gotten rejection letters from everyone at the conference I attended in June, got requests and rejections from everyone I pitched to at the conference in July (I'm up to more than 30 rejections), finished the text to a picture book I've worked on off and on for the last 6 years, had surgery, found out I needed more surgery, and lost another friend to old age and cancer early this morning.

I've had my first chapter book doctored, my query doctored twice, and my synopsis doctored twice. I've had one agent ask me to send her anything else I write in the future and one agent actually give me some constructive feedback as well as tell me that my idea is marketable. It took a thriller writing class and was told to definitely start writing one of my two ideas. People loved the other one as well. The class was taught by a guy I sat next to at the June conference. He must be my muse as he gave me an idea for another book that night (that makes a total of 3 book ideas, in case you're counting!). I'm currently working on fleshing out the plot and the characters and will be going to New York in January to do some research.

In the meantime, I'm going to stop sending out queries for the next few weeks. I'm still waiting for feedback on my last doctored synopsis. She's currently in China to bring home her new daughter and I'm thus way down on the list (as I should be!). Both my kids are struggling with stuff and I need to focus on them and not the constant rejection I'm getting. I can sit back and enjoy Sex and the City (it's research!) and try and figure out what music Angela likes (I already know she's addicted to brownies and loves a good pomegranate martini).

Dear Alice,

I can't believe it's been a month since I posted. Wow time does really fly! Of course, if life wasn't so crazy it probably wouldn't.

In the last month I've lost the cat that was my father's last pet. My 10 year-old son (who turned 10 in May) was absolutely devastated as she was his best friend. I had my yearly mammogram and they found something they're going to biopsy tomorrow. I've also been trying to get ready to leave for Europe on Wednesday...the day I'm suppose to get the results of my biopsy. Yes, I'll get the news and then leave for the airport. I'm hoping Murphy's law passes me by.

On the writing front, I've gotten more rejection letters. I even got one this weekend, which didn't bother me too much as I attended a writers conference and came home with three requests from agents for me to send them my stuff! Yea! I'd attended a pitch class and then this wonderful brother and sister had me pitch to them before I did the real thing. They thought I'd rocked and then I went in and nailed it! They're definitely getting a mention if I get published from this. I've spent tonight updating and polishing my synopsis and getting all the materials ready to go out.

Well life is going to be crazy for the next couple of days. I won't be back from Europe for three weeks so I'll update you again when I get back.

Dear Alice,

Haven't written anything lately except revision upon revision to my query letters. Got at least one more rejection since I last wrote to you. I sent out an email query last week and will mail off another package one tomorrow. For that one I totally rewrote my query so that it sounded like Anne was introducing her "problem" as we say in the teaching world. We'll see if it gets any better response. I feel like I'm shooting in the dark here since no one has given me any real feedback on my query.

I did sign up for PNWA and their July conference. I've asked for both an agent and an editor appointment as well as sent material in for a book doctor appointment. I'd hate to have to wait until July for feedback but that may be it as my friends haven't provided me with any.

At some point I should sit down and continue working on book #2. The thought of what to do to keep Anne's confinement interesting as well as shortly needing the Scottish law info is holding me back a bit. That and the query stuff. I'm still working on staying positive. After all, I bought and read Thanks for the Memories last week, written by the gal who wrote P.S. I Love You. It was only my interest in the story that kept me reading. The writing was very choppy. She could have benefitted by some really good editing. If that got published, why shouldn't I?

Well, I'm off to do the four thousand other things I'm procrastinating on. I just never seem to have enough hours in the day.

Dear Alice,

Well it's been almost a week. The computer died for all intents and purposes and I've been so busy that it's taken me this long to get both time and a new computer. I've joined the ranks of Mac users. It's pretty simple but still requires some learning. Setting up the printer was difficult as the program froze. Email took me another half hour to set up the outgoing - we were getting mail just fine.

On the writing front there's actually been quite a bit going on. I got the book Making the Perfect Pitch this week. It's been really interesting and really helpful. I've rewritten my query letter twice, improving it both times.

I received a rejection letter from the agent that sounded like my clone. Sigh. I was hoping I'd found a new best friend. But that just means that the right agent is still out there. I turned around that evening and sent one out to another agent. I now have 10 agents that haven't rejected me yet. The latest one just happens to be the agent of one of my favorite authors as I found out when I was looking over his website. We'll see what happens.

Today I decided that I should look at attending the local writer's conference. In the pitch book the agents talked about how they take those queries more seriously than the slush pile. My husband and I talked about it and decided to send me. It's no more expensive than any of the teacher related conferences that I'd want to go to. I'll get an appointment with both an agent and an editor and I'm sending my stuff off to have one of their book doctors take a look at my first 25 pages. It's 3-1/2 days of literary related classes and stuff. Should be interesting and my sister is thinking of going with me as she's writing as well.

I've been working on my verbal pitch and have found it's somewhat harder than the written pitch. This shows me that I really just need to be doing it over and over. It really shouldn't be a problem as I've got that background in TV news. The conference isn't until the middle of July. I hope I've found an agent by then but, if not, it should still be a good learning experience.

Hope you're doing well and I'll talk to you again soon.

Dear Alice,

I'm procrastinating the work I need to do around the house today as well as the Cub Scout stuff for tomorrow.

Over the last couple of days I did research a few more agents. One had a website that really helped me improve my query letter. Another one actually wanted an entire synopsis of the whole book which I thought was fabulous as the entire story is so interesting. It's hard to figure out what will draw people in with one little paragraph squished into a query letter. Between the two I've improved my cold calling quite a bit.

The latest agent sounds like she could be my clone only in agent form. I'm really interested to see what she thinks of the story. She use to be at Writer's House, which up until now had been the agency that I most liked. I actually like the approach of this one even more, so I'm crossing my fingers! The only down side is that they say that they take up to 3 months to get back to you. All the others have been 3 to 8 weeks.

In other news, my computer crashed again this morning. Wouldn't even boot up. It fortunately recognized this and ran a diagnostic. It wanted to go back to a time when it hadn't crashed. I said "yes" thinking it would go back to tomorrow but no, it went back several months to before we'd taken it into the Geek Squad. My husband and I have decided we really need to get a Mac. We're tired of spending hours trying to get this one to keep running.

Not a huge update today. I'm feeling much to guilty about not doing the things I should be doing and it's stifling my creativity. Talk to you again soon! Ciao

Dear Alice,

Yesterday was a downer day. First my computer crashed. It took me half an hour to get it working again. Then I ran to the copy store to get more paper for two query letters I was sending out. They only had the paper in cardstock. Cardstock? Who sends out resumes on cardstock? So as long as I had to leave the island to get paper, and totally rearrange everything I'd had planned for the morning, I ran the 40 minutes up to Office Depot. That's the big bummer of living rural...if you really need to get anything it will take you half the day to do it.

Office Depot only had resume paper in stacks of 250. Really? Who sends out 250 resumes? There was no way I was going to be that pessimistic so I only purchased the mailing envelopes and presentation covers for the two agents that want your first 50 pages with your query.

Since I still needed paper for the query letters I stopped by the UPS store in town, which is 20 minutes from my house. We've got a few things on the island, such as the small copy store and a small grocery store. The town just on the other side of the bridge to my island has a few more things, such as a decent grocery store, some restaurants, and a couple of chain pharmacies. Would you believe that the UPS store only had two choices for resume paper? One that was a deep gold (Look at me! Look at me!) and a white linen. I hate white for resume paper as the contrast makes the words a little hard on the eyes. Do you really want someone who's been reading lots of resumes or query letters to suffer eye strain reading yours? I don't think so. But I had no other options so I had to go for white.

Came home and thankfully my computer still worked but there were two more rejection emails in my in box. I know that finding an agent is like dating but still...I told my husband I felt like I'd been on a speed dating night and hadn't gotten a single request for my phone number.

I got the two snail mail queries with the partial manuscripts sent off when I ran back into town for the planning session for my mother-in-law's funeral. She passed somewhat expectedly last week. I'm at the age where everyone my parents' age is dying. For the last two years I've been averaging nearly a funeral a month. It's totally depressing. Everyone once and a while I'll have a little pity party about that but then I remind myself that at least it's not all my friends dying. A friend who's 15 years older than I am had said to me at church on Sunday that he doesn't know why they're called the "golden years". Sure you're done with work but your days are truly numbered and all of your friends are dying off.

I hope I haven't totally depressed you, too. It got worse from there but I won't share the rest of the gory details with you and totally ruin today for you.

I'm not doing anything with the book today...no searching for other agents, no making a decision on whether or not to query one of my best friend's sister-in-law who is an agent, no working on the sequel. I have the morning off and then will be teaching 5th grade this afternoon at my favorite school. I had to turn down two other full day requests at that school as I already had that one booked. That's the one thing I hate about subbing...I'm either sitting at home wishing I was working or turning the work away because I'm already booked. Sigh. At least I've kind of made peace with that compared to the previous years I've subbed. Now if I'm not subbing I at least have the book to work on.

My husband totally believes that I'm a wonderful writer and will sell this. I just keep thinking about all the agents that passed or absolutely hated all the blockbuster material out there. I don't think my book is a blockbuster but it is a pretty wonderful story and I'd like to be able to share that with more people than my immediate friends.

Well, that's it for today, Alice. Enjoy the spring weather and I'll try to touch base again tomorrow.

The Beginning

I decided I needed a "Letters to Alice" place. You know, like how Bella in New Moon writes letters to Alice even though they were never delivered just because she needed someplace to vent.

I've written a book that I hope to get published. I'm one of thousands of people that are trying to do that right now. I've always wanted to be a writer but between life getting in the way and not having found just the right story to tell I'd kind of given up the dream.

I'm a teacher, substitute, and have attended WWU's Childrens' Literature Conference nearly every year. I would find myself writing ideas and thinking of stories before the second speaker ever came on, so I knew the desire was still there. But somehow it never jelled until last summer.

My father had passed away the previous October and I found myself thinking about that loss and two characters I'd played around with in my mind for the previous six years. The heroine had started out as a "what if" in another writer's world. I knew if I wanted to ever write about them I'd have to create their own world. Amazingly, I actually managed to do that. Brilliantly, I might add. Creating a wildly new explanation for things that happen around us.

I didn't tell anyone except my husband that I was writing. I wouldn't have even told him but as we live in a tiny house and I began spending most of my free time camped out on our bed avoiding him and our two boys it really was a necessity. I eventually shared my secret with my sister and her grown daughter who became my "go to" girls when I needed feedback or someone to share my "ah ha" moments with. After all, sometimes characters don't behave exactly like you think they will.

I finished the first of the two books in the story in February and have begun the process of finding an agent in order to get published. Thanks to agentquery.com I learned what I needed to do. They've been fabulous in teaching me how to write a query letter, which I'm still refining, and listing agents to whom I might send said query letter.

I've already received several very kind rejection letters and have decided this process is kind of like dating. You've got something you, and maybe several other people, think is fabulous but it might not click with everyone. Has the agent seen so many queries in that genre that they just can't stand another proposal on that topic? Are you just not their type? Don't you want someone to represent you who, just like a potential boyfriend or girlfriend, thinks you're the greatest thing since sliced bread? After all, if they don't think that how are they going to sell you to a publisher?

I already know I can write attention getting stuff as I've won the writing lottery three times already. The first time was in the third grade when I won a local essay contest. The second time was when I responded to a personal ad in the Seattle Weekly written by an amazing sounding businessman. He called me and we went out but he wasn't my type. The third time was when I responded to a call to be on one of Oprah's bookclub panels. I was one of 100 people that got a follow up call out of who knows how many thousands of entries. They only picked 3 people and I wasn't one of them but still...I made the short list! Now I just need to get an agent to short list me again.

So Alice, this is the first of my letters to you. I don't care if anyone else reads them. It would be nice but not necessary. I just want a place to vent so that my friends and family don't come to hate the fact I'm trying to get published.

Thanks!