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Saturday, February 18, 2012

The Exciting Part

Combining my free minutes at the shop and continuing into the nights after day-job duties, I completed my editing of DEMON, my new YA novel. It turned out to be nearly 78,000 words, but it's a very fast moving, humorous and tightly threaded combination of the paranormal and teen angst, built around the funniest canine character I've ever created. As my main character Mike Rawlins explains "Demon's not really my dog. I'm his human sidekick." Demon loves watching 'Brian' on ‘Family Guy’, eats ghosts like Rice Krispies, and is a holy terror when his friends are in danger. I've sent out three queries so far today, and am working on others. I hope to have ten sent out this weekend.

My writing friends know how exciting the initial querying process is before the rejection tidal wave makes its ugly way to our shore. As I've mentioned in prior posts, we now have to deal with the fact many of the agents don't even respond with a form letter rejection. They tell you on their web sites if you don't get a response in xyz time, consider it a rejection. Nice.  :)  One of mine today went out to one of the good ones - Kristen Nelson. She actually asked for a full look at my last YA novel STORM, and she always sends you an actual notice when she's not interested. Of the fifty-one queries I sent out for my first person POV action novel HARDCASE, I received less than twenty replies. My other novels on the query trail, LAYLA, and THE PROTECTORS have nearly the identical reply to query proportion.

We always think we have a gem in the rough at the start. I know I did and do every time I finish a new one. It's a bit more pleasant editing since I have a Kindle. I just use my Mobi Pocket Creator to build a Kindle Book out of the manuscript my Kindle will read. Then I can see how it looks while bookmarking any error pages even at night. When I read the ghastly editing in the Kindle books I've sampled I'm thankful Amazon allows the readers to sample a large chunk. It sure makes for a graphic reminder to be diligent when editing my own gems. Amazon Self Publishing has birthed a new frontier filled with the good, the bad, and the ugly. Unfortunately, some of us, like me, may be too old for the New York publishing world. Amazon at least gives us a cheap outlet for our writing passion if we get tired of waiting around to be the next Stephen King or Nora Roberts. Anyway, querying a new novel is fun... no matter the outcome.  :)

4 comments:

raine said...

Too old?
Too old?!
We can't be too old, Bernard. I refuse to believe it!
But yes. Querying does put a spark of excitement into the process, doesn't it? :)

BernardL said...

Raine! I'm not referring to you. You're what? 29. :) Yep, even the rejections are exciting with a new book on the query trail. I'm not stopping the process until I hit sixty-two queries on this one in honor of my coming birthday. :)

Jordan Summers said...

Too old? Snort! No such thing. It's persistence, not age that works with publishing. You have to wear them out. ;) Good luck!!!

BernardL said...

Yeah, Jordan, but it's age that will eventually take even us persistent ones to the point of not caring. It's not that we quit writing, it's that we quit caring. :)