Drum Roll, I heard back from Stephen Fraser. What’s next?

Sigh. I wish I could report that all my dreams came true with Stephen Fraser's critique. Not so. He e-mailed me back his critique the same day Carol sent my 2000 words. That was fast. It was a critique of my 2000 words, just as promised. It was good to hear his perspective and get insight on what should happen in the first chapter. I was disappointed that he didn't offer me a contract or ask for me to send the rest right away. I'm not finished with the book and I will make it better.

This past weekend was our annual SCBWI/BSU Department of Literacy Boise Children's Literature Conference, Read, wRite, Revise. Even though I was the conference coordinator, I was still able to attend the sessions. It was so inspiring. 

Alane Ferguson fills the room with her enthusiasm and encouragement. She inspired many writers this weekend including me.

Gloria Skurzynski, her mother, has been writing and publishing for years and is still writing. I learned that she was rejected 57 times before she sold her first book. She told Alane, "If rejection kills you, I would have died 57 times!"

Kate Testerman, the agent and owner of kt literary, moved to Colorado for love. She is the agent for Maureen Johnson who wrote Scarlett Fever. Good book.

I met Sarah Tregay 6 years ago at our 3rd Boise conference. Her first novel, Love and Leftovers, came out this year.

Kate Kae Myers adjusted from writing novels for adults to teen and her first novel, The Vanishing Game, came out this year.

Matthew Kirby, the author of The Clockwork Three, said the phrase which most inspired me this weekend. He took it from Martine Leavitt. "Give yourself permission to think of writing as a career."

Neysa Jensen, the new Regional Advisor for the SCBWI Utah/Southern Idaho Region, did a fabulous job with the conference. I've had the privilege of helping her since she organized the first Boise Conference in 2003.

My writing buddy and friend and finalist in Project Writeway, Monelle, continues to encourage me. We both plan on making great improvements to our manuscripts.

Books versus Technology

There's an ongoing debate about e-books and self publishing and the growing number of ways to be published outside of traditional publishing. Part of me wants to dig in deep and resist these changes. Can't we go back to the old way? I write a pretty good book. I submit it to a few editors. One likes it because the writing is beautiful and there's a lot to work with, but it's not perfect. Then I work with the editor to make the changes and it's a better book, a stronger book, and I've learned more about writing and revising in the process. Then the book is published. I attend a book event at a local bookstore and sign actual copies of my book. All my friends come and they tell their friends and it sells moderately well. Then I write another book and so on and don't have to worry about a web presence or linking or doing a book trailer. But technology marches on. We've had a friend who is a remarkable photographer do our family portraits for the last few years. They are beautiful, well done, professional. We get lots of great comments from people who see the portrait. But our photographer took a job teaching high school photography in another state because now with digital cameras and on-line technology and editing programs, everyone is a photographer. Many more people have taken up the hobby and the business of photography and can do it much cheaper than our professional photographer who went to college to learn the art. He's accepted that and moved on. What else can he do? And now I have friends who do beautiful work and many more people have well-done family portraits in their homes. That's how writing has become. With computers and access to editors and agents through the internet and conferences, there's a lot more writers and authors. A submission must be much stronger and compelling. There's also a lot more good books to read. This summer my children have gone through at least 100 books already and my teenage daughters want recommendations from their friends and more ideas for books to read. So I'll flow along with the tide of the technology and have my children help me improve at facebook and blogs and goodreads and bug my brother's for help with their technological savvy. See you in print, somewhere.

The Inbox

One of the reasons I write and submit is to verify that I'm alive. Before e-mail submissions and queries, I'd check the mailbox every day for replies from editors. Of course, I wanted a positive letter of acceptance confirming my obvious writing talent and offering me loads of money. But even a rejection letter proved I existed and that someone had at least read my cover letter. Now I obsessively (yes, that's an adverb) check my inbox many (I don't even want to count how many) times a day to see if one of the agents or editors I've submitted to has acknowledged… (Sorry, had to check my inbox) I exist by sending me a reply.

E-mail Queries: Efficient or Effective?

When querying an agent, I like the ease of the e-mail query. I can research agents, change my query letter to match the agent's taste and send out queries to a couple of agents a day. And I'm being environment-friendly: no paper for the query, no envelope for mailing, no SASE, no form rejection letter to hole punch and insert in my rejection binder. Very efficient but is it an effective way to submit? My guess is that with the popularity of e-mail queries, agents receive many more queries and are spending a lot more time reading queries and sending out rejections and not able to spend as much time selling manuscripts and working with authors. Look at the April stats for agent Elana Roth of Caren Johnson Literary or for Nathan Bransford of Curtis Brown. Does this frustrate agents? Is the percentage for rejection as high with snail mail queries? Are authors more thoughtful in their research when sending through the mail? I don't know. I do know I can receive replies sooner with e-mail than through the mail. Again efficient. I also don't know the end of my story yet with submitting A Kiss and a Curse. When it has been accepted and published, then I can tell you the story of how many agents I submitted to and how many editors and if those submissions were by e-mail, by mail, by searching on the internet or meeting the agent and editor in person. Until then I don't know if e-mail queries are effective.

A high from submitting

I get such a high from submitting, even querying. You would think after almost 100 rejections, I wouldn’t like submitting. But each time I submit, I think, this could be the one. This could be it. This agent and/or editor could love my story. I’m working on my 22nd revision of A Kiss and a Curse. My goal this week is to go through my manuscript one more time and edit and make sentences stronger. I submitted a query to a new agent yesterday. Then I will submit the entire manuscript to an editor I met three years ago at a conference in Boise. She’s seen the manuscript a couple of times and offered advice. Then I’ll resume the rough draft of my end-of-the-world book.