I’m a list-maker, a habit that probably stems from my teaching days. As my daily checklists have morphed into weekly to-do’s, one characteristic remains the same: they are often insurmountable. How’s this one?
- Get editor/agent Andy R. to sign off on query letter and manuscript’s first page.
- Identify agents representing paranormal fiction, Southern Gothic, and magical realism.
- Vet them on Publishers Marketplace and Query Shark. Stalk their blogs.
- Create a spreadsheet with their submission guidelines.
- Breathe. Exhale. Repeat.
Yes, it’s taken me more than a month of Mondays to package and format my pitch, bio, and comps (comparable titles) into less than 400 words, otherwise known as a query letter. It’s polished, edited, and ready to be e-mailed to three tiers of agents: A group, dream agents; B group, okay agents, and C group, last resort agents. I’ll start at the bottom and work my way up, so I can tweak any missteps.
I’m following the playbook since there’s no reason to question the authenticity of advice I’ve received. Agent hunting is a process that cannot be rushed. It requires patience and perseverance. It may take two weeks or two months to get a response. Or even longer. Meanwhile, I write each day.
During an editor/agent consult earlier this week, Andy R. suggested I revisit Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott’s book on writing instruction. And life.
Bird by Bird is a veritable treasure trove. Its title was inspired by the procrastination of an older brother who’d put off completing a science paper. About birds. Lamott’s dad stepped in and offered a suggestion that saved his son’s project and later inspired his daughter’s book title. Just divide it into manageable bits. Piece by piece.
This is reassuring advice for writing a novel and even better advice for seeking its representation. Bird by bird, agent by agent, e-mail by e-mail.
Wisdom breathes within Bird by Bird where Lamott cuts straight to the core. Her advice? If you aren’t true to yourself, your writing never takes flight. Plotlines don’t move, characters remain listless, and readers disengage.
“Good writing is about telling the truth,” she writes. “An author makes you notice, makes you pay attention.” Don’t be afraid to unveil your characters’ truths: their motivations, foibles, fears, and the risks they’re willing to take to get what they want. By the way, what do they want? Likewise, dialogue needs to ring true. Or the reader, god forbid, fails to turn the page.
So, here’s where it gets tricky. Crafting truthful characters begins with culling out the truth of you. Ouch. That means going deep to excavate memories and identifying what remains troubling or unresolved. Bringing up the stuff that’s been shoved so deep you might not recognize it’s still there. When you face memories, both good and bad, and write about them, it helps hurdle you over the wall that often stalls your writing. These unleashed emotional responses may become the genesis of your characters’ fibers.
To that end, I’ve joined Leslie Leyland Field’s Your Story Matters, a nine-week writing adventure. It’s a class that encourages writers to recapture memories and observe them from a refreshed perspective. Then, revest them. By the course’s end, I’ll have a collection of short stories inspired by my life and maybe the startup of a memoir to share with family members.
Either way, I’m excited to keep my writing energy fresh. Designed to get at the truth of, well, me. As editor/agent Andy R. said before signing off our call, “Keep writing. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. ‘Ya gotta do the work. I can’t do it for you.”
