Happy new year!
Jan. 1st, 2024 12:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainwatersparkHappy 2024!
I've just spent the last 10 days in a writing cave, working feverishly on Novel #5. I'm now at 100k out of 120k words, and I think I can finish drafting the book by the end of MLK Day. Then, of course, I'll need to edit and get feedback from my critique partners to make this book the strongest it can be before I can jump back into the query trenches. (Hopefully, the first half of my book is polished enough and I don't need to edit it much, focusing mostly on the second half.) As long as I don't need to do any major rewrites, I think I may be able to query agents in March???
I'm happy with my progress, though I'm also feeling pretty exhausted after drafting 40k words in 10 days. I've learned that I can draft for 4 or 5 days in a row before I start feeling the mental strain of fatigue (I did take a break last Wednesday to slow down and do some editing rather than drafting). I definitely wouldn't have pushed myself this hard if I wasn't trying to get back into the query trenches ASAP; the last time I spent Christmas break drafting, I only wrote about 9k words over the break.
It's interesting. 120k is my maximum wordcount target for this book due to the conventions of the publishing industry, but the book definitely could be longer. It's structured a bit like an anime and it was inspired by Journey to the West, a fantasy adventure epic, so there are more subplots I could add. But I'm trying to keep it lean for the sake of keeping the pacing tight and to avoid giving agents/editors a reason to pass due to the wordcount. (My brain also got tired and ran out of ideas for more fight scenes, haha.)
I still think about my former agent sometimes, and one of the things that hurt me the most from our relationship was when she told me that, instead of trying to see if UK publishers would be interested in Novel #4, it was a *better use of my time* to write a new book and go on submission with that. It's still unbelievable to me that an agent would dictate to their client what they should think the best use of their time is and not understand how condescending that attitude is. At the very least, shouldn't an agent ask how their client felt about that? Like "would you rather continue pursuing publication for this book or, since you're working on something new, would you prefer to focus on that? Let's talk through the pros/cons of each choice"???
I am literally the one doing all the work (especially since I also had to come up with all the pitching and submission strategy for my books!!); I am the one juggling writing books with a day job (since my agent worked as an agent full-time), and I am the one who understands my own writing process, how much time it takes, and the toll it takes on my energy when I decide to write a new novel. Not to mention, my agent can never guarantee that she could sell a new novel I wrote, either!!
It's unbelievable to me, because she always said the right things; she always thanked me for my hard work whenever I turned in a new book or a round of edits to her, seeming to acknowledge my labor. But then she turned around and acted like I should be a book factory who can just crank out books for years with no compensation until I produced one that she could sell in a big deal. I could never work with an agent who took such a cavalier view of my labor. And that was absolutely incompatible for my own vision for my career, which was to grow my career with a publisher who was as invested in my passion projects as I was, even if I have to start small. To get my foot in the door, because even though publishing is unpredictable and doesn't come with any guarantees, it still seems easier to sell a second book once you already have a book published. Plus, you can't build a fanbase if no one can ever read your work.
And, yeah, like I mentioned before, realizing the disconnect between (some of) her words and her actions has definitely left me with deep trust issues and made me wonder what else she lied to me about over the course of our relationship. Like whether she actually did much work to identify the best editors, or whether she even cared about my books. Especially since she had a history of not engaging with me when I had industry questions.
Look, I'm a logical person, and if you show me facts that prove me wrong, then I will change my mind. What drives me absolutely nuts is if I present facts and ask you to explain why those facts are different from what you told me, and you either ignore me or tell me I should *just trust your experience*. That just makes me mad, as well as paranoid that you are either purposefully misleading me or that you're not competent at your job. We can debate whether or not a book is marketable or well-written. We can't debate about the publicly reported size of deals made by publishers or whether or not publishers have distribution in the US.
The way she communicated with me was just baffling. I still don't understand why she felt that the appropriate response to me saying "You seem to be very opposed to UK submission, so I'll let it go, but I want to understand why you're so opposed to it?" was to say for the fourth time that she thought UK submission was a bad idea but we could still do it if I wanted. And then when I said I felt like I was being strung along, her response was to deny it and said we could still do UK submission if I wanted. No attempt to explain herself. No acknowledgement whatsoever that a reasonable person, after being asked *3 times* to confirm that they wanted to do something, may become suspicious when told "I need you to confirm one more time that you want to do this, but I'll still do it if you want to." Like, you're going to have to at least explain your motivations for why you've been acting that way if you expect me to believe you.
Thinking back, there were other times I could have been more direct and pushed her earlier in our relationship, but I always held back out of politeness and fear of sounding like a nag. If I had been more direct then, maybe I could have realized the problems with her sooner, because that's how the house of cards finally came crumbling down when I pressed her on her reasons for not wanting to sub my book to the UK. And I guess that's a lesson I should take going forward into a new agent relationship—not to be afraid of being direct and asking my agent to explain themselves. Because if they can't or won't, that's a major red flag.
I know I'm just ranting about my ex-agent again. Here's to hoping I can find a true advocate in 2024.
I've just spent the last 10 days in a writing cave, working feverishly on Novel #5. I'm now at 100k out of 120k words, and I think I can finish drafting the book by the end of MLK Day. Then, of course, I'll need to edit and get feedback from my critique partners to make this book the strongest it can be before I can jump back into the query trenches. (Hopefully, the first half of my book is polished enough and I don't need to edit it much, focusing mostly on the second half.) As long as I don't need to do any major rewrites, I think I may be able to query agents in March???
I'm happy with my progress, though I'm also feeling pretty exhausted after drafting 40k words in 10 days. I've learned that I can draft for 4 or 5 days in a row before I start feeling the mental strain of fatigue (I did take a break last Wednesday to slow down and do some editing rather than drafting). I definitely wouldn't have pushed myself this hard if I wasn't trying to get back into the query trenches ASAP; the last time I spent Christmas break drafting, I only wrote about 9k words over the break.
It's interesting. 120k is my maximum wordcount target for this book due to the conventions of the publishing industry, but the book definitely could be longer. It's structured a bit like an anime and it was inspired by Journey to the West, a fantasy adventure epic, so there are more subplots I could add. But I'm trying to keep it lean for the sake of keeping the pacing tight and to avoid giving agents/editors a reason to pass due to the wordcount. (My brain also got tired and ran out of ideas for more fight scenes, haha.)
I still think about my former agent sometimes, and one of the things that hurt me the most from our relationship was when she told me that, instead of trying to see if UK publishers would be interested in Novel #4, it was a *better use of my time* to write a new book and go on submission with that. It's still unbelievable to me that an agent would dictate to their client what they should think the best use of their time is and not understand how condescending that attitude is. At the very least, shouldn't an agent ask how their client felt about that? Like "would you rather continue pursuing publication for this book or, since you're working on something new, would you prefer to focus on that? Let's talk through the pros/cons of each choice"???
I am literally the one doing all the work (especially since I also had to come up with all the pitching and submission strategy for my books!!); I am the one juggling writing books with a day job (since my agent worked as an agent full-time), and I am the one who understands my own writing process, how much time it takes, and the toll it takes on my energy when I decide to write a new novel. Not to mention, my agent can never guarantee that she could sell a new novel I wrote, either!!
It's unbelievable to me, because she always said the right things; she always thanked me for my hard work whenever I turned in a new book or a round of edits to her, seeming to acknowledge my labor. But then she turned around and acted like I should be a book factory who can just crank out books for years with no compensation until I produced one that she could sell in a big deal. I could never work with an agent who took such a cavalier view of my labor. And that was absolutely incompatible for my own vision for my career, which was to grow my career with a publisher who was as invested in my passion projects as I was, even if I have to start small. To get my foot in the door, because even though publishing is unpredictable and doesn't come with any guarantees, it still seems easier to sell a second book once you already have a book published. Plus, you can't build a fanbase if no one can ever read your work.
And, yeah, like I mentioned before, realizing the disconnect between (some of) her words and her actions has definitely left me with deep trust issues and made me wonder what else she lied to me about over the course of our relationship. Like whether she actually did much work to identify the best editors, or whether she even cared about my books. Especially since she had a history of not engaging with me when I had industry questions.
Look, I'm a logical person, and if you show me facts that prove me wrong, then I will change my mind. What drives me absolutely nuts is if I present facts and ask you to explain why those facts are different from what you told me, and you either ignore me or tell me I should *just trust your experience*. That just makes me mad, as well as paranoid that you are either purposefully misleading me or that you're not competent at your job. We can debate whether or not a book is marketable or well-written. We can't debate about the publicly reported size of deals made by publishers or whether or not publishers have distribution in the US.
The way she communicated with me was just baffling. I still don't understand why she felt that the appropriate response to me saying "You seem to be very opposed to UK submission, so I'll let it go, but I want to understand why you're so opposed to it?" was to say for the fourth time that she thought UK submission was a bad idea but we could still do it if I wanted. And then when I said I felt like I was being strung along, her response was to deny it and said we could still do UK submission if I wanted. No attempt to explain herself. No acknowledgement whatsoever that a reasonable person, after being asked *3 times* to confirm that they wanted to do something, may become suspicious when told "I need you to confirm one more time that you want to do this, but I'll still do it if you want to." Like, you're going to have to at least explain your motivations for why you've been acting that way if you expect me to believe you.
Thinking back, there were other times I could have been more direct and pushed her earlier in our relationship, but I always held back out of politeness and fear of sounding like a nag. If I had been more direct then, maybe I could have realized the problems with her sooner, because that's how the house of cards finally came crumbling down when I pressed her on her reasons for not wanting to sub my book to the UK. And I guess that's a lesson I should take going forward into a new agent relationship—not to be afraid of being direct and asking my agent to explain themselves. Because if they can't or won't, that's a major red flag.
I know I'm just ranting about my ex-agent again. Here's to hoping I can find a true advocate in 2024.
