The Waiting Game

Well I continue to wait and hope that some agent will think The Peacock's Tale is a viable piece that can be presented to editors for publication. The waiting is getting to me. In my head I know these poor agents receive hundreds of queries, I just can only hope my colorful peacock hits a chord with one of them.

In the meantime I am reading and reading and reading all sorts of things. I find that I do like getting new books on my Kindle and am even thinking about e-book publication which may be the route for me. But for now I am still hanging in there with more queries. I currently have 9 viable queries still out there. This weekend I may gather up some further possibilities and see about putting out some further queries. I really have nothing to lose at this point so why not?

Looking For More Agents to Query

I think I have sent out a total of ten queries and have had 5 rejections, however the  time limit for actual responses are slowly running out. Some say wait six weeks and others say 8. So I am gathering up a second round of agents to query -- some are new agents and others are ones I skipped over last time because I didn't have a long synopsis, but I have done that now, so I can go back and try another round of agents!

I certainly have plenty of options still so I will keep up the process for awhile and see what happens. Wish me luck! The Peacock still lives!

No News is Good News?

So the count now is 3 rejections and 6 queries still out there in Cyber space. I am taking the time now to catch up on reading and doing some research for a possible new idea to write about! Things are 'fermenting' about in my mind for sure!

It seems that real life certainly gets in the way a lot! Home owner activities - not only my house - but the small HOA that I work as the Secretary-Treasurer seems to take up lots of my time right now. I am hoping that we will get things on the right track soon so I will have more time for writing!

Everyone take care and drop me a line with your thoughts about this blog!

 

First Rejection!

Yes, well, it had to happen right? I mean THE PEACOCK"S TALE can't be everyone's cup of tea? Right? But now that is over with, we move on to the next response... I did get one other response which was a "We got your query - we'll get back to you" response which is better than the "No, not my thing response." I'll keep you all informed! Thanks for all your support! It does make it lots more easy when others are invested in the progress of my book!

The Baby (Peacock) is out in the World

Weird I know, but true. I have sent out to several agents, queries for The Peacock's Tale. This is exciting stuff  -- like sending off your little kid to the first day of school! Now you no longer can watch over the story; it's out there on someone's computer screen waiting with its little hand  ... er ... tail feather sticking up in the air, waving, and saying, "Me, me, me! Pick me!"  Keep your fingers crossed - someone calls on my Peacock!

Continuing Progess to Report

Oh my! It's been a while since I have posted here, but fear not! I have been very busy in working on and for the book. I completed a third draft and feel pretty comfortable that all it needs now is some editing. On to the query letter! That's where you try and sell the idea to an agent in a one page format! This has been a challenge but with some help from some friends I think it's beginning to shape up.

This whole process of book writing and then attempting to get it to the publishing stage is much more persistence than anything else. Some days I can't even face looking at this stuff and other days I wake up full of ideas and ready to roll! There was a day a week or so ago when I was beginning to hate the Tale! Now that I have gotten past the hump of trying to write the query letter, things have settled down again. I just have been making myself deal with each challenge as it comes up.

Speaking of which, I find I am enjoying trying to pick a likely agent/agency to query. I have gone through the entire 2012 Guide to Literary Agents and marked possible agencies. Now I have started a spread sheet to ferret out within the possible agency, who might be the agent to query and what is the criteria for querying that agent.  It's sort of fun going on the agency's web site and seeing what they offer and which authors they represent. Most of the web sites give a little bio on the agent so I make sure to read those to see if anyone happened to go to Rollins College or Indiana University or had any other possible tie in with the book. One agent was into college level rowing ... I wondered if that might be something that she would click with the story even though it's only a small mention in the Tale. Of course just querying an agent doesn't mean they will be interested in your story ...

Stayed tuned all to see how many agents I pick to send off my terrific query letter!

Second Draft

I completed the second draft  of the Peacocks Tale last night. I am now in the waiting mode so that I can get some distance from the manuscript before I take a last look at it. I really want to get the process of querying agents on the road, but I think that the manuscript needs to be tip top before I do that. I listened to feedback from first draft readers and changed parts of the story - not a great amount, but enough to sort of make it clearer what my intent for the characters were. It was good to do that second draft, as it was important to clean up the mistakes in the manuscript plus add to the manuscript to make (hopefully) a better story. I'll tell you what I think of the completed story later this week!