When's a Query Ready?

When is a query ready to submit to literary agents?

I first asked myself this question back in September. I’d taken a class with Writer’s Digest that I was sure had prepared me and my query for agents. I sent the query out. I had some success, but not much. Then, about a month ago, another writer asked to see my query. I handed it over willingly, proud of it, sure that agents weren’t loving my MS because it wasn’t right for them. Turns out, this writer pointed out holes in my query, reasons why the agents might not have wanted to read past it to the pages I submitted in addition to the query.

Okay, so I could handle that. I had another MS prepped, another query written, and I was getting ready to submit it to Pitch Wars. I’d written several versions of this query already, once to send to an agent and once to submit to another writer who does query critiques on her blog, with a few modifications in between. I sent this query to the writer who’d pointed out flaws in the last one. She pointed out flaws in this query, too. I fixed them.

After, I traded queries with several other Pitch Wars people. I made more improvements to my query based on their suggestions. I submitted to Pitch Wars, but didn’t get a mentor. Was the problem my query? Maybe. One mentor gave me excellent suggestions for improvement while another pointed out one huge flaw. I fixed these.

My query hadn’t appeared on the query critique blog that I mentioned, so I forwarded that writer my updated query. I was confident this one was the right one. Well, I was wrong again. With the holidays I haven’t had time to make more corrections, but this writer suggested some good ones. I’ll have to make more corrections.

I’ve also joined a CP group and posted my query to our group email in hopes that these other writers will help me with more suggestions. After that, I’ll make even more corrections. After that, I’ll submit my query and first 250 words to Michelle Hauck and Amy Trueblood’s Sun vs. Snow contest. (If you’re prepping your query, go to their blogs to find out more contest information.) After that, I’m sure I’ll be making more changes.

So…at what point is my query ready to submit to agents? I don’t know. Honestly. If there’s a right answer to this, I’ve never come across it. I’d like to believe at some point I’ll just decide the query’s as ready as I am to be out there in agent slush piles.

You may have clicked here thinking, “Excellent! This chick is going to answer a question I’ve been stuck on forever!” I’m sorry to disappoint you. I wish I could offer you some kind of answer.

You may have clicked here thinking, “Oh! I know the answer! Let’s see if she knows it!” If that’s you, please, please, please comment here and let me know. I’d be forever grateful. Otherwise, I’m going to keep making changes until I can’t make more. At that point, I’ll start sending my query to agents. To paraphrase a character’s thoughts from Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!, the chances of getting an agent go up when you start querying.

To Give It Up

The flavor company for which I work gives everyone in the Flavor Creation & Application division the days between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day off. Some say this is because we have so many international employees that our company is giving them the time to go home to Germany, China, New Zealand, Brazil, or wherever else. Whether this is true isn’t the point. The point is, I’m from the States—my hometown is three and a half hours north of where I currently live, in fact—and have twelve days off.

Last Friday, I would have told you I had great writing plans for these twelve days. My WIP was sitting at 57,000 words and the climax was approaching. My MS needed a POV change and some tweaks based on CP feedback. I also had many pages to read for my critique partners. And, of course, I wanted to write lots of blog entries. Last Friday, I would have told you I would spend these twelve days doing all these writer things.

Truth? I haven’t answered any writer emails in four days. I haven’t done anything CP-wise in five days. I haven’t touched my MS in six days. I haven’t written a word in my WIP in eight days. I haven’t touched my query for my MS in eighteen days.

This isn’t to say I haven’t had free time. Yes, my husband and I traveled a few days to visit family and spent a few other days with family in town—but I still managed to read Lauren Kate’s TEARDROP (in a little over forty-eight hours because it was THAT GOOD) and I’m about a hundred pages into Alison Cherry’s RED. I didn’t take my laptop with me when I traveled, but that doesn’t excuse me from writing. I’ve been known to snatch the nearest receipt, napkin, or stray strip of paper to scrawl down ideas before they run away from me.

So what’s the problem? The problem is that since the end of the summer, I’ve devoted at least some of every day to something related to writing. Then came vacation and Christmas and suddenly I’m out of my writing groove. The reason I’ve been so disciplined since summer is that I have to be to keep myself going—once I stop, it’s hard to start going again. Emails start to pile up, along with days I haven’t written, and I start to imagine all the things wrong with what I’ve written. This in turn leads me to doubt my chances of ever getting published. This in turn decreases my motivation to jump back into any writing thing. This in turn makes me think I should just give it up.

If I gave it up, that would release a lot of stress. I could spend more time with my husband and more time reading. I LOVE to read. I could read forever and be happy—at least that’s what I can convince myself in moments like these. But then I read something amazing, something that makes me laugh or cry or just think, “Holy &%$&, that’s SO GOOD,” and I start to feel it all over again. What’s it? It is that drive, that desperation to write something that touches some reader the way whatever I’ve just read has touched me. This is what makes me feel awful that I’ve neglected writing for so many days. I can’t give it up. I can’t imagine not writing. I can’t imagine not striving to find a book I’ve written on the shelves of the nearest bookstore.

So here’s the thing. I’ve got a few errands to run. When I get back, I’m going to force myself to sit down at my computer. I’m going to answer the emails I’ve neglected. I’m going to see what CP responses I’ve gotten and dive into my MS or query. I’m going to keep going today, tomorrow, and every day it takes to finish this quest. I’m not going to give it up.

Talent & Grit

Though I love to write and I’m working hard to publish my first novel, my day job has little to do with my writing world. Yes, my flavor work has taught me so many ways to describe the taste and smell of things, which in has turn improved my descriptive writing; but overall, writing and flavors don’t often overlap. Then, once in a while, something happens at a flavor meeting that impacts my writing world.

At this point, the flavor meeting I’m writing about was weeks ago. (I meant to blog about it sooner, but contests, etc. got in the way.) We were meeting because we’d won a huge beverage project. The weekend before, the woman leading the meeting had read a newspaper article about talent and grit that she brought it in for us to read. Her point with the article was that we’d had the talent and grit necessary to win this huge project. I don’t know for sure what newspaper the article came from. I can’t tell you for sure what it was really about. I’ve done Google searches, but to be honest, our discussion quickly left the article and moved onto our own examples, both in and out of the flavor world. The focus of our discussion? What does it take to be successful: talent or grit or some of both?

I’ve been thinking about this ever since.

In order to get a book published, I have to have some talent. Talent, for the sake of our flavor meeting discussion, was innate. You had to have been born with a certain level of talent, we said, in order to be successful, no matter what you were doing. I love what I write, which is a start. I’ve received an amazing amount of feedback in the last few weeks that indicates I have some innate talent. Good thing, otherwise this quest would be so much harder. This isn’t to say, as we discussed in our flavor meeting, that you can’t have success without innate talent. Talent can be taught, as I’m learning with all this writing feedback from contests and my critique partners. Still, it makes this whole writing quest a lot easier if you don’t have to learn everything. Talent.

In order to get a book published, I also have to have some grit. For our flavor meeting, we defined grit as putting as much effort into something as you had to in order to get what you wanted out of the experience. This is huge. This is what my last few months have been all about. If I didn’t have grit, if I didn’t have the determination to get a book published, I would have given up after that first day. I’ve sent out queries for FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE and been rejected and rejected and rejected. I’ve gotten partial and full requests for my MS, but didn’t get an agent from those. I’ve entered WORLD’S EDGE into two contests and didn’t get into either. I’ve spent months and hours and hours writing and editing and helping other writers who in turn help me. I’ve rewritten and deleted and kept at it. Neither FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE nor WORLD’S EDGE has gotten an agent, and without an agent, it’s nigh impossible to get a book published. It could take years to finish this quest, but I’m not giving up. Grit.

The point for me? It takes both talent and grit to get a book published. I’ve got the talent, though I’m honing it daily. The talent part is easy (well, you know, as easy as something like this can be). It’s the grit that’s the hard part. I have to keep going no matter how many times things don’t happen or don’t go my way. I have to keep at it, keep at it, keep at it. Publishing a book is a rough business and I’m going to need all the grit I can get to get it done.

POV Pain

A friend and I fought yesterday over which movie to see, The Book Thief or Frozen. There were several levels to our argument, but the one that matters for what I’m writing today goes back to THE BOOK THIEF—the book, not the movie. When I read THE BOOK THIEF a couple of years ago, I loved it. On Goodreads, I gave it four of five possible stars. (This you should know about me: I’m really picky. I rarely rate anything five stars. It takes a damn good book for that, and most books that I’d say are damn good, I still only give four stars.)

One of the main reasons I loved The Book Thief? The narrator of the book is not the MC: the narrator is Death, an outside observer, with a mastery of imagery. I wouldn’t have thought THE BOOK THIEF was as wonderful as I did had it had a different narrator. I didn’t want to see The Book Thief because I was afraid the movie couldn’t live up to anywhere near the book without the narrator and those lovely words.

The narrator, the POV of a book, is very important to me.

Another example is Catching Fire and CATCHING FIRE. Before I saw this second The Hunger Games (THE HUNGER GAMES?) movie, I hadn’t read the books in over three years—I’d bought, read, finished the third book not long after its release. Though I really liked—loved may be taking it a little too far—the third book, I hadn’t liked the second as much. A friend asked if I’d go with her to the movie, so I went (otherwise, I may not have seen it). Truth? I LOVED Catching Fire.

I couldn’t figure out why I’d felt so differently about the book versus the movie. It wasn’t until I (post-Catching Fire) reread the third book that I realized why I loved Catching Fire so much. In the books Suzanne Collins tells the series in present tense through first person POV. While this POV draws in the reader and makes everything feel like it’s happening RIGHT NOW, Katniss can’t know what the other characters are thinking/feeling and therefore can’t convey them to the reader. My favorite things about Catching Fire? Seeing how Peeta and Gale feel about Katniss, seeing the reactions of the other tributes in the arena, seeing what Plutarch and Snow are doing behind the scenes. Katniss in the books just can’t get those across to the reader the way the movie does.

Right, so…why am I going on about POV?

Though I was querying one book, I was entering another into contests. I’d been getting a lot of feedback on the first few pages of my contest MS and most of it was pretty positive. Still, there was some hesitation in what these writers were saying that wasn’t adding up. What was wrong with my first pages? It was sometime after I submitted my materials to Pitch Wars and before Brenda Drake posted the results that I realized one BIG THING that might have been the issue. That BIG THING? I wrote my contest MS in third person. The black beasts stalked her from the shadows instead of The black beasts stalked me from the shadows. This sentence isn’t actually from my MS, but hopefully it gives you an idea of what I realized. I needed my MS to be told in first person. I needed the reader to be closer to my MC.

In theory, it sounds easy enough to change a novel from third to first POV. I sure thought so. Do a mass replacement of she to I. Change her to me. Done in a few minutes. Right? Wrong.

First, lots of girls run through my MS. Not every she is the MC, so every she can’t be changed to I. Also, not every her that refers to the MC can be changed to me; some of them are supposed to be my. (They looked at her compared to They looked at her arms.) Not only that, but I’ve discovered all kinds of them and their that contain my MC and therefore also have to be changed. AND—because those others weren’t enough—when I jumped into my MC’s first person head, more thoughts poured out. Though I’ve cut some words, I’ve added quite a few others. The result is that a project I thought would take a few minutes is taking me hours.

The moral of my little story? Decide your POV before you write the entire novel. It’s hell to change it all after. It’s such hell, in fact, that I’d like to give it up…but I can’t. I want to make my MS better. I want to sign with an agent and get a book deal and see my book on the shelves of bookstores. This quest means I do some tough things, like wade wearily through my MS to make the aforementioned changes. I hope it’ll be worth it. That’s what keeps me going.

Pre-Rejection Rejection

I wanted to write this weeks ago when it happened, but I decided it would be better for the sake of anonymity (for both me and the agent) to wait. I think anonymity is the reason agents are so vague when they tweet their Ten Queries. Now that I’ve experienced it, I’m glad they do it this way.

For those who aren’t writers or aren’t on Twitter, agents occasionally do what they call Ten Queries (or some variation of the name). They grab the slush—query emails sent to them by writers who want an agent—and randomly choose ten queries. They then tweet about these queries: they’ll give the genre of the MS and say within Twitter’s 140 character limit what they think about it. They’ll say PASS if they’re not going to ask for more material from the writer and ACCEPT if they are.

These tweets give me the opportunity to see what agents are looking for and what they don’t like to see in queries. They’ll say they don’t accept an MS in that genre, an automatic PASS. They’ll say the voice or writing is weak, another PASS. They’ll say the writer’s query salutation is impersonal or too personal, which right off is another PASS. They’ll also say they love the characters, the writing is clear, and they can’t wait to read more, an ACCEPT.

One afternoon I was scanning one such agent’s Ten Queries while riding with a friend to a movie. I don’t remember the number of this specific tweet, but the genre caught my eye. The MS I was querying (FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE) was a contemporary YA. The tweet was about a contemporary YA. I was eager to see what this agent thought of the genre. What I didn’t expect was that the tweet would be about me. Of course, the words were general and nothing concrete could tie my MS to this tweet. Still, I knew. This agent was tweeting about my query. The three words that I remember from the tweet? GOOD NOT GREAT.

I know the tweet didn’t prove that this agent was talking about my MS; the proof came soon after in the form of a form rejection email. It said nothing about GOOD NOT GREAT. It said nothing specific aside from my name. Still, I knew. And do you know, it was actually a relief? The agent, without knowing it, had given me specific feedback about my query and MS, even though that feedback had been less than 140 characters. Those that are querying know that specific feedback is a rare thing when an agent’s rejecting you and your work. Those on Twitter know that you can say A LOT in 140 characters. This agent did both.

Now, the question is, did I think this agent was right? Did I think that when the agent said my MS was GOOD NOT GREAT that I should quit querying immediately? In theory, if my writing wasn’t great, its chances of being published were nowhere close to GOOD, let alone GREAT. But of course I didn’t stop. I love that MS. Someone else will love it, too. Every agent is different. Every agent has certain likes and dislikes. This agent wasn’t the right one, but there are hundreds of agents out there. I’ll find the right agent someday.

More Feedback

After a day off yesterday for a haircut, Christmas shopping, and the new Hobbit movie, I have a lot of catching up to do in my writing world. Even without yesterday off, I’d have much to do—which is partly because I received feedback from two more of my Pitch Wars mentors. (If either of you are reading this, THANK YOU! You’re both amazing and I’m so grateful for your feedback.)

One mentor said that she loved my query with one exception—which I fixed a few days ago, before I’d gotten her feedback. We were on the same page here, and I love that. She also mentioned that she likes where the MS starts and the pages are well written. Though my MS wasn’t perfect for her, the right agent will love it. Woohoo!

As for the other mentor, her thoughts were positive, but very honest. Two things stuck with me: one, that my query hinted at horror and that scared her off; two, that I need to do more line editing.

1.       HORROR. So. That. The thing is, I love Stephen King’s novels—except that this statement is way too general. I love Stephen King’s epic novels: THE DARK TOWER series, UNDER THE DOME, 11/22/63, THE STAND. What I don’t love? The horror ones. They freak me out. I haven’t read THE SHINING because I’m afraid I’ll be like Rachel and Joey from Friends and be so scared that I’ll need to hide it in the freezer. This can’t be good, right? Still, I can see how this mentor saw signs of horror in my query. I’m drawn to darkness. I like dark books, dark themes, dark places, so of course my MS is pretty dark. It deals with the fabric of reality and what happens when that starts to break down. It contains black beasts that stalk the MC, who hears haunting whispers and dreams that someone she knows, someone who has disappeared, is being tortured. Dark, right? But horror? (As you’re reading this, I’m sure you’re thinking…so what’s up with the pink flowers? They were my favorite flower from my honeymoon in Hawaii. They remind me that not all is dark. They remind me of beauty and light. That’s why they’re there.)

2.       LINE EDITING. This was my mentor’s way of telling me I need a CP. Guess what? I’ve recruited a few in the past week or so. They haven’t delved deep into my MS yet, but we’re getting to that. I look forward to their suggestions. I look forward to helping them improve their writing and their suggestions helping improve my writing. I love this. Again, this is something I didn’t know existed until I joined the Twitter world. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: I LOVE TWITTER.

Aside from horror and edits, this mentor’s most significant message? RESIST IMPATIENCE TO QUERY. I hear you and I’m listening. I’m going to keep working, starting the moment I’ve posted and promoted this. First on my list is to switch my MS from third person to first person POV. This may enhance the horror because there will be less distance between MC and reader, but overall it’ll be a good change. I’ve already revamped the first chapter because of suggestions from a third mentor (the first to send me feedback) and a couple of fellow writers. Yes, I’ll resist my impatience to query RIGHT NOW, but I’ll be making my MS better and better and better. My husband says I need tea and time, both of which I have. Querying will be there when I’m ready.

Up Next

When I wasn’t selected for Baker’s Dozen, I was upset—very upset. (Don’t believe me? See my Plan A’s Dark Thoughts post.) Yesterday I learned I didn’t get a mentor for Pitch Wars…and I’m not upset. I thought I might be, but I’m actually fine. Sure, there’s a twinge of jealousy when I read the #PitchWars feed now, but I’m already planning my next step.

Part of my acceptance might be the “rejection” email I received from one of my mentors. She was very positive and encouraging. She wrote that I was one of her top picks, but that there was one key element missing from my MS that she wanted in her mentees’ novels.  She liked my query and first pages and encouraged me not to give up.

I’m not giving up. I’d like to know what my other mentors thought of my submission—according to two of them, I will get an email eventually—to see if they agree with my other mentor. It’d be great if they did. Whatever their comments, I’m moving forward.

My first step is going to be a few alterations to my first pages and query. Then, I’m tackling my whole MS: I’m toying with the idea of switching it from third person POV to first person POV. I think it’ll have more power in first person, draw in the reader (agent, etc.) more. As soon as I post this, I’m going to change the POV of my first chapter and ask a few new writer friends (yay Pitch Wars!) what they think.

I’m also going to find another CP by signing up on http://cpseek.com/. A CP, for those of you that aren’t writers, is a critique partner: someone who doesn’t have some kind of personal attachment to me and my feelings, but knows about writing and editing and is willing to read through and give me comments on my MS. It doesn’t hurt to have one more set of eyes look at the MS and make sure it’s as ready as I think it is.

Plus, there’s another query contest in January that I’m going to enter. Sun vs. Snow is hosted by Michelle Hauck and Amy Trueblood. (See http://michelle4laughs.blogspot.com/2013/12/announcing-sun-versus-snow.html or http://chasingthecrazies.wordpress.com/2013/12/09/sun-vs-snow-a-new-query-contest/ for details now or wait a few blog posts and I’ll start talking more about this.) This’ll be my third and final contest.

There’s no rule limiting contests, but after this third one—if I don’t succeed in getting to the agent round/getting an agent—I’m going to query. By that time, I’ll be ready. My MS will be more than ready. And maybe then we’ll find an agent.

All the Learned Things

I started writing in elementary school and have had dreams of being published since about then. I excelled in my high school English classes and wrote my first novel. Admittedly, it wasn’t that good, though I learned much about writing. My second (first? other?) major in college was English and I took whatever creative writing classes I could, learning more and more. After college, I queried the novel I’d written for my senior creative writing seminar—and didn’t get positive responses. I didn’t understand that I hadn’t yet learned enough. I put that novel aside. I put writing aside for years. Then, two years ago, I started writing again. Since, I’ve completed two novels. It wasn’t until this past summer and a random email that I got more serious than I ever have been about publishing.

I’ve learned so much in the months since summer, but these last two weeks with Pitch Wars have taught me even more. I want to share these things with you. Some are serious, some aren’t. Some are about Pitch Wars itself, while others are about my MS. Some I’ve been thinking about for days and others I’ll probably stumble upon while I write this. All of them are important to me and my publishing quest. I may not know the results of Pitch Wars until Wednesday, but all of these learned things have made this contest worth it.

MENTOR/MENTEE TORTURE: Pitch Wars is fun for all of us—mentors and mentees—but it’s also hard on us. On the mentee side, it’s hard to read all the vague mentor tweets about Pitch Wars. I want to know if I’m in or out. I want to know if mentors liked my pitch. I want to know if others like my novel as much as I do. Waiting is torture. And though I can’t speak for the mentors, their tweets say they’re just as tortured by this process. It’s hard to read 100 or so submissions and choose just one (plus two alternates). It’s hard to get your top pick when someone else wants it. It’s hard to reject writers who are good, just not right for you.

WHEN I GROW UP, I WANT TO BE A PITCH WARS MENTOR: Though it’s probably as hard (though differently) on the mentor side, I love everything the mentors are doing for us mentees. Some are giving feedback to all their mentees. Some have said they’ll review the entire MS not just for their first pick, but also for their two alternates. Some are tossing out words of wisdom in hopes that we’ll pick them up and use them to polish our novels and get an agent. I want to help writers the same way these mentors are helping me.

HOW TO WRITE A QUERY: One way mentors have helped me is their advice about query writing (either via tweets or their blogs). A successful query, when pitching the novel, talks about the important character(s), the conflict (what happens), and the stakes (why this is important to the character/world). With their advice, I pitched a strong query for this contest. How strong? I won’t know until at least Wednesday.

PASSIVE VOICE & ZOMBIES: One mentor tweeted that passive voice is bad. I already knew this much. The way to know if you’re using passive voice? If you can add BY ZOMBIES to the end of your sentence. I laughed so hard when I read this mentor’s tweet. I wanted to see just how many passive sentences I could write because I wanted to use as many by zombies as possible. I blame this on my friend who forced me to watch The Walking Dead.

SHE FELT: Holy $%&#! I had no idea how many times I’d used this—and I had no idea how unnecessary it was. It’s one of those Show Not Tell things that teachers were always talking about, though I don’t remember them ever using this specific example. Someone reviewing my pitch prior to the contest’s entry date pointed this out to me. MY FIRST SENTENCE STARTED THIS WAY. I didn’t know. I know now. Yikes. I’ve since done a purge of she felt in my MS.

TREAT EVERY SENTENCE LIKE A TWEET: For those of you who don’t know, each Twitter tweet must be less than or equal to 140 characters. Twitter is unforgiving about this. At some point, someone decided we mentees should start tweeting the cool parts of our novels—whether to pass time or to entertain or to entice agents, I don’t know. Regardless, it was a great game. Each quote could only be 118 characters (140 characters – 10 characters for #PitchWars – 10 characters for #coolparts – 2 characters for spaces between the quote and the hashtages). Each tweet had to be precise and amazing. As I dug through my MS, I found some sentences that I loved but that had a few too many characters—and a few too many words. Goodbye, adjectives and adverbs and irrelevant phrases! Hello, cool tweet! Though of course I don’t have to limit every sentence in my MS to 128 characters, the premise is sound. Cut the fat. KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid.

WRITERS HELPING WRITERS: Before this summer, before that email, before Twitter, I had no idea that I didn’t have to do this alone. I now know what I’ve missed. There’s a huge community of writers out there and all of them want to help all the others become better writers and get their novels published. I can’t say enough how much I love this. I can’t say enough how many great writers—mentors, mentees, observers—I’ve met during this contest. My number of followers has nigh doubled in these two weeks, as has the number of people I’m following. We’re our cheerleaders: cheering each other on and holding up the pyramid.

NEVER GIVE UP. NEVER SURRENDER. Galaxy Quest, anyone? At some point this weekend, I’d given up hope that I’d get a mentor. I didn’t receive page/synopsis requests. I didn’t read any tweets from my mentors that could be hinting at me or my MS. I was sure I was out. Then came yesterday. One of my mentors threw out four separate hints about one of their top picks—and any of those hints could have been about me. ALL OF THEM COULD HAVE BEEN ABOUT ME. The chances that they were about me? Let’s not get into that. The point is, I was sure I’d lost…but now, I’m not so sure. There’s always hope.

FOR THE AGENT, NOT THE WIN. I won’t know until Wednesday if I’ll have a mentor. Even if I don’t have one, I’m good with that. My goal for this contest wasn’t to get a mentor (though of course it would be AWESOME if I did). My goal was to make connections and improve my pitch. My ultimate goal is to publish my book…and the first major step to doing that is getting an agent. If I don’t get a mentor, I’ll take my shiny query to one more contest and see what’s there to learn. After that, I’ll start querying. My novel is good. I just have to write the right query and find the right agent at the right time. I CAN DO THIS. You can, too. Want to join me?

The Flavor Distraction

Anyone need a Pitch Wars distraction? I know I do. All’s still quiet on the mentor front--see my post The Hard Stuff—and as much as I’d like to believe I am, chances are I’m not that entry where the mentor knew without further pages that they wanted my MS. So let’s talk about something else, shall we?

Yesterday one of my followers on Twitter mentioned that she wants Nutella Oreos. I jumped all over that. I work for a major flavor company. I can’t tell you what flavors we make and what companies we work with, but I can tell you that if there ever was a Nutella Oreo or if one is in the works, my coworkers would know about it. So what, exactly, do I do to make money so that I can spend my free time writing? I make flavors. Here’s more:

When I tell people I work as a flavor lab tech, most look confused. I understand where they’re coming from since, before I applied to my current company, I had no idea that the world of flavors and fragrances existed. Sure, I knew things tasted or smelled good, but I’d never given it much thought. So here’s a little insight into a hidden world. I can’t tell you much—I’ve signed a confidentiality agreement—but I can tell you enough.

For starters, when you’re in the grocery store, take a good look at labels. Most of them say your food’s made with natural, natural and artificial, or straight up artificial flavors. You can find this on anything ranging from cake mixes, boxed rice, ice cream, breaded meats, alcohol, to soft drinks. I could list a whole lot more—flavors are everywhere.

What I do is make those flavors. I work primarily with new flavors, making quantities in 2-8 oz that we ship to customers. These customers then put the flavor in their base and, if it works, they can decide to buy the flavor. They can also decide they want the flavor revised – if, for example, the strawberry flavor tastes too unripe – and the flavor comes back to my coworkers and me. I don’t create the flavors. We have specially trained flavorists/chemists for that. I take the flavorist’s formula for the flavor, gather the chemicals together, and add a specific quantity of each chemical to a beaker.

One more thing you should know about flavors: they’re used at pretty small quantities—0.1-1.0%, depending on the base. This means that flavors are very concentrated. So when I’m making a flavor in my beaker, sometimes the smell is pretty strong. When I’m making something like mango or chocolate, it’s not a big deal. But when I’m making a taco or fish flavor, the flavor stinks and I stink. Some flavors dissipate quickly. Others—like those fish flavors—linger. There’s a specific chemical in fish flavors that smells just like a fish market or an open air aquarium. I don’t find it pleasant and it lingers like crazy. Some days, I have to shower as soon as I come home. Some mornings, I get it my car and find the smell of whatever flavor I made the day before.

Though my company in Cincinnati doesn’t work much with fragrances, the idea is pretty much the same. The same general chemicals go into candles, laundry detergent, lip balms, etc. I pay more attention to fragrances and flavors than I ever did before. It’s fascinating. Try putting different brands of strawberry yogurt next to each other and then taste and smell each one. Differences are there, sometimes huge differences.

The best part? All of this helps me be a better writer. I get exposed to a lot of vocabulary about the way things taste and smell. I can tell you that no two strawberries taste alike and there are about a hundred words to describe the differences. I won’t list them here, but I toss them in my writing when I get a chance. I paint better word pictures because I work with flavors. But we’re not going to talk about my writing today, right? Today, let’s focus on pretty word pictures instead of Pitch Wars, shall we? K, thanks (:

The Hard Stuff

I thought losing Baker’s Dozen was tough. (Don’t believe me? See my Plan A’s Dark Thoughts post.) I told myself that Pitch Wars would be easier. After all, getting a Pitch Wars mentor wasn’t really important as long as I improved my pitch. I must be a damn good liar because I convinced even myself that was true.  

There are big differences between Baker’s Dozen and Pitch Wars. For Baker’s Dozen you submit a logline and the first 250 words, which isn’t what you’d send to query an agent; for Pitch Wars you submit a query and the first five pages, which is exactly what you’d send to an agent. For Baker’s Dozen you submit your materials and wait three weeks in relative silence for the results; for Pitch Wars you submit your materials and spend a week reading the #PitchWars feed on Twitter. This feed, it’s torture.

The mentors talk about how they love everyone’s work, but can only choose one. They say they’d read any number of these books if they were published. They say it’s killing them to reject all but one person. I believe these are true, but that doesn’t make me feel any better. It makes it harder.

Remember how I blogged that Pitch Wars odds were incalculable? Not so, based on the tweets I’ve read this week. For example, one of my mentors tweeted that she received around 90 submissions. I have a 1/90 chance of having her as my mentor. That’s a 1.11% chance. Compare that to the Baker’s Dozen odds of 11.67%. Bleak, right? And that’s just one of my four mentors. For all I know, the other three have more submissions and my chances are even lower. Not that I expect to get a mentor—there are too many talented writers out there who don’t have agents.

Still, I’d like to know if my query and MS are any good. There are tons of mentor tweets running around about the awesome submissions they’re reading. So how do I know my book is one they consider to be good? I don’t—not unless the mentors email me asking for additional pages. Many of them have emailed mentees for these (and sometimes a synopsis). How do I know? That damn #PitchWars feed. Mentors have tweeted that they’ve done this. Mentees have tweeted that they’ve gotten these requests. I haven’t received an email. This doesn’t mean I won’t get one: the Pitch Wars winners aren’t announced until Monday, so there’s still plenty of time for mentors to read and want more of my stuff. Plus, the mentors I submitted to (or three of the four anyway) have been relatively silent. If they’re reading and requesting more, they aren’t really saying so.

Another way to know if my entry is good? Many of the mentors say they’ll send feedback to every mentee. This scares me. Of course I want to know…but do I really want to know? What if they tell me that my stuff is horrible? They may say, “Yeah, this is good, but not that good.” Not that they’d say that—the mentors seem like great people. (In fact, they’re so entertaining that Twitter will be boring when the contest is over.) It’s hard to wait this week—all the while reading tweets about the good stuff—to find out what the mentors think, especially since all four mentors I submitted to said they’re interested in YA sci-fi. What happens if not one of them likes what I’ve written? Bad sign. Bad, bad sign. If not one in four of the average YA sci-fi readers would like what I’ve written, that doesn’t bode well for my publishing prospects. But I want to know anyway. I want the mentors to be honest with me. If you’re a mentor and you’re reading this and you’re going to give feedback to all, please be honest. That’s what I want, right? Uh…right.

Yet, waiting for results—waiting to know if my query and MS are any good—isn’t the hardest part of this contest. The hardest part is that I’ve made Twitter/writer friends. I’ve helped people with their queries and pages…and now I’m reading about their success. They’ve gotten requests for more pages. Mentors are interested in what they’ve written. Of course I’m happy for them—it’s awesome that they’re having success in this contest. They may even snag a mentor. But me? I’m still here, same as I was before. No requests. No validation that my words are worth anything. Others are getting what they want—what I want—and I’m not. That’s the hard stuff.  Again, I’m not saying this won’t happen for me. It might.

Whatever happens, I need to keep perspective here. I know this. I need to remember that my goal for this contest was to improve my pitch so that when I send it to agents, I get a positive response. I need to remember that I have to ride out this hard stuff to get there. I need to remember that these contests aren’t all there is. Winning a contest isn’t my dream. Publishing my book is.

Pitch Wars Mentee Bio

PICK ME! PICK ME! PICK ME!

 

My family and friends are going to think I’m crazy—which I kind of might be—but for those of you participating in #PitchWars, you’ll understand.

If you aren’t participating in Pitch Wars, check out my The Incalculable Odds of Pitch Wars post from November 25th for contest information and a link to the awesome Brenda Drake’s blog. If you want to know more about these mentee bios, go to the amazing Dannie Morin’s blog here:

http://dcmorin.blogspot.com/2013/12/pitchwars-mentee-contender-bio-blog-hop.html

And now, without further ado, the eleven reasons you #PitchWars mentors want me as your mentee:

(please note these are in no particular order)

·        I’ve been a writer since elementary school and I’ve been playing the query game for years. I WANT THIS BAD. I’d do ANYTHING to get my book published. Well, maybe not anything, but I’m willing to work as hard as it takes for as long as it takes to make this happen.

·        I LOVE CAKE. That’s right—cake. Like getting published, I’d do just about anything for cake. My husband says I make good cupcakes and I promise I’LL MAKE YOU CUPCAKES IF YOU PICK ME.

·         I'm a grammar freak. Seriously: why can’t people use I and me correctly? It’s subject vs. object of the sentence or, simply, it’s whichever one you’d use if you didn’t have all those other people hanging around the sentence.

·        I’m trained in the sciences, so when I write science fiction, I know what I’m writing. I got a 5 on my AP Bio test in high school. I majored in biology and chemistry (as well as English) in college. I worked for three years processing umbilical cord blood to preserve the stem cells, which could then be used to cure some kinds of cancer in children. I now work in the flavor industry making all the flavors that make all your food super yummy.

·        I can’t get enough of Shakespeare or Stephen King. I know—as a YA writer I should list YA authors here—but my heart’s belonged to Shakespeare and King for many more years. Some of my favorite YA books? BEFORE I FALL by Lauren Oliver; FIRE WITH FIRE by Siobhan Vivian & Jenny Han; 17 & GONE by Nova Ren Suma; STOLEN by Lucy Christopher; THE MADNESS UNDERNEATH by Maureen Johnson; DAUGHTER OF SMOKE & BONE by Laini Taylor; OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF TIME by Ally Carter; CODE NAME VERITY by Elizabeth Wein; THE 5TH WAVE by Rick Yancey; WHEN IT HAPPENS by Susane Colasanti; CLOCKWORK PRINCESS by Cassandra Clare (Check me out on Goodreads for more.)

·        I hated chocolate as a kid. The feeling was mutual. We have since reconciled and my favorite chocolates can be found here: http://www.debrand.com/

·        When I go shopping, I reject those plastic bags people are always trying to give me. Do I really need a bag? No. Do I really need to pollute the environment any more if I can help it? No. I try to be green. I think everyone should care about preserving our planet.

·        I’m obsessed with these TV shows: The Vampire Diaries, Firefly, Fringe, Veronica Mars, The Big Bang Theory, Elementary, The Blacklist, Dollhouse, Chuck, Alias, Friends. It doesn’t matter to me that some of these aren’t on TV anymore. I have the DVD’s—and I’ll let you borrow them to convince you just how great they are.

·        I don’t like even numbers. When I change the volume on the TV or my stereo, the number has to be odd. I eat an odd number of chocolates, cupcakes, or whatever else. And what’s even better than odd numbers? Prime numbers. I love prime numbers. How many reasons here? Eleven. How many TV shows did I list? Eleven. How many books? Eleven. Remember how I said I might be crazy?

·        I lived in Paris for four months. During that time, I visited Dublin and had my passport stolen on Grafton Street. I couldn’t return to Paris until I got an emergency passport. Need to know how to get an emergency passport? I’M YOUR GIRL.

·        I have no pets. That’s right. You’ll see no pictures of my dog or cat here because my husband is allergic to both. But I love dogs—I grew up with them and visit my nearby family, as well as their Papillon and Beagle/Italian Greyhound, whenever possible. I also helped find a stray kitten a home a couple of months ago. She was adorable and I would have kept her if I could have.

A Query Secret

Can I tell you a secret? Yes, once I tell you it isn’t a secret anymore. Still, I want to share. I’m doing my best to be honest here, telling you anything and everything about this quest of mine. I like to share in this semi-anonymous fashion. (I know you all know my name, but how many of you know me outside the virtual world?) Maybe this honesty will help some other writer out there. They won’t have to spend months—years even— learning all these things I’ve been learning.  Take this last week.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Pitch Wars, it’s the basics of a query. What is the key to success in a query (aside from having a kickass book and some kickass writing)? What do you have to have to get the attention of agents?

Character + Conflict + Stakes = Query

With the help of several great people, I think I’ve nailed this for my WORLD’S EDGE query, which I’m emailing for part of my Pitch Wars submission tomorrow. I’m not saying there isn’t room for improvement in my query. I’m just saying I’ve got those three necessary components. It probably won’t be perfect and the chances of me and WORLD’S EDGE getting a mentor are so slim, but I’m still hoping.

If there’s one thing the above query equation has taught me, it’s what my FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE query lacks. And what does it lack? Well…maybe two thirds of that equation. Oops. One writer has really helped me to see this. Her questions have pushed me to analyze not just the query for FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE, but also the MS itself. Conflict and stakes are there…just a little hidden. That’s why my FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE query hasn’t gotten much attention despite all these weeks of querying.

To be clear, I’m not saying FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE is bad. I still love it—though I granted have a pretty personal attachment to it. But at least the query could use some work. Probably the MS, too. And what does that mean?

Here’s that secret I mentioned: I didn’t send queries for FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE yesterday. I started sending queries that first weekend of September and I’ve done it EVERY WEEKEND SINCE. Every weekend. It felt weird not doing it yesterday, but like I said, I think the query (minimum) needs some work. Plus, it’s the holidays now and many agents are closing to queries anyway. That’s not to say that one of the agents I’ve already queried won’t email me tomorrow asking to see pages. They might. I’ve had a partial and a full request, after all, so I’m doing something right…right?

Still, here it is: that FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE break I saw coming is here. It happened without me realizing it. I’m going to put FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE aside for a little while. I’m going to shift my focus to WORLD’S EDGE. I’m going to keep my quest going, just with a different MS. I’ll go back to FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE when I have spare moments. I’ll perfect that query and make some MS changes. If things don’t work out for WORLD’S EDGE, I’ll have a backup plan.

But tomorrow belongs to WORLD’S EDGE and Pitch Wars.