Inspirational Advice and Perspective from Kevin Hearne

I read through Hearne's interview with ThriveWire.com (thrivewire.com/stories/heir-to-the-jedi-author-kevin-hearne-recounts-his-long-journey-to-success) and found a few nuggets of widsom and inspiration. Kevin Hearne is the author of a series of urban fantasy novel, The Iron Druid Chronicles.

• 6 years to write his first novel, while working day jobs, but it was never published
• The next novel took 3 years to write

“I wrote better and faster the next time, because once you complete a novel you know what it takes to do it again. There’s a confidence there that didn’t exist before,” he says. “It’s not a profession of instant success. Authors who are perceived as instant successes often work a very long time before getting to the market.”

After an unsuccessful round of query letters, he revised and edits and finally got an agent. His first novel, Hounded, was finally published after 19 years of work!

Lots of good stuff in Kevin's words. There's a lot of hard work before that success, so don't give up. Keep at it and you'll get there. It's about developing that confidence and the writing skills.

The Roller Coaster Ride That Is #PitchMadness

Over a week ago I threw my novel, Spirit Quest, into the #PitchMadness hat. On the weekend, I was thrilled to learn that it had made the final 70 or so pitches out of the over 900 submitted.

Today was the big day where the participating agents placed bids on the pitches they liked.After a grueling hour-long plus process, I learned that my pitch didn't receive any requests.  Like the post's title state, it was a roller coaster ride. From the high on Sunday, to today's crazy level of anticipation and stunned disappointment.

I'm pushed aside my bruised ego and want to congratulate all those who did receive requests. You guys rock!

Now, to focus on the positives:

• My novel pitch had roughly a 7% of being picked and it was
• My novel pitch being selected gives me confidence that my idea is marketable
• Perhaps the participating agents weren't a good match for my story
• Made several new twitter friends
• Got some leads on some other agents

 The bottom line of this whole experience is that I know what I've got and I'm going to keep querying!

Agent Hunt - Update #2

It's closing in on 3 weeks since I sent out the first wave of query letters for my novel Spirit Quest. I've received another rejection over the past week. It was a form letter response.

I'm trying to focus on other projects. It's proving rather difficult. Each time I hit a milestone, it seems that the next goal is quite far off. Looking back, when I completed my first draft, I had no idea how much work would be involved in the second and third drafts. Now that I'm on my last pass (recovering comments from a few Alpha readers), I have to avoid having my doubts creep in and stall the momentum I've built up so far. I'm not sure what I expected in terms of the first wave. But, coming off the high of having written the book, I felt like it was going well. I still have 6 outstanding responses, so I'll remain positive and patient.

Reading about how many rejections to expect, I came across the following which made me smile: "Don't give up until you've queried 80 agents or more".

And here's another great article on the query letter process and revision:
johngilstrap.com/essayqueryletter.html

An update on my agent hunt

I sent out 8 agent query letters on January 9th. I received on rejection and submitted to another agent, who in turn, rejected me as well. Both of these rejections were based just on the query letter. So I'm remaining positive for the other 7 query letters as they all include chapter samples. I can console myself in that the two rejections had nothing to do with my actual writing.

I'm resisting the temptation to spend any time tweaking the query letter. I compare my novel, Spirit Quest, to Jim Butcher's Dresden Files and Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid Chronicles. They're both urban fantasy series that are very similar, although I feel that my story and hopefully series will be a bit more rural fantasy.

At first I had compared my story to F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack as my protagonist would be going around and helping people with his spirit magic. Although we both wrote our stories in the 3rd person point-of-view, Spirit Quest, is also a kind of coming of age novel. That 3rd person point-of-view was important, especially with my strong supporting cast. Tara could easily be the story's co-protagonist, but I'm saving that for the sequel.

And They're Off... Query Letters to Agents

It took a bit longer than I expected to prepare query letters as several agencies had different submission requirements. When you're ready to send out author query letters, take the time to closely read their submission guidelines. For example, most asked for a 5 page sample, but one asked for a 4 page sample, and another a 10 page sample. Some also asked for a synopsis of the novel and even that request had a variety of lengths (from 3-5 paragraphs to 1-2 pages). Cutting and pasting your novel sample is relatively simple compared to the synopsis.

The synopsis itself is an art form. Hopefully you have the basic idea of your novel distilled down to a single sentence. When I started to write my synopsis, I had about 1,200 words. Then I keep chipping away at it until it was down to 900 words. So with this first round of agent queries, I ended up having to continue distilling that down to just over 250 words. It's a great exercise to sharpen the focus of your novel and see what key story items and themes make the cut.

With my first round of author queries, I sent off eight of them to different agencies whose response time varied from 8-10 days to 12 weeks. I expect that there's probably a significant queue already in their inboxes and that I'll just have to be patient and wait. All that work and momentum around starting to feel like a real writer and now I have to wait. I guess that's part of being a real writer.

Of course, I won't be sitting around and waiting. I'll be polishing the handful of little items remaining for my manuscript. I'll also be working on the synopsis of the next two novels. More than enough to keep me busy!

A Hunting I Will Go ... For An Agent

The hunt begins this week for an agent for my novel, SPIRIT QUEST. I'll probably wait until mid-January to query potential agents as they'll just be getting back into the office. Meanwhile, as I've done a bit of research and reading on the subject, I thought I'd share my step-by-step guide that I hope to try out shortly!

1. Get your manuscript done.
2. Have another read of it.
3. Search Google for the agents of your favorite writers in the genre you're interested in. Pick five agents. Do a bit more genre-related Google searches to find other agent suggestions.
4. Review their guidelines. Make sure they're open and they're interested in what you've got.
5. Do a Google search on those agents, read about them from their twitter feed, guest blog posts, or their own blog posts. Make sure they're a good fit for you. Keep an eye for other agents on those blogs.
6. Most agents are okay with you submitting to multiple agents, just not within the same agency. 
7. Review their submission guidelines again and make sure you follow them. There's really no worse impression than submitting your novel and not following their guidelines.
8. Submit.
9. Be patient. Don't follow up with them a day or two after their response time estimate.
10. Be prepared for rejection.
11. If rejected, go back to Step 3.
12. Do the happy dance!

 Disclaimer - The guide is by no means perfect and is no guarantee of success. It's just a fun way to present what I've learned. Feel free to post comments and make suggestions.

Here's a great website/blog I came across: quick-brown-fox-canada.blogspot.ca/search/label/*%20Literary%20agents

Kicking off my 2nd editing/revision pass

Completing my second draft felt really good. I know the back end is weaker and that I'll have to spend a bit more time on it. My goal is to have the 391 page manuscript polished off by the end of the year. So, with roughly 111 days left in the year, I'm going to have to fix about 3.5 pages per day to reach that goal. Ouch. But, there are parts of the book that I feel really good about and those won't need as much work.

I've also received my editing summary for the first 100 pages and there's a lot to digest. Lots of ideas and focal points that need to be sharpened and decisions that need to be made. 

In addition to that edit, I think that I need to do my own read through of the manuscript and jot down notes as to what needs to be fixed/upgraded.

As for the hunt for an agent, I'm putting that on hold for a few months. The revise and resubmit isn't due until the end of the year, so I'm going to focus on cleaning up the manuscript as much as I can until say November and continue going while I send out my agent submissions. Assuming a few months turnaround, I'll have it all in good shape for when they ask for the complete manuscript.

Back to the edit recovery!

Second draft of Spirit Quest - Completed!

I crossed the Second Draft finish line over the weekend. Although I don't feel a lot like celebrating as I know how much work there's still left in the next drafts to follow. The back end of the novel felt a little rougher, needing more connective tissue. I feel like a second second draft might be in order, but I want to give it a bit of time to settle.

The first 100 pages of my manuscript are being professionally edited and I'm a bit anxious and excited at the prospects of recovering her comments.

What's on my plate for the next month?

- Prepare my application form for the Canada Arts Council grants
- Prepare my agent queries/submission packages
- Recover the first 100 pages of edits
- Work on my Third Draft to sort out all sorts of issues that I noticed through the initial drafts, clearing up the magic system, synch up the ages of characters, add a bit more details and descriptions in those talking head chapters.

Piece of cake, right?

If you have any advice or experience with wrapping up second drafts and third (and fourth and fifth) drafts, please comment and share.