R.I.P. Dez

This is an odd day for me.

When I wrote the first words of what would become my debut novel, Life, A.D., I clicked on the little calendar that hangs out on my taskbar, looked ahead a couple of years, and chose April 13^th, 2013. And here it is.

I don’t remember exactly why I zeroed in on this particular date, but it must have been a combination of factors.

For one, spring is underway, in its early, tantalizing state with the promise of warm days to come. It’s a time of renewal and rebirth, a vivid backdrop for what I had planned.

Another factor must have been its close proximity to the end of the school year. For graduating seniors, it’s a time when everything is finally coming together. Adulthood lies just ahead; college, independence, the future you’ve been planning—it’s all there on the near horizon.

For my protagonist, Dez Donnelly, today is the day that changes everything.

It’s the day she dies.

I recently visited the remote stretch of road, not far from my house, where the scene has always played out in my mind. I stopped the car, got out, and took some photos. I crouched down on the shoulder of the road and put my hand to the ground, letting the cold seep into my fingers. And I thought of Dez.

It was quiet, remote, and lonely. There was not another car or person to be seen. But for the birds in the trees, I was completely alone, just as she was while life slipped from her grasp. I thought about how those final moments must have been for her. In my mind I was torn between thoughts of she isn’t even a real person, and sorrow.

That same day, still a bit shaken by this odd experience, I sent the photo to my publisher with the title RIP Dez. She replied quickly, expressing how sad it made her. We were both surprised by our reaction to the photo, and to my experience.

It’s funny how this young woman, a creation of my imagination, could take up residence in our hearts like she has.

So today I think of her, as I never really had before. This semi-randomly chosen date has arrived, and Dez has an incredible journey ahead of her.

My publisher, Month9Books, has given their kind permission for me to share this exclusive sneak-peek of my debut novel, Life, A.D., coming December 2013.

The world around me is fuzzy.

I’m lying on the ground, and my face is wet. I blink. Drawing in a shot of frigid air, I shudder at the sensation of a million needles in my throat. Pain sets fire to my leg, and shoots up my spine. My left arm is numb, useless. And my right arm is—gone? Mangled?

I don’t know.

Don’t panic. The fear grows and festers, running toxic through my bloodstream like a virus.

My breath comes in short, desperate gasps, which grow strained with each inhalation. The drumbeat rhythm of my heart pounds against my chest, sending mini-shockwaves to my fingers and toes.

A gentle breeze kisses my cheek, turning my thoughts to Aaron.

I jerk my head off the ground. A scream escapes my lips as burning pain engulfs my every molecule. I fight to move. My unresponsive limbs refuse to help me shift position.

I need help.

Thoughts drift through my mind, pulling me in a thousand directions. Panic steals my concentration and threatens to drag me away. I cry out, fighting against hopelessness. My own distant echo bouncing back at me is the only reply.

Blackness creeps into the edges of my vision, sending my labored breathing into overdrive.

I’m going to die here.

“Somebody, please…” I gag on blood and saliva. My voice is unrecognizable, deep and gurgling.

Where am I?

I lift my head again, fighting against the pain and panic in a frantic effort to get my bearings. I’m lying on the side of the road by a forest. Only the tiniest of buds peek from the trees and shrubs, and after staring at them for a bit, I swear I can see them shiver. I, too, tremble, cold and shaken.

A chickadee sings out its springtime call from a nearby tree, whistling “sweet weather,” and waiting for a reply. A crunch of snow from the nearby forest signals a passing animal, its footfalls soft, cautious.

Frost is still rooted in the ground, and the sky refuses to allow sunshine through the thick layer of haze above. There is a freshness to the air. Renewal, is it? That must be what people mean when they say “it smells like spring.”

The deserted stretch of highway offers little hope; the animals and forest the only witnesses as life slips from my grasp.

No one is coming.

The black advances. My vision retreats. I’m getting colder, the numbness spreading down my body from my arms.

The sound of my ringtone snaps me back to reality. Where’s my phone? My teeth clench in agony. I manage to turn my head.

How did I get here?

The phone is well out of reach—ten feet or so away, ringing despite being under the crumpled remains of the overturned car. What’s left of my mangled right arm flops into view. My mind retreats, resisting the image—twisted, bloodied, the flesh ripped from the visible bones of my forearm.

My outstretched fingers refuse to budge, even to escape the slow-motion pool of red creeping toward them.

My ragged breathing accelerates, my heart races, and I do something I’ve never done before: I pray.

Stay calm.

Survive.

The sound of a distant whistle breaks through my raspy, disjointed plea for mercy, for life.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17452630-life-a-d

https://www.facebook.com/AuthorMichelleEReed

https://twitter.com/Michelle_E_Reed

http://month9booksblog.com/

Collaboration

I’m pretty terrible at keeping up with my blog. I go in fits and starts, blogging consistently and then disappearing for weeks—even months. Successful bloggers fill their pages with consistent content, often built on regular columns or installments. So I’ve set to work coming up with ideas. For starters, I will be bringing back my Way Back Wednesdays reviews, because I, for one, found them to be lots of fun. And that box of books from my childhood isn’t reading itself…

 Today, I’m test-running a new piece, one which may or may not work as a regular thing, as it is dependent on the cooperation of a child. So…we’ll see how it goes. The idea came to me yesterday as I was driving my just-turned-five-year-old home from school. We began to make up a story together, and I thought it would be fun to blog our results. When we got home, we sat down to hash out our tale. He did most of the storytelling, and proved to have great resolve in the tone and theme of the story he wanted to tell. What follows is the results of our collaboration. I have changed his name and “kingdom” to preserve his privacy. Our story begins:

 

Once upon a time in the Kingdom of Wisconsin there lived a young prince named James. James spent his days adventuring with his trusty dog, Sully.

One sunny day while out on a particularly grand adventure, James and Sully came upon a bridge crossing a roaring river. The bridge was made of polished wood from the tallest Chocolate Tree in all the land. It smelled delicious.

Just as our hero James and his dog Sully were about to cross the bridge, they heard a mighty roar. The ground shook. James and Sully spotted an enormous dragon on the other side of the bridge. The dragon was a deep, shimmering green with red polka dots.

His booming voice called out, “Who dares cross my chocolate bridge?”

“It is I, Prince James of the Kingdom of Wisconsin!” James said boldly.

“Woof!” said Sully.

The dragon charged across the bridge toward the fearless duo. James raised his fist, and with the dragon’s breath hot on his face, he bopped the dragon on the nose.

“Woof!” said Sully.

The dragon reared back on his hind legs and drew in a deep breath. With all his might, he breathed a fiery breath upon the prince and his dog. But instead of fire, the dragon breathed jellybeans! The sweet beans piled high on the ground, covering James and Sully’s feet.

James reached into the pile and grabbed a strawberry jellybean—his favorite! He ate the jellybean, and the dragon began to cry.

“Cheer up!” said James. “Have a jellybean! There are plenty.” James took a handful of the jellybeans and offered them to the dragon.

The dragon wiped away his tears and smiled. “For me?” he said. “Nobody has ever shared jellybeans with me before.” The dragon smiled and ate the jellybeans.

“Woof!” said Sully.

And the duo became a trio. James, Sully, and their new friend the dragon lived out their days sharing many adventures together.

THE END

 

Debut Author Chat and a Giveaway

I am excited to have been selected for YALITCHAT’s Debut Author chat! Please join me this Wednesday, March 6th at 9PM EST for a live Twitter discussion.You can join in by following #Yalitchat. This will be a great forum to ask questions and learn more about some of 2013′s debut authors. Should be lots of fun!

You can find me on Twitter: @Michelle_E_Reed

and on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AuthorMichelleEReed

Follow me on Twitter and like my Facebook page (must do both) to be automatically entered to win a $25 Amazon gift card on St. Patrick’s Day.

I look forward to chatting with you on Wednesday!

Interview Mondays- Dorothy Dreyer

Welcome to my second installment of Interview Mondays! Today I have the pleasure of sharing my interview with another fellow Month9Books author, Dorothy Dreyer. Dorothy’s debut novel, My Sister’s Reaper, will hit the shelves in May 2013.

 

Thank you for joining us today, Dorothy! Tell us a little about yourself.

I’m an American living in Germany, married to a wonderful German man for 18 years, and together we have a pre-teen son and a teenage daughter. I’m also an English teacher at a private multi-lingual nursery school.

Are you a lifelong writer, or did the passion for writing spring up more recently?

I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember—back before word processing programs even existed. I wrote stories and plays on paper. But I never set out to get published until after my kids were born. It was then I decided to achieve some of my life-long goals.

Congratulations on your publishing deal! Can you tell us about your debut urban fantasy novel, My Sister’s Reaper?

Sure! Here’s the pitch:

Sixteen-year-old Zadie’s first mistake was telling the boy she liked she could bring her dead sister back to life. Her second mistake was actually doing it.

When Zadie accidentally messes with the Reaper’s Rite that should have claimed her sister Mara, things go horribly wrong. Mara isn’t the same anymore—Zadie isn’t even sure she’s completely human. To top it off, a Reaper is determined to take Mara’s soul. Now Zadie must figure out how to defeat her sister’s Reaper or let Mara die … this time for good.

As a first time author, breaking in to the publishing world is tough work. Do you think living in Germany and selling to the U.S. market made it even harder? What unique challenges did/do you face living overseas?

It’s funny, I always felt like putting my German address at the end of a query letter would make agents and publishers skeptical. Even if agency websites stated they represented writers from all over the world, I wondered if they might tag it as a nuisance to take on yet another author living overseas. I can’t say for sure if that’s why I got rejected from some agents or not. I guess I really just had to rely on my writing being strong enough that the details didn’t matter.

What drew you to write for the young adult market?

When I was a teenager, my stories were always based on teenagers. As I got older I did write a few adult-world stories, but I wasn’t glued to them. My first real pull into the young adult literature world, although it’s technically a children’s book, was Harry Potter. I was inspired not only to write to a younger audience, but to bring magic into my stories.

I think readers are often confused by the wide variety of genres and sub-genres (heck, it even confuses some of us writers). What are some of the characteristics that define the urban fantasy novel?

Add me to the confused list, lol. There’s been a lot of debate about paranormal versus urban fantasy, and to tell you the truth, my book fits into both categories. Here’s what a group on Goodreads defines urban fantasy as:

“Urban fantasy is a subset of contemporary fantasy, consisting of magical novels and stories set in contemporary, real-world, urban settings–as opposed to ‘traditional’ fantasy set in wholly imaginary landscapes. The urban fantasy protagonist faces extraordinary circumstances as plots unfold in either open (where magic or paranormal events are commonly accepted to exist) or closed (where magical powers or creatures are concealed) worlds. A romantic subplot may or may not exist within the context of the story.”

My story has these elements, but could also be considered a paranormal fantasy, magical realism, paranormal romance, a thriller, or a horror novel. It’s got a little bit of everything, I guess.

How did you come to join the Month9Books family? Can you tell us a little about your submission process?

 

In January I entered the Pitch Slam contest on YALitChat. My pitch made the top ten, but I was not named one of the three winners. Not giving it another thought, I was surprised when I found an email in my inbox from Georgia McBride’s assistant asking to see the first chapter. It wasn’t long before I received another email asking to see the full. Then one morning a couple weeks later, as I was checking my email over breakfast, I got the offer for a two-book contract. I was completely blown away.

You have a sequel in the works. Any other irons in the fire, or are you focused on one project at a time?

At the moment I’m concentrating on edits for MY SISTER’S REAPER as well as fleshing out what I have of the sequel. There are a couple stories kicking around in my head that I hope I’ll have time to write soon, as well as a couple of my shelved stories I’d love to rework, but too many at once would probably send me over the edge.

Tell us a bit about your writing process. Are you an outliner, or do you just sit down and write? Do you do any needed research as you go, or get it all done at the start?

I’m a plotter, for sure. I’m a big fan of the storyboard process, laying out scene by scene to get an overview of how my story should go. Of course, when I’m writing, my pantser evil twin tends to pop in and throw the story a curve, but usually it’s a good curve. As for research, I do some before I start my stories, just so I have a general idea of what I’m dealing with, but I do research as I go along too.

What are some of the benefits of publishing through an indie press like Month9Books?

 

I think small presses are more open and willing to take chances on new authors. They’re probably also more willing to ignore the trends. One thing that made me nervous whenever I queried was the buzz on the web that paranormal was a dying genre. That the big six weren’t going to even consider them anymore. I don’t know if that’s entirely true or not, but I think indie presses look past what’s hot or not and just focus on publishing great stories.

What advice do you have for aspiring authors?

 

Read, read, read! It’s vital. And there are so many good books out there, how could one possibly pass that up? But also, never give up. If you have a dream, and you’re determined make it come true, you cannot stop pursuing it. Make it happen!

 

Thanks again for joining us, Dorothy!

Thanks for having me, Michelle! And I wish everyone luck on their publishing journeys!

You can find Dorothy on the web:

Facebook Author Page: http://www.facebook.com/AuthorDorothyDreyer

Dorothy on Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5815423.Dorothy_Dreyer

My Sister’s Reaper on Goodreads (cover reveal coming this winter): http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13597733-my-sister-s-reaper

Dorothy’s blog, We Do Write: http://we-do-write.blogspot.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/DorothyDreyer

I Go All Advicey

 

I still feel so new at this being an author thing. I know I’ve been writing for quite some time, have labored over my novel, have worked hard to learn the craft, and have managed to land myself a two-book publishing deal for my debut young adult novel, but I still feel a bit like an imposter. That’s why I’ve hesitated to offer any sort of writing advice, because who am I to tell people…well, anything?

 

But there is one thing I know plenty about, and today I’ve decided to boot myself off the cliff, Thelma and Louise style, as I lay some advice on you.

 

Distraction and procrastination are, of course, two of the greatest enemies of creativity. The reality of the technological age is our medium (writing) coexists on a machine rife with distraction (hello, interwebs). As authors, there is now an expectation that we create and maintain a web presence, and when we are already predisposed to distra—ooh! Shiny!

 

Sorry, what was I saying?

 

Right. Distractions and procrastination feed off one another, playing into our natural tendencies to doubt our abilities. We’re a neurotic bunch (see agent Rachelle Gardener’s spot-on description:http://www.rachellegardner.com/2012/05/bad-habits-of-authors/ ), easily falling prey to self-doubt, which only fuels the procrastination monster. And the aforementioned web presence we must develop can lead to further procrastiona—excuse me for a sec. I need to go check Facebook. Oh, and somebody mentioned me on Twitter. Plus, I haven’t checked my Klout score in like three days. How many hits have I had on my blog today?

 

Sorry.

 

The distraction monster may still get the best of me at times, but I have one such monster I’ve recently figured out how to defeat. The research monster.

 

Research is an important part of storytelling, and no place for shortcuts. If you are not accurate in the realistic/verifiable details in your world-building, you lose the trust of your reader and cast doubt over the entire world you’ve painstakingly created. As a reader, I hate to find glaring errors in the logic or details of a story. To me, it shows the author didn’t care enough to do the extra work, and when you don’t do your research, it shows. Publishing is a competitive world, so why give your potential audience a reason to put your book down and grab something else on the shelf (virtual or brick and mortar). There are, literally, millions of choices.

 

It’s a delicate balance, the writing game. Most writers have day jobs (or happen to be stay at home parents, like yours truly), families, social lives, and this passion for writing that we cram in wherever and whenever we can. When you throw the necessary research into the mix, it makes the task of getting the words out of your head and onto the paper seem daunting.

 

And we’re perfectionists. We want the words we put to page to be perfect, living in a constant state of disappointment (and occasional elation, when we hit the sweet spot and manage to impress ourselves with our storytelling). This constant struggle for perfection feeds the monster, and she’s always hungry.

 

Research can derail writing momentum, so what do you do? Because if you’re anything like me, you can’t just give yourself permission to skip over the research bit and ride the writing momentum. But if you let the momentum slip away, you face the very real danger of getting stuck in research mode. Forever.

 

It becomes the perfect excuse to unchain the distraction monster. Well, I need to interview a physics professor about this next chapter, so I guess I’ll stop writing for the day—oh, look! A new cute baby video!

 

It really is as simple (and as hard) as just giving yourself permission to not have every detail just so in your first draft.

 

Crazy, I know, but it works.

 

For example, in my current WIP, I have the following sentence written:

 

Blah, blah, blah, medical stuff and lingo and so on. Interview a medical professional so you don’t sound like Dr. Drake Ramore.

I stared at the page for a moment, horrified, and then, guess what? I got a lot done. It was empowering to realize that first drafts are just that. Imperfect. Sometimes terrible. First drafts are not finished products, and if you allow yourself to get stymied by research at that stage, you will never get to a final draft.

 

Allow yourself to write it wrong. Just get the sentiment on paper. Keep going. The details of what a patient would see upon awaking in an intensive care unit just don’t matter in your first draft. It’s okay to get it wrong, so long as you make sure, later on, to get it right.

 

So stop what you’re doing—right now—and insert some senseless drivel into your WIP. And get on with the writing! I promise, your manuscript will survive.*

 

 

 

*But save a backup file, just to be sure. And if something horrible happens, it’s TOTALLY not my fault.

Interview Mondays!

I have had the recent great fortune to sign a two-book publishing deal with Georgia McBride’s new imprint, Month9Books, and today I’m rolling out the very first installment of my weekly series, in which I will be interviewing my fabulous fellow Month9 authors. Let me brush off the cobwebs and spiff up the place a bit so we can all give a warm welcome to my first victim—erm, guest—Lisa M. Basso!

From Goodreads.com:

Lisa M. Basso was born and raised in San Francisco, California. She is a lover of books, video games, animals, and baking (not baking with animals though). As a child she would crawl into worlds of her own creation and get lost for hours. Her love for YA fiction started with a simple school reading assignment: S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. When not reading or writing she can usually be found at home with The Best Boyfriend that Ever Lived ™ and her two darling (and sometimes evil) cats, Kitties A and B.

A compelling and spirited debut from Lisa M. Basso in which sixteen-year-old Rayna Evans has spent the last three years locked away in a mental institution for seeing angels. Intent on remaining free, she ignores signs that she may be slipping into the world she has tried so hard to climb out of. But when her hallucinations begin showing up at school, can Rayna keep her job, her sanity and keep students from dying at the hand of angels she can’t admit to seeing?

Psychiatry, fantasy and real life come together in A Shimmer of Angels, as a young girl struggles with identity, secrets and confronting her greatest fears. A Shimmer of Angels is a wonderful read for anyone who has ever felt like an outsider, or perhaps has felt like giving up entirely. It touches on themes of suicide, ostracism and emotional pain. The author, personally exposed to suicide through the death of her beloved brother, will donate a percentage of sales of this novel to a local suicide prevention and outreach program in San Francisco, California.

A Shimmer of Angels is slated for release on November 12, 2012.

Thank you for joining us, today, Lisa! How long have you been writing?

I’ve written on an off for most of my life, but decided I wanted to become a writer almost five years ago. And I never looked back.

Tell us a little about your book, A Shimmer of Angels.

A SHIMMER OF ANGELS is about a sixteen-year-old girl, Rayna, who was sent to a mental health facility for seeing angels. After three years of in-and-out treatment, she is released. She believes her angel sightings are in remission, until she starts to slip, seeing things that can’t possibly be real. I don’t want to give too much away, so that’ll have to be the teaser.

How does your writing process work? Do you outline, take notes, or just sit down and write?

For every book I write, the process is different. Sometimes I outline then write, sometimes I write then outline. Most of the time I begin with an idea. I start by making as many notes as I can. From there I decided whether if this is what I really want to write, is the idea substantial enough to encompass an entire book or is this more short story material? Once I’ve decided this is it, I ask myself if I want to outline or just write. If I outline, will it be super detailed or just the main plot points and character arcs? If I write, how far will I get before I realize I need to know the ending? I try to outline, but a lot of times the characters take over and things change. That’s one of my favorite parts about writing, realizing the ten pages you just wrote were nothing like the outline, but they work better!

What was your inspiration for A Shimmer of Angels? How did the idea come to you?

I started with the idea of angels (obviously, right?). I knew it would be YA. It had to be YA. The book had to have wings in it. The more I thought about it, the idea of colors came to me. Not just wings, white wings and black wings. Which led me to good versus evil. Sort of. I let it simmer and the idea continued to grow. I didn’t want just good and evil, I wanted gray. So I wrote in a lot of gray areas, morally and mentally, infusing a lot of “in between” with the characters and the plot.

How did you come to Month9Books? Tell us a little about the process of scoring your publishing deal.

I submitted to YALitChat’s Submission Mailbox. Not much later Month9Books requested a partial, the first 25 pages. A few days later, they asked to see the full. About two weeks after that, I had an offer for a three book deal in my inbox!

What made you choose to write young adult novels? Or did YA choose you?

The  first two books I wrote were straight up adult urban fantasy. After completing both books, I started reading more YA. A lot more. After I’d      absorbed somewhere between twenty and thirty, the idea just came to me. YA. You need to be writing this amazing genre. My first idea, a teeny tiny plot thread for A SHIMMER OF ANGELS. The rest is history.

One of the great things about Month9 is the input we authors get to have. Can you tell us about the cover design process?

The cover process was surprising. The original cover was very similar to the final product. We went through a few rounds, tweaking minor things until we were all happy. I love that Month9Books gave me the opportunity to voice my opinions. They may have regretted it in the beginning, though. After the first cover option, I sent off a long email, super detailed explaining what I liked and what I hoped we could work on. And instantly regretted it. I mean, what had I done? They couldn’t really want my feedback, they probably just wanted me to approve or deny it. I freaked, until I got a reply. Not only did they take my feedback seriously, but they thanked me for my candor. This was when I knew there was something very different about what Month9Books is doing. When the final product arrived, I felt like I had a little something to do with it, rather than just having it handed to me.

It must have been exciting to see your finished cover for the first time. What was that like?

 The finished cover blew me away. I stopped, stared, then stared some more. It’s colorful, shimmery (teehee), and so different from anything else out there. I still stare at it (when I have the time).

Try not to stare. I dare you.

What is next for you? Can you tell us about any upcoming projects?

Books two and three of the A SHIMMER OF ANGELS trilogy are slated for release in November of 2013 and 2014.

What has been the most surprising thing about becoming a (soon to be) published author? Is the reality different from your expectations?

After having this dream for many, many years, I knew it would take time and a lot of hard work. The really surprising part about this whole journey so far is the timing. I’ve heard that publishing moves at a snail’s pace. I signed with Month9Books in February and my book is releasing less than a year later.

Any advice for aspiring writers?

Read as much as you can and write even more. Work hard, don’t give up, and dream big.

 

You can find Lisa online: goodreads.com/LisaMBasso

twitter: @LisaMBasso

Lisa-Basso.blogspot.com

And be sure to mark your calendars for November!

You can check out our fabulous publisher, here: month9books.com and on twitter: @Month9Books.

Big News!

It is every aspiring writer’s dream to have this great news, and I am thrilled to announce I have accepted a two-book publishing deal with Georgia McBride’s fabulous new imprint, Month 9 Books!

My young adult novel, Atman Station (working title) is slated to hit the shelves in December 2013.

I’m still in a bit of shock over the whole thing. It’s a strange feeling when you’ve been working at something for so long, and then all of a sudden it happens. I am one of the lucky few, I know, and I am immensely grateful for this opportunity.

I’m trying to find the right words to explain what this means to me, and being completely unable to do so is an odd feeling. As a writer it’s my job to express feelings and emotions in written form (duh), yet I find myself at a loss, even after a week. It is my hope that once the shock wears off, I’ll be better equipped to convey in a coherent way what this all means to me.

I’ll know it’s time when I finally get rid of this look I’ve been wearing this past week:

I’m Going Slightly Mad…

Join me in a journey into madness…mwahahahaha!

*ahem*

Sorry about that. What I meant to say was, today I feel like discussing the process of querying agents, as I am in a swirling vortex of query-induced crazy right now. Hopefully you feel like reading about it, otherwise you’ve picked the wrong day to visit my blog (although I do have some other lovely posts which might be of interest to you).

Based on my—albeit very limited—experience, this is a process which can turn the most sane and rational person (like me, for example. Stop laughing. I said stop it!) into an obsessive, paranoid, irrational, impatient mess.

And I blame the internet.

For those who don’t know, let me give you a little set-up on what it is to query. Let’s say I have toiled for many long years (months, days) and have in my hands the most perfect, brilliant manuscript, destined to be the next Harry Potter/Twilight/Percy Jackson. What do I do next? Well, after many, many rewrites (at least one) and lots of peer critiques (grandma loves it), my next step is to find an agent who will a) see what a super-genius I am, b) help me polish my manuscript until it shines and c) find my work a home with a publisher, thus making me the next sparkly vampire sensation, and making us both gazillions of dollars. There are about a thousand other things agents do, but I’m just knocking it down to the basics, here.

So how do I get an agent to recognize what a brilliant writer I am? First off, I write a query letter, summing up my novel in a neat little package. Some agents wish to see a sample chapter or two, some want a synopsis—essentially a slightly longer query, which hits the story’s high-points from beginning to end.

As you can imagine, agents get a lot of queries.

A LOT.

Some get over 100 per day. So, in addition to all the stuff they do for their clients, meetings with editors, and so on, they sift through this daily deluge, known as the “slush pile,” searching for the next great writer.

We aspiring novelists, all absolutely certain we are that next great writer, send off our queries and quickly descend into needy, demanding shells of our former selves (Excuse me while I go check my inbox. No, really…). And this is where I blame the internet.

You see, it used to be a writer would type up their query, sample pages and synopsis and mail it off with a SASE to said agent. And repeat.

And then wait.

*crickets*

Months later, the writer would receive their submission back with a postcard saying “Thanks, but no thanks,” or words to that effect. Or, if they were supersupersuperduper lucky, they might get a request for a partial or full manuscript to review, and the mailing/waiting process would begin again. In this sort of process, I have to imagine you can’t obsess that much. I mean, you kind of have to let it go. It’s out of your hands, and there’s no way to really follow the process along.

In the age of the interwebz, however, most agents allow (and many prefer) e-queries, which can often result in near-immediate responses. Within hours, or days, you can get that rejection sling-shotted back to your inbox.

But here’s the problem. The refresh button.

No reply yet? WHAT? It’s been two days!

*refresh*

Huh. I wonder if something’s wrong with my email. Or theirs. What if they didn’t get it?? What if I’m in their spam folder with all the Nigerian Princes??

This is not a healthy way to live.

Another problem? Social media. We now have access to celebrities, CEOs, and yes, agents, like never before. Most agents are on Twitter, which can be really handy for the aspiring writer. Tweets like “I am now caught up with all submissions through January 24^th” give the submitter an idea of how long they may have to wait. But for an obsessive narcissist, you could find yourself doing this:

Why are they tweeting about kittens when they haven’t responded to my query yet??? Hey! Nachos aren’t THAT important, especially while I’m waiting for a reply!!

Whoa. Take a step back there, sister.

We’re not always the precious snowflake we think we are.

I’d love to keep chatting, but I really have to go check my inbox. It’s been at least five minutes…