A Waiting Game

Welcome back!

Let’s talk about the quiet part of the querying trenches.

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We all know too well the scary parts. The nail-biting, high stakes, sweating-as-you-hit-submit, parts. But what about the in-between? What about after you’ve hit submit?

One of two things usually happens. The first is a rather automatic and generic form rejection that sometimes comes so fast it begs the question: did a human being actually even have time to glance at this?

The other thing is: nothing.

You hit submit, and then you wait. That’s it. You’ve polished and primed and sent your little baby out into the world for someone else to judge and you have no idea how that’s going to end.

If you’re lucky, it results in a request for a partial or full manuscript.

Otherwise, you end up with another form rejection. Or sometimes radio-silence that drags on so long you are forced to accept that it was a silent rejection and you’re not going to receive a formal notice.

I have had my fair share of form rejections—so many that I lost count to be honest.

Recently I revamped both my query letter and my synopsis and with bated breath, hit submit on another round of queries.

This means I am back in the quiet part. Back in the “stop touching your first ten pages” part.

Because of that, I may be channeling my need to write something into this blog. I am also working on edits for another completed project that I’m not quite ready to begin querying yet.

And as if this wasn’t all enough, I’ve started a new WIP that I’m very excited about and I’ve already written ~22K-words on it.

So, if you’re still here, enjoy the future excessive posting while I sit in the quiet part of the querying trenches and try not to drive myself crazy.

With love and cautious optimism,

That One Girl Who Writes