Submitted to an Agent! And other writing milestones.

Today, I gathered my courage and presented my query letter, my synopsis, and the first three chapters of The Duke of Snow and Apples, proofread the bejeesus out of them, put them into an e-mail, said a prayer to St. Paul (patron saint of writers and bloggers), and hit the "send" button.

And promptly fell on my face when I received a "nonexistent e-mail address autoreply."

After I entered the agent's correct e-mail address, I sat back and thought. Well, it's done. I've done it. I pitched to an agent, I received a request for a partial, and a week and a half later I was able to write a decent synopsis and query letter and send it along with the first three chapters.

I DID IT.

So what do I do now? Well, I have time before a response - the agent I pitched to is on holiday until the end of August. I also have a bunch of contests I could enter, both for feedback and to pad a future query letter if this one doesn't pan out. I'm also starting on the first draft for the sequel, Lord of Dreams. I love first drafts - I write them longhand in notebooks, because I am romantic and whimsical and vain of my handwriting but at the same time it's also harder to self-edit so I actually produce faster. And my heroine in this one is really interesting.

I'll also keep polishing and checking on The Duke of Snow and Apples. Writing the synopsis actually got me to chop a 3000-word scene because looking at the big-picture of my plot, that scene completely diminished my Black Moment. With it gone, my manuscript is 3000 words lighter and has a tighter, more emotional ending.

Either way, whatever happens, I DID IT. I am one of the only 10% of writers who actually submit something to an agent after getting a request. I may never be published, I may starve in obscurity in a penniless garret (how romantic!), but at least I will be able to say that I sent my stuff in. I didn't keep my manuscript in a box under my bed. I didn't hide my light under a bushel.

I DID IT.

And now - to write some more!

Submitted!

I just submitted the first twenty pages of my novel to the FF&P's On the Far Side Contest for unpublished fantasy manuscripts. I'm not anywhere near done the novel itself, but I decided to take a chance - after all, a contest victory looks pretty good on a query letter. I received from pretty good feedback from my friends in my critique group, so I'm confident that I've given the best I can, but still I'm nervous. I checked their score sheet and it's pretty tough, but from what I've heard, I've still got a good shot of getting feedback from judges even if I don't make it as a finalist.

Wish me luck!

SUBMITTED: My Application and Portfolio

...to the University of British Columbia for their Master of Fine Arts program in Creative Writing.

I finally did it. I've been fiddling with this for well over a month (putting most of my other writing on hold) to work on my portfolio pieces. I have to pick the genres of writing I want to study, including a main genre - and I chose Fiction (main genre) and Writing for Children, with Screenwriting and Creative Non-Fiction on the side.

For my main genre fiction sample, I put in a revised version of "House Hunting". Even now, I think it's one of my best pieces, and the only one to receive a "sooo so close, but no cigar" from an editor of a magazine. I had to cut it down to 20 pages (from 29) to fit the sample requirements, but I think I did alright. For my Writing for Children sample I wrote a whole new story, "A Clean Trade," about a girl and a magical washing machine.

I was much more nervous about "A Clean Trade" because it was a new story and hadn't gone through the same amount of feedback and revision as the much older "House Hunting." It still got a lot of feedback, just not same amount because there is a deadline.

I finished both revisions and stories in early October, and started on the actual application writing, and I've pretty much been a nervous wreck ever since. I've proofread the stories a million times, and couldn't help but cut a few words or any a new phrase each time. The deadline was coming up, and I actually wondered at the last minute whether I should add a Creative Non-Fiction sample to my portfolio seeing as how I've done so much of it for The Gateway, Green Man Review, and this very own blog (I decided against it - as I couldn't find my best pieces in their original published formats and I felt that adding something this new at the 11th hour would not help my application).

I was always pretty convinced I'd get into VFS, but the MFA Creative Writing Program at UBC? HARD. OLD. PRESTIGIOUS. Holy crap, their alumni have won the Giller, won Genies, been shortlisted for IMPAC awards. I wasn't up to their level! They only accept 60 students a year! I'm not good enough!

But I finally decided to send it in yesterday. I'd had enough. The deadline's in two weeks, but I finally realized I was done. My stories were finished and if they sucked now, they weren't going to be any better in two weeks and would probably be even worse if I kept compulsively fiddling with them. The same with my application - I pored over it to make sure I didn't make any spelling mistakes, and while I moaned that I didn't have enough awards or fiction publications or samples to put on it, I realized that I wouldn't have any more to add in two weeks.

So I finally sent it in. I'm already convinced I must have made a million unwitting mistakes, but now I feel strangely peaceful, because I know now that I'm past the point where I can do anything about it. I can go back to my writing (and preparing for NaNoWriMo!), and try to get some more things published. I really really want to get accepted, but if in February it turns out I was rejected, at least I'll have a nice little nest egg I won't have to spend on tuition and living expenses, eh?

Submitted "The Middle Child"

...to Strange Horizons. I got some very positive comments from one of their editors in their rejection of "House Hunting," so they were first on the list when I decided to submit "The Middle Child."

I personally think "The Middle Child" is one of the best things I've written (along with "House Hunting"), so I hope they like it.

Submitted "House Hunting"

...To Weird Tales magazine. I thought it an appropriate last hurrah for Reading Week before I become too busy to do any writing.

Submitted: "House Hunting"

...to Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show. I may not have time to write anything creative this semester, but it doesn't take that much time to send e-mails or like stamps so I should still try submitting the stuff I've already finished. So I've submitted "House Hunting" again - I still feel it's my best story, although on my 150th reading of it today I discovered an egregious typo that made me feel really embarassed. I got rid of it before I sent in it, though. And today I REALLY have to finish getting my materials together for the Vancouver Film School, because I pre-applied a month ago and I'm still not done!

Submission and Rejection

I got a form rejection from Realms of Fantasy for "House Hunting" and a rejection from Heliotrope for "Whiff." I haven't had time this school year for much creative writing, but when I saw a poster for the Comparative Literature department's journal calling for stories, I thought "what the hell" and submitted "Parasite: A Love Story." What's one more rejection for "PALS"?

Submitted: "House Hunting"

To Realms of Fantasy magazine. I actually did it with real paper and envelopes and International Reply Coupons - it's weird, because I've gone such a long time without sending actual, physical manuscripts. So many of the magazines take electronic submissions.

So I spent about seven bucks on postage. Oh well.

Sorry I haven't updated much - I went to Animethon (which was great - check out Ouran High School Host Club - seriously, it's great!), then I had two ten-hour workdays (five hours at one job, five at the Disney job) which leaves me very little time for anything productive. And today I went ahead and deep-cleaned my room. I'm relatively tidy - I mean, you can always find a clear view of the carpet when you come into my room (which isn't always the case with Sister #2), but I tend to be a severe packrat, and a lazy packrat, too. I don't just run out of room for all my things, but I put them back in the wrong places because I'm too tired to look for the proper ones.
So today was the day I went in and cleaned everything up. I filled FOUR black garbage bags with broken knapsacks, old receipts, first drafts of forgotten novels, old shoes, dusty adapters and extension cords....Sure, I could have saved some of that stuff, but that's the thing, if I say I'm going to save it, it'll be stuck there collecting dust for another year so I just went ahead and threw a lot of it out. As a result I found:

-several pairs of lost earrings

-several pairs of (hopefully clean, not brave enough to check) underwear that were not put away

-a twenty dollar bill in one of my forgotten purses (I spent some on dessert and a movie for me and my sibs today, and I think I'll spend the rest on a novel).

I also got a wack of old books piled up to sent to the second-hand bookshop with my parents on Friday. We try to go every year. We're real big on books in my family, so every year we end up having to "cull" some. I'm the only major contributor among my sibs - I always wonder what Sisters 1 and 2 do with only two shelves of ratty YA novels apiece. And then I'll spend that culling money on a ticket to see Stardust, and maybe on the Jack Skellington hooding I've been eying in the Disney Store.

Submitted - "Whiff"

...to Heliotrope Magazine. The guidelines say I should wait at least a week after being rejected before submitting something else - since they were prompt enough to reject "Golden Opportunity" way back at the start of July, I submitted "Whiff," which is aimed at an older audience, to them to see what they thought of it.

NEW RECORD!

Two, actually - first, for the most stories submitted in one day (that is, two - "Golden Opportunity" and, the fresh off the word processor "House Hunting"), and then for most stories under consideration at one time (four - On Spec did receive my story, and it's still under consideration, Clarkesworld Magazine, Baen's Universe, and now Strange Horizons). Hurrah! Maturing as a writer!

Yes, I chose Strange Horizons again, but I've been reading it with fair regularity and I'm really enjoying it, and I think "House Hunting" would be a good fit. I'm kinda in love with "House Hunting," I currently think it's the best thing I've written so far, and I've never reread it and not thought, "Damn, I'm good."

I mean, I've felt that way about all my stories at some point, or else I never would have submitted them to magazines in the first place. But then after I've submitted them I think they're awful or immature and how embarrassing it will be for the editors to read it - but so far that hasn't happened with "House Hunting" yet.

I did include a cover letter this time, the standard issue for me - you know, the one where I say I'm a Senior reviewer for Green Man Review and yes, my fantasy novella DID get published by a professional magazine. I'd like to think it makes a difference, but I guess it all depends on the editor.

Submitted "Golden Opportunity"

I submitted "Golden Opportunity" to Baen's Universe today, in the Universe Slush Pile forum at Baen's Bar. Best case scenario - my story is plucked from murky oblivion and placed in a reputable e-zine that pays professional rates. Worst case scenario - I get some helpful comments and a chance to rewrite.

Now on to work with "House Hunting."

Submitted - "Golden Opportunity" to Heliotrope Magazine

Thank you, Anonymous Commenter, for your advice - he/she suggested I try "Golden Opportunity" out at Heliotrope, a delightful magazine that not only can be read online (fave story so far: January Mortimer's "A Godmother's Gift"), but is currently accepting online submissions.

I've noticed a lot of magazines are now accepting online submissions - it didn't use to be so, did it? I wonder why...There are lots of reasons why, of course - the recent bump in U.S. postal rates might be one - but it seems like a sudden change to me. Maybe it's just that I didn't catch on to these magazines that now accept online submissions until recently. It does mean one has to be more careful, though. I don't know why it is, but I tend to read stuff on paper more carefully than words on a computer. E-mail is a fascinating messenger system, but it's still something of a casual system to me, if that makes any sense. There's something about sending a crisp, white manuscript in a manilla envelope with a white "postage paid" sticker on it that seems more formal than sending an attachment in an E-mail. I mean, my mother's friend sends attachments in E-mails, and more often than not they are videos of a man applying a Tazer to his reproductive organs for laughs. Not quite the same as a writer sending something out in the hopes of getting published.

There's also the Blackberry reason - people are reading on those now, but they still seem too small for me to read anything comfortable on. Still, I'm a dinosaur when it comes to handheld technology - I still use my parents' cell phone, and it doesn't take pictures or text or download or even fold in half like all the other ones do.

Still, it saves on both time and postage, so I have no complaints. I've recently sent E-mails to On Spec, since it's been four months since I submitted my story to them, and they're situated in the same city as me so it seems unlikely that the manuscript would have taken a horribly long time to get to them. I know they're very busy, but I did wait four months before E-mailing them. I just hope I don't have to wait another month for them to reply to the E-mail.

I also started another story, "The Middle Child." It's not a fairy-tale retelling, although it does have another misanthropic female teenage narrator. I seem to write a lot of them. I don't want to fall into a pattern, but a misanthropic female teenage narrator just seems the best fit for the particular story I have in mind (I got the idea from reading "A Godmother's Gift," although they're not alike at all). Maybe it's because I spent so much time being a misanthropic female teenage narrator myself.

Now I'm a misanthropic female twentysomething narrator.

Good gracious, I'm a twentysomething now, aren't I?

*cough* Moving on, I also finished the first draft of "Joyful Noise." It took a while, but I think it has a good foundation and could survive a couple of rewrites. It has some great actions scenes in it, I think.

Ah well, I'll just have to see how my writing turns out. I still have lots of ideas (I have one in mind about God's little brother and sister, which doesn't need a misanthropic female teenage narrator).

P.S.--> I apologize for posting the atrocious cover for Nicholas Nickelby - it was the best one that I could find on short notice.

Submitted "Parasite: A Love Story"...

...To Clarkesworld Magazine. Nice coverletter and RTF attachment and everything. I haven't had the time yet to submitting "House Hunting" for critique, but once I do, I think I'll send that out, too - and then I'll have four stories in the aether. Huzzah!