I’m feeling quite accomplished this week. After a few weeks of researching various agents suitable for my manuscript, I finally submitted my query letter to a few agents today.
Granted I’ve been rewriting and editing my manuscript since last summer and spent most of this year polishing my pitch, query letter and synopsis, I’m feeling ready now to pitch my manuscript. This is a huge relief.
On to what’s next.
Researching the changes going through the industry, agents are either bored, going crazy, a little of both and trying to work at home with young children (which found to be tough and impossible several years ago). I’ve heard several agents talk about the industry heading towards wanting “feel good” stories.
Reviewing the 1st drafts of the other manuscripts I’ve written, I know which one is my “feel good” story, but much of the backdrop of the world I’ve created surrounds the theme of “emerging from darkness” and still being affected by it. The light-hearted fun story, my love story, I have to slice into another story just to fit in the genre I’m aiming towards. (This issue has plagued me for over a year now…) I’m playing a lot with other voice narrations, trying to lighten the setting.
In the end, the conundrum I face is that I know my time is limited. Unless there is a paycheck coming, I can only work on the weekends. Given that time frame, it takes 1/2 year to polish and edit my 1st draft work. So what I’m looking at is, if my manuscript Breath of the Meige is un-marketable, purely because of a timing issue (as in people might not want to read something so dark in post coronovirus), then what should I spend my time polishing up to pitch 1/2 a year from now?
- The Meige’s sequel: I was working on this one previously. It’s was enjoyable wandering through the philosophical, psychedelic love story of a disgraced lady and a man who had only spoken one syllabol words for the last ten years. Unfortunately, the plot of this one wander a little too much. The crux of the story needs tightening.
- Optional World Entry Point: The story of how peace is finally won at Atawa interspersed with how one man’s life was slowly destroyed by the King and his continuous war. This is the one where I’m painfully slicing up my love story to fit two stories in one. WHY SLICE IT? Well, one story is primarily male and the other is primarily female. Alone, neither speak to the audience I’m looking for. The male one falls short of background and the female story lacks my magical worldly elements entirely. I told my husband this week that I was composing. It is like music, seeing which chapters will resonate the best where. More often than not, I’ve found myself banging my head against a wall. I think of it more as composing with kazoos and hoping it becomes my “Ode to Joy”
- My very last manuscript: On a lovely phone call this week, I began describing what is my last manuscript in the series. This one is the only one I refused to write because I had to start editing, but OH how it is lovely. Extremely fantasy, sci-fi, philosophical. I told my cousin I couldn’t pitch it because it relies heavily on the rest of the manuscripts. There is a possible way I can write it as a trilogy, where it starts there, then goes back to the other events. This is the one that will be dedicated to my husband “Diogenes”.
So. Off to go compose. Until next week…
(Eventually, I will write book reviews… I swear.)
