February 2024 in Review
Hello Funny People,
Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi
Relentless: A Joe Ledger and Rogue Team International Novel by Jonathan Maberry
Cave-13: A Joe Ledger and Rogue Team International Novel by Jonathan Maberry
Things appear to be growing a bit brighter. I can't make any claims to major victories this months, but I will say that life seems to be heading towards such a direction at the moment.
Art by Devora Johnson
Dispatch from the Query Trenches
Thus far, I've heard back from three (3) of the ten (10) queries I sent back in January, all naturally responses in the negative. This doesn't surprise me. I always assume that the world usually suffers from a two-week long post-holiday hangover. It usually takes that long for most professionals to get their shit together and bounce back into the routine of work. Also, given how late in January I sent them, I wasn't expecting them to get back to me so promptly.
That said, it didn't stop me from sending 10 more queries from the names in my log spreadsheet the first weekend in February, of which I've heard back—again, in the negative—from 2. As I said last month, my goal was to send 10 queries a month every month this year, if possible, and until my list runs out, I plan to maintain that.
However, I also may have shot myself in the foot with those 20 queries as well.
A few months ago, I alluded to the fact that a writer friend of mine offered to pass my query along to their agent, who would then refer it to one of their colleagues. However, before they would pass it up the line, my friend offered to help me polish the query up so I'd have the best possible chance of securing representation.
Oh boy...
Let me be frank. If my query letter had possessed an old asshole to begin with, my friend would've torn it a new one. And I literally had NO IDEA it was that bad. How was I supposed to know? I took cues from letters writers I admire, like Jonathan Maberry and Ann Leckie, had used to get their agents and crafted my own as best as I could. Turns out, I was wrong, because of course I was.
GODDAMNIT, FML!
Thankfully, because my friend was so kind, they didn't just shred my query for shiggles. They offered me tips on how to improve it. It's possibly one of the best writing bootcamps I've ever undergone. (Side quest: why tf aren't there more free resources available to help people with this? It's not easy, and we could use some help.)
If all this pans out, even if my friend's help leads to nothing with the agents at their agency, at least I'll have a good query letter to pitch other agents with. I still have tons of them on my list, after all.
Now, while all this work has been going on with one query, things have also been afoot regarding a completely different project.
A buddy of mine and fellow Bradburyian, A.A. Rubin (who incidentally has an on-going crowd funding project that you should support), drew my attention to a post over on Threads from a prominent literary agent. The agent, who typically only represented authors in the UK, found they had such a dearth of space operas that they were willing to take queries from authors outside the UK. Specifically, if the project in question compared well to the Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers and featured BIPOC characters.
I hadn't intended to start querying the space opera yet because I still had a whole second novel that I needed to edit, and the plan was to revise and edit the projects in composition order. But, to paraphrase an old US army adage, no plan survives contact with opportunity. I knew I had to take a shot. After all, the point of having all these WIPs is to get an agent, period. Never mind which one gets my foot in the door.
So, I followed the agent's directions as they outlined in the post. I sent them a quick pitch cribbed from my prepared query letter via a DM on IG (note: do not do this, unless directed by the agent), and waited to see if they might be interested.
Naturally, I expected either no reply or a polite, "Thanks, but no thanks."
This, to my surprise, isn’t what happened.
The next morning, they requested a query letter, a synopsis, and the first 5000 words (roughly 20 pages for those of you who don't do word counts), of the manuscript. So, I polished off that much of the book and sent it off.
Now, I've had one partial request thus far in my querying journey, which obviously amounted to nothing. I wouldn't still be on my journey if I'd reached the destination, would I? So, I had a pretty good idea of how this would end. One of my favorite adages is "When all you know is failure, that's all you come to expect." Given that's all I'd had, that's all I'd expected.
I figured in a month or so, this nice agent would email me back, again saying, "Thanks, but no thanks."
Yet again, to my surprise, this isn't what happened.
Instead, the agent messaged me the Thursday before Super Bowl weekend here in the States (a definite BFD if you're a sports nerd, which I'm not), asking to see the full manuscript. That prompted me to spend Friday, Saturday, and Sunday polishing this book up so I wouldn't be embarrassed to show it to them.
I've yet to receive back word from them. (This is expected. They have other priorities that require their attention, like actual clients who make them money). But now I'm mentally curled in the fetal position waiting for their response.
So in one month, not only have I received tutelage from a writer I respect, who offered to help advance my career out of the generosity of their heart, but I also got my first full request on a manuscript i hadn't expected to start querying. Talk about a complete one-eighty from last month's lackluster pity party.
Fingers crossed one of these works out. I would absolutely appreciate more good news.
(By the way, if either of these projects gets picked up, I will personally guarantee now that I'll make the query letter public here on the blog. More public resources like that are vital tools to help young writers.)
#AmDrafting Part 1: The Novel Arena
Because of the query bootcamp outlined above, my efforts to make progress on the portal fantasy fell away for much of the start of the month.
This, however, didn't surprise me a bit. With three novels completed, I now see that this is just part of my process. Always, when I undertake a new longer project, I take pains to at least start it by producing some of the opening material before stepping away to do other things. Sometimes, it's just the first chapter, sometimes, it's several opening chapters worth of copy. I've done it every time with each book, and now it's this book's turn.
During this interlude, however, I did take the chance to try a small experiment: loose outlining. One of the few storytelling frameworks that seems to chime with me is the 7-Point Structure, popularized by Dan Wells. Think of this as the outlining equivalent of playing pinball. First, you decide on your ending, go back to your beginning, figure out your mid-point, and the find two pinch points and plot turns that help you dramatically transition between those three major points. So, with a yellow pad and a pen, I worked out those major beats for the book.
Now that I have, I'm progressing even more confidently through the story.
#AmDrafting Part 2: The Short Fiction Front
While it's true that I decided to step away from short fiction, particularly the submission aspect, it appears I haven't given up on it completely.
The week following my full request, I had a hard time getting back into my currwnt novel. I didn't, however, want to do nothing during my writing time. So, I did the next best thing: I resumed noodling on a piece of short fiction.
Unlike with a lot of my other pieces though, this one isn't a short story or flash piece. At least. I don't think it is. It's a novelette, that one form I still have little confidence in my ability to write well. More so, it's a story set in the same world as three of my.published flash pieces: "The God's Apology," "Tata Duende’s Soothing Song," and "The Culebre of San Moreno."
Tone-wise, it's much closer to the darker "Culebre," compared to the two cozy former titles. Unlike all three, where my version of the character Tata Duende acts as a supporting benevolent character, here, he's in a more antagonistic role, something I always intended for the character. In terms of Archetypes, I always envisioned him to be akin to a classic trickster, one moment happy to help you in your aims, the next assisting your adversary in your destruction.
Finally, there's the structure. I've always wanted to write a circular story. (That's probably not the right name for it, but I'll explain what I mean.) This is a story that begins at the end, meaning the opening is chronologically the penultimate scene of the story. In careful flashback, it returns to the beginning and, like the hands of a clock, works its way back around to that opening where it shortly thereafter concludes. Think of movies like Forest Gump, The Butler, and Amadeus, and you'll have a decent idea of what I'm trying for in this piece.
Between what I believe will be its final work count and its structure (which I know a lot of editors will hate because most people hate flashbacks, not that I give a damn about that), I'm certain this story will never reach an audience via any magazine. My tone is too light for the darker magazines, and it's too dark for the lighter toned magazines. But it's not for them. It's for me.
I've also taken to using a new method for drafting as well: the one I use for novels.
A couple of years ago, when I was doing my revisions on my first novel, I discovered that pulling the first draft apart into tangible chunks was actually really good for me. Each 1000-3000 word piece became easier to deal with, easier to manage. The last two novels I've written, I composed one chapter at a time, with each chapter written in its own document before compiling it together into a master document for subsequent drafts. I found this method useful for long form work, so why can't it work for shorter stuff?
I'll report on my findings here once I complete a draft.
Miscellaneous
Regarding my recent reads and watches, I was bowled over by the season finale of Hazbin Hotel. Now, of course, all I want is the second season. Thankfully, it's green-lit, so A24 and Prime Video will naturally get to work on that asap. I only hope the wait doesn't come after too extended an interlude.
Over the last weekend of February, the internet was abuzz with comment about the new live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender show on Netflix. I haven't, and will not, watch it. Partly because I have a disdain for live-action remakes of childhood favorite cartoons of mine (because most of them either don't work or strip away what was good and charming from the original, especially the humor), and also the lingering sour memories of the previous live-action remake. If this show is anywhere near that dumpsterfire of a film, I want no part of it. Besides, I'd rather Netflix use their resources to keep quality original shows, like say The Sandman, going rather than live action remakes of things that are impossible to improve upon.
On Tubi, I'm doing a Bayblon 5 rewatch and enjoying every second of it. Quality TV like B5 never goes out of fashion. I have to admit I'm mildly curious to see what J. Michael Strazynski's revamp would look like, if it ever gets off the ground, but as with ATLA, the original (flawed though it may be), is still available for me to appreciate.
Reading wise, I've been on a bit of a Jonathan Maberry kick, whetting appetite for the (possibly), final Kagen the Damned novel due out in August, but I did also manage to squeeze in one other title in before that.
When I finish a Scalzi, all it makes me want to do is read another one. I'd never read this one, which was the first novel he'd written, prior to Old Man's War, though it was traditionally published much later. Reading it after both Kaiju Preservation Society and Starter Villain, I see it as the book that set the template for both of those: a contemporary character encounters a secret SF-centric element they were previously unaware was real, and weird shit follows. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
Rage: A Joe Ledger and Rogue Team International Novel by Jonathan Maberry
My first encounter with Maberry's most famous protagonist came courtesy of the first book in the on-going Rogue Team International (RTI), sequence. What an introduction. Action-packed, fast-paced, and darkly hilarious with a gut-punch of an ending. I knew I'd be continuing with the series going forward.
Picking up directly where Rage leaves off, an alternative title for this book could've been Retribution because that's what Ledger and his dirty squirrel cage of a brain is hellbent on finding against his adversaries for what happened at the end of the previous volume. And honestly, despite some of the things he does, you can't condemn him for it. If you had the skills and means to take matters into your own hands and get even, would you take it?
The latest (for now) installment in the RTI sequence, the "weird science"/techo-thriller world of Ledger collides with the supernatural elements from the biblical world...but only briefly. As the team comes to grips with the possibility that the Bible's fantastical happenings could be literally true, a nuclear threat against the people of the Holy Land takes up all their attention, setting the stage for something big in the upcoming sequel, Burn to Shine. And everyone who survives will be walking wounded into what comes next. Can't wait.
My hope after this is to read through some books that have been crying for me to finish them after I complete my current read, Alpha Wave: The Sleepers War Book One by Maberry and the late Weston Oches. I'll save my reactions of that for next month.
Finally, I'd like to talk a little about a stand up comedy concert I recently attended.
Constant readers (all 5 of you), will know that Lewis Black is one of my favorite living stand ups. His Rantcast and two recent specials, Thanks for Risking Your Life and Tragically, I Need You, helped me retain and reignite my sense of humor during and following the worst days of the pandemic. Unfortunately, Lewis, who is now 75, is on his official farewell tour.
One of his stops was The Factory, a new(-ish) theater out in Chesterfield, west of St. Louis. Good venue, but half an hour's drive from my stomping grounds where I live in South City. The show was so hilarious though that it was worth trekking all the way out there to see him. He even spent the first five minute of his set making fun of the area, which is basically one massive shopping mall in the middle of goddamn nowhere. (And, it's all on a flood plan, so it might go bye-bye if we get a little too much rain, as the Midwest is sometimes wont to do.)
Selfishly, it makes me sad that I won't get another chance to see him live. But if anyone deserves to retire on his own terms, it's Lew. I don't know where I'll get my serotonin from now on, but I wish him well and thank him for all the laughs. Besides, he's preparing material for one last special, so I'll get to see him again that way.
— IMC 🙃
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