Last week sometime on Facebook I posted a status message that said something alone the lines of how reading Nick Hornby made me want to hide under a rock since I know I'll never be able to write at the level he does.
I received some nice complimentary bits of encouragement which I didn't reply to because in retrospect it was too easy to interpret what I had said as fishing for compliments, which is something that generally I feel very uneasy about. For the record - I know I'm a good writer, and even if I wasn't I wouldn't stop writing anyway. Writing is more about the personal satisfaction than whether or not anyone else is impressed. I know when I write a book, there are two or three times when I'll have a perfectly constructed line in there, some sentence or idea that is just so flawless that it can take the reader out of the story for a moment just to reread it and admire it. My favorite part of reading is discovering lines like that, and if I do come up with a couple of those on my own, I'm very proud of it. My point of comparison was that Nick Hornby comes up with a perfect line like that several times in every chapter instead of a few times in every book. I'm not going to get all Duncan about it (Hornby reference, if you're lucky enough to be in the know), but he is pretty genius. And after all, he asked us to read, so I don't mind expressing my opinion about him. Even if it isn't on an obsessive message board.
Anyway. For the benefit of anyone who tried to offer me encouragement after my Hornby post, I'd like to share something with you. I submitted my first query letters to a handful of literary agents for the book we call Infinity these days. The query is you introducing yourself and the work to the agent, and hoping that they will notice that (a) you have an interesting story told, and (b) you can write well enough to be taken seriously, so they will (c) ask to see more or all of your manuscript and offer representation.
Well, like our pal Meat Loaf once said, two out of three ain't bad. Here's the meat of a rejection letter I received yesterday:
Thank you for your query. I regret to say, it's not a perfect fit for me-- although I do think your query is well-written and intriguing, so I would encourage you to keep trying! (and no, that's not part of the form response).
Now, here's the thing. Most agents will send form rejections, simply because they receive such an enormous number of queries on any given day. In fact, some state in their submission guidelines that they likely won't reply at all after x number of weeks if they aren't interested. So to get rejected like this actually got me a little excited. I'd sweated blood over that particular stinkin' query letter, so for this agent to recognize that I could write and to find the story intriguing was huge for me. Arguably not a big deal to an outsider, but any kind of encouragement like this coming from someone in the industry when it isn't expected was pretty cool. It makes me feel I'm on the right track. And maybe, just maybe someday......
And incidentally, anyone reading this off the Facebook link who wants to read this particular book I'm referencing here - tell me you want to! It's really, really hard for me to ask people to read because it feels like I'm fishing for compliments, but if you don't mind my saying, it's a hell of a book. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll think, you'll put it down with great emotional satisfaction. You let me know you want to see it, and I'll send you a pdf version so fast it will give your inbox hiccups.
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