A Whole Lot of Awesome Going On

Status: The title really says it all.

Number of queries sent: 27
Number of form rejections: 15
Number of detailed rejections: 1
Number of requests for additional materials: 2!!!

Okay, so, I'm not even sure where to start on all the awesomeness. Seriously, dude. There's just such an overload of awesome.

I guess the logical place is my newest request. This one was for the first 50 pages. I'm all sorts of excited. When I woke up, there the request was, just waiting in my inbox. I did my happy dance all over the house at 5:40 in the morning. I haven't woken up that quickly in...well, ever. I believe that it technically takes three to make a pattern, but I think the second request still goes to show that the first one wasn't a fluke.

And I'm very extra super excited about this request because there have been some changes in my MS. Some pretty major ones, actually. I recently received some very detailed feedback about my novel. This particular reader had some problems that, after a great deal of thought and consideration, I decided were valid. So I completely scrapped two whole chapters and wrote new ones to take their place. And these new chapters rock my frickin socks. So far, the husband is the only other one to read them, but he agrees that they're about a billion times better than the old ones. I can't begin to describe how crazy happy I am with the outcome. These new chapters are part of the partial I just sent, so hopefully the agent loves them as much as I do! I think they really make my novel a great deal stronger.

What's next? Ooh! I know! I won something! How awesome is that? It was from a contest on this blog. I won a gift certificate to use on editorcassandra.com, which I can use for two rounds of help on my query! Cassandra Martin is a freelance editor who has been an intern for a top NYC literary agent since October 2009. It'll be great to get the perspective of someone whose job is to go through the slush and read submissions.

Which leads directly to the final awesome thing I'd like to mention. As I said in this post, I decided to make some very substantial changes to my query following a detailed rejection. Well, inspiration struck the other day, and I cranked out the first draft of the new query. Then it really struck this afternoon, because I ended up changing almost all of what I'd just written. And the new stuff is so much better than the old stuff. So I'm now on version 21 of my query. I have changed the focus and the tone of the damn thing so many times, it's ridiculous. But the new one is something I'm really proud of. I can't wait to send it to the freelance editor and get her opinion. And then out to more agents! Yay!

It's great to feel like I'm really getting somewhere.