Hello, My Angry Ocean

Two weekends in a row, the ocean churned.  I compared pictures and could have taken them all on the same day.  Only for this one, I'm standing at a beach, with towering piles of dirty snow melting behind me, imagining striped umbrellas, lifeguards swinging their whistles, and the flurry of kids gripping bills while they run to the parking lot as the ice cream truck pulls up.  Somewhere a radio chirps.  Teenage boys paddle a ball back and forth across the hard-packed sand.  Women wearing oxford cloth shirts over their bathing suits walk with eyes cast down and squat to pick up sea glass.  In this vignette, the sun is hot on my shoulders.  I'm sitting in the same striped beach chair I've used for thirty years.  There's a novel in my lap, but it's closed as I watch a wave chase a flock of terns and they skitter-step up from from the edge. 

It's forty degrees and raining here right now.  We are almost there. Right?  Right?

Putting it out there - IWSG April 2015

 Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds! To read more IWSG posts, click here.


Statistics

Queries sent to date: nine

Request for full manuscripts: two

Request for a partial that turned into a request for full: one

Rejections out of the above: one

Dead air: six

The Process

I’ve taken to tracking down the agents for books I’ve  read recently and loved, then researching the heck out of them before sending a first batch of five individualized queries.

For every response I received I planned to send out another query.  Out of that first group, I received two full requests and a partial that resulted in a full.  One of these ended in a rejection with some pretty actionable feedback.  Part of me wants to dig right in an address it.  But it was one agent’s opinion.  If I get corroboration from someone else, I’ll be all over it. 

And if you are counting on your fingers, I know the math doesn’t add up.  I sent another query last week because I got too tired of not doing anything.  It’s important to me that this process be methodical and planned.  But the waiting.  Oy.

What do you do while you wait?

Best wishes to all you A-Z bloggers out there.  I’ll be checking in over the month.  I may skip a few days blogging this month in order to spend more time on my current writing project.