Query, Query, Quite Contrary: Schrödinger’s Novel

I’ve been sparse on the blog because I’ve spent the last six weeks or so gearing up for querying this novel. I have very little to offer in the way of wisdom about this process, yet, but I wanted to capture a few honest thoughts from someone in the trenches, as they say—and yes, it does feel a bit underground, soggy, and beleaguered already.

This is not my first novel, but it is the first book I’m sending out in hopes of finding an agent to represent and sell it. I don’t yet know how that will go, but I’m excited to find out.

Excitement is not a word I’d heard often in connection to querying, though; people more often discuss ‘query hell’ and the agony of waiting and waiting for rejection after rejection for something they’ve spent so much time and energy on. Add to that the fact that querying requires a totally new (and probably unknown, if you're like me) skill set in terms of your ability to accurately and effectively summarize and pitch your new book with some degree of marketing savvy, as well as the host of written and unwritten rules the industry demands writers understand, and it makes sense that this part of the process can feel overwhelming.

I wanted to share one small glimpse into the process so that you can empathize with writers you know who are querying, first, but also so that if you are the writer querying, you might not feel so alone.

A big part of this part of the process is mental.

Here’s how my first 48 hours of querying went:

I’d spent weeks researching agents and preparing materials. I’d finally finished a last proofread of my manuscript (and yes, I immediately found other errors after sending it off the first time, because that’s how this works), and I hit the ground running.

I sent a handful of queries out to a carefully selected subset of agents on my list. I followed their rules, worked to acknowledge their wishlists and preferences, talked about how I’d come to know of them and their work (but in one or two-sentence increments as instructed…), and felt pretty good about myself.

And then, less than 36 hours later, my first rejection rolled in. By the end of 48 hours, I'd netted three!

This, I knew, was not only likely to happen, but was almost guaranteed. Even the very best book imaginable would have rejections, because an agent’s too busy for another client, because they aren’t looking for your genre, because—who knows, really. Any number of reasons. Agents are people—wonderful people who love books are are as eager to find wonderful new authors they get excited about as you are to find them. They have capacities and limits and visions and dreams and goals just like writers do, and it is impossible that one manuscript could align with everyone’s priorities.

I was prepared for this, intellectually; emotionally, though, that first rejection, even from an agent I was already fairly certain wouldn’t take me on, hit like a mack truck.

Why?

How can something be so reasonable and so difficult at the same time?

The truth is that rejection hurts. It takes courage to create something and send it into the world—and no matter how much you comprehend the why of having that thing rejected, the feeling is one of profound disappointment.

It’s also true that until that moment when the first rejection rolls in, your book is sort of a Schrödinger’s novel. Perhaps it’s dead on arrival; perhaps it’s a Pulitzer winner. No one can say, because no one has let the proverbial cat out of the proverbial bag. In that moment, your novel is perfectly unfettered possibility, not at all dimmed by reality.

I wish I had savored that beautiful moment for what it was—I didn’t take time to celebrate the achievement of simply finishing the book and sending it out into the world. I should have. I should have poured some bubbly or something.

No matter what happens in the moments after that, the accomplishment is worth the celebration, and so is the hope.

But, as a good friend pointed out to me when I was laughing at the speed with which the possibly alive cat became a very dead cat, at least in terms of one agent’s future with it—the failure is worth celebrating, too. Because while the untouched, unseen book might be a bestseller, it is also true that it never will be until you open the box.

So, dear reader, if this is you, if you have gotten a rejection (be it your first or fiftieth), I am pausing to lift my glass in a toast to you. You are brave for sharing this piece of you with the world. You are courageous for facing almost certain rejection. You are strong for standing up in the face of it (even if you have a cry or a mild existential crisis). You are no less a writer because of that rejection, and your work is still important and it is still full of potential. As long as you don't give up on the work, anything can happen.

If that is you, right now, pause this and celebrate yourself. Celebrate your grit and determination, celebrate your hard work, your persistence, and, if nothing else, celebrate your hope. You are doing something difficult. The only sure way to fail is to never try, to leave the box unopened, the query unsent, the draft unfinished, the book unwritten.

And, as another of my dear friends says, every no is one step closer to a yes.

Resolute

ENGRAVING of the HMS RESOLUTE

When I hear that word, I either think of the desk, the one in the White House, or the ship which lent the desk both its wooden hull and its name. And this is where I’ll start my brand-spankin’-new blog, I guess, by ruminating on a failed arctic expedition, some ruin, a grand resurrection, and a legacy of reinvention. Also, arguably, by success and failure in nearly equal measure. And, oh yeah, also writing fiction. The Resolute desk, which has played host to many of modern America’s most important political moments since it moved to the Oval Office in 1961, was originally a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880. From 1880 to 1961, it floated around the White House, only to be rediscovered by Jackie Kennedy during her restoration work as First Lady and put back in its proper place. That’s all fine, but not particularly interesting.

Here's the part I really do find interesting: The oak for the desk was taken from the timbers of the HMS Resolute, a barque-rigged Royal Navy ship outfitted specifically for Arctic explorations. The Resolute launched in 1850 as part of a massive effort to discover the fate of Arctic Explorer John Franklin, whose attempt to find a North West Passage in 1845 ended in silence and mystery (spoiler, he and his entire crew died in 1847).

Long story short (we’re here to talk about writing, after all, not boats…), the Resolute met a fate hardly better than Franklin’s. After a measly four years in service, unsuccessfully searching for the lost voyage, the Resolute became trapped in the arctic ice and was abandoned, left to do whatever ships do in such unfortunate circumstances.

In 1855, an American whaler from Connecticut found the vessel drifting nearly 1,200 miles from where it was last seen, and rescued it. The Resolute was purchased by the American government in 1856, cleaned up, and sailed to England as a gift for Queen Victoria. One can only imagine receiving such a bizarre gift from a foreign government, I suppose—but ever pragmatic, Victoria put the ship back into service, where it never again left home waters before it was retired and scrapped for timber in 1879.

The oak timbers were used to build, among other things, a desk. It weighed a whopping 1,300 pounds, and was sailed back to the United States, because apparently, such tokens of esteem were normal?

In other words, the Resolute had a pretty wild and relatively unsuccessful, disappointing life, and that was before it began serving as the stage for the many notable deeds and misdeeds of twenty four American presidents.

Here are my takeaways:

1)      Early failure does not preclude later success.

2)      Success, likewise, does not always look the way one expects it to.

3)      Boats and desks seem to share a capacity for resurfacing in unlikely places.

4)      If you want to make a lasting impression next Christmas, give someone a 19th century boat.

Seriously, though, I find it fascinating that a ship of middling repute as a sailing vessel found much greater notoriety as a desk. And as a desk, it hasn’t endured in the popular imagination because it’s level (true), strong (true), heavy (true), and huge (true)—in other words, it isn’t notable because it’s a good desk. It’s notable because of the things it has made people feel and the stories it has told. Fine, fine, a bit of a stretch, but hear me out. We remember the Resolute desk for things like FDR having a little door added so that his wheelchair could be hidden beneath it or John Kennedy Jr. playing in the footwell. It’s those stories that have seared themselves into the American consciousness. To say that desk has seen things is to understate the obvious (and maybe it is also to snicker with immature schoolkid glee).

I think if you’re going to make resolutions, you ought to do so knowing you can be resolute and still fail. You can be resolute and succeed in ways you didn’t plan that weren’t even part of your own goals.

This has happened to me, so I should know.

In 2022, I resolved to finish my MFA thesis novel.

I didn’t.

Instead, I finished it 2 months late. Success! Not on anyone’s timeline, of course, and as riddled with problems as I assume the Resolute was when it was found floating aimlessly in the ocean.

In 2023, I resolved to query that same (finished, ha!) novel to agents!

I didn’t!

Instead, I rewrote the manuscript twice, cutting out nearly a full third of what I’d written and completely reworking most of what I’d done before. We’ll talk more about that at a later date, I promise.

So here it is 2024, and it’s tempting to be hopelessly irresolute. Making declarations about what I’m going to do seems a bit pointless after two years of failure. But I’m finally ready to embark on the next part of this expedition, I think. My friend Tim would be pleased to see that his boat metaphor for novel drafts applies in grand fashion to this blog post; he’s already told me that it's time to see if this book is seaworthy.

Neither of us know whether it will float or sink, yet, but hey. The Resolute made better furniture than it did a sailing vessel, so maybe there’s some kind of future out there for this novel no matter what happens. Which is why I’m writing this blog—er, Captain’s Log?—to begin with.

On that note, here’s what I’m going to be up to, and very possibly failing to achieve, in 2024.

PUBLISHING:

Query that novel. I can’t control any other part of the process past that, so that’s the goal, packed with all the hopes and dreams that go along with trying to launch a successful career.

WRITING:

Finish the next book. There’s a fair amount of distance to cover before I’m done. I’m hoping some of the lessons I learned in revising this year (see the post I’m writing about revision!) will make the writing faster.

PROFESSIONAL LIFE:

Build out and launch a website. If you’re reading this, I may have succeeded!

Work on building writing community.

Write a blog (again, if you’re reading this, yay me!). No idea how consistent I’ll be, but I want to be able to start a good repository of my experiences for me and anyone else those stories might help down the road.

I am as resolute as I can be. Certainly resolute enough to be at least a boat-turned-desk kind of writer. Whatever comes next, I’m looking forward to figuring out how to be the best version of that writer I can be.

Note: all my facts came from things I learned in a book about the White House I read as a kid, verified by Wikipedia searching. This isn’t a research essay…I’m just a curious person with a blog.

Other note: Thanks, Tim, for everything. Also: thanks for reading, friend. Welcome aboard.