Agents~Rejection, Acceptance and Writing

When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this — you haven't."– Thomas Edison

The publishing game is a tough business. From the writer's perspective, it can be heart breaking at times. You've poured your heart, soul, and ideas onto paper. You've had months writing, editing, agonizing over just how to put it down on paper. It has become your baby, a part of you. You decided after passing around what you've written to a few friends that your novel is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

So you decide you want to publish this beloved infant. You research some more writing/publishing books. This new set of books is centered on how to get an agent and get published. In your search you find Herman's Writer's Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, and Literary Agents. Eureka! You've found the golden treasure, now getting published will be a piece of cake. That is until, you actually enter the finding an agent phase of getting your baby published. You perfect your query letter and fire it off to the first agent, knowing that once the agent sees your query and sample that you'll get an agent. Your baby is brilliant, shiny and perfect. Beware! It's shark infested waters to the naive and novice author. Very few authors are picked up by agents instantly. It may take weeks or months before you hear from them.


You get your postage added envelop, which you courteously provided the agent, in the mail. You open it with heightened anticipation. You glance at the poorly copied form letter. Rejection, your baby has fallen down and gotten a boo-boo. Okay, you reason, that agent couldn't see the forest for the trees. Dumb on his part, but you try again. I use the male pronoun here for simplicity. I know there are a great number of female agents out there. His loss. He will regret his decision one day when you hit the best seller list with your baby...that'll show him.You thumb through your list of secondary agents, you've had weeks or months to thumb through Herman's book to compile one. Ah ha, this is the better agent and you fire off another query letter.

Time ticks by (mentally hearing the final Jeopardy theme playing). Meanwhile, you read some more about writing and how to get published. You edit and reedit your work. Or in your reading, you read that publishers may want the next book within two years, so you start on a sequel or another novel. Anything to pass the time caused by the agent dragging his feet and not responding promptly. Your baby should sell itself, why can't an agent just jump on it and do it? So what if the agent has a slush pile of 10,000 queries, partials of manuscripts and full manuscripts to go through...yours is the cream of the crop. If only he could read yours, he'd be set for life just on your commission.

Time has passed and you've received rejection after rejection...sometimes several in one day depending on how you send out your queries. Proper protocol is to send them out one at a time, but that's not realistic considering the time involved. You've hedged your bet and sent out a dozen a week for twelve weeks. You've invested so much of your hard earned money in the pulp and paper mills, the US postal service and stamps, you wish you had stock in them. You've been smart and used a query tracker program to keep track of who you've sent what. (I use http://www.querytracker.net/) Remember, an agent during this time may have wanted to see the first chapter or two before making and offer to represent you. One or two may have even requested the whole manuscript.

Finally, you found an agent who will represent you and your baby. Congratulations! You've taken the first major baby step to seeing your pride and joy in print. You are on top of the world. You may have been one of the lucky ones who sent out one query letter and got representation. Unlikely, but possible. The agent may suggest some changes to your manuscript. It's in your best interests to listen and bend. Being stubborn at this point is not a good thing. They know the publishing market place much better than you do. After all, they are in the business to make money and they know what sells and how to sell it. If it wasn't this way, everybody and their brother could be an agent.

Your agent sends you a contract. Read it over thoroughly. There is all kinds of legalese in it. If you don't understand anything...contact your agent or lawyer before you sign it. I know a few authors who were excited about finding and agent or publisher that they didn't care until later. Then it was a big headache to get it straightened out, but most times prior knowledge is power. Foresight beats hindsight any day when dealing with legal issues.

But above all...write on!

You Have an Idea for a Book, But is it a Good One? Who Cares?

"The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas."– Linus Pauling

The light bulb goes off in my head a thousand times a day as a writer. You can't listen to the news, radio, or even read without the what-ifs, and now that would be really interesting if...

I have conversations with myself all the time about what is or is not interesting. No, I'm not crazy...well, maybe that's debatable...at least not certifiable, yet. Inner dialog is important when hashing out issues of what to write, what not to write, or who would want to read it. If I did it out loud, I'd never stop arguing with myself and those large, men in the white coats would surely come by to pick me up. My mental gears turn constantly, even in my sleep. I keep all these ideas in a file. Some are used in current works in progress while others wait for a revelation to be expanded into a storyline. Yes, when I wake up from a particularly vivid dream I write it down. I keep a notebook by my bed. Granted, they are not good ideas, but one day they might be.

From these seeds have come my science fiction stories, and some pretty nasty scenes in my suspense writing. I know what y'all are thinking... this lady has a screw lose and is not working with all gears engaged. Yes, and yes. It is hard to be an author without having some really wicked and dark thoughts. When writing suspense, there is always a clock ticking in the back of your mind. You always ask, how do I turn up the heat. When things are bad for the protagonist, how do I make it worse. How do I up the ante. Actually this is the basic for any good fiction.

For example today this idea for a story fluttered through my mind. John is killed by terrorists, while carrying an important document that has to arrive in the Capitol within two days. His wife, Karren, arrives on the scene just moments after her husband's death. This is the seed of an idea for a storyline. It sounds simple, but now increase the tension. Karren is devastated by her husband's death, but she decides to carry out her husband's mission. The assassin sees the wife pick up the documents. I continued my musing and wrote myself into a corner. Okay, file this seed away for another day.

I've known many famous and not so famous authors in my life. I guess I just happened to be at the right place at the right time or maybe, it's kismet. The one that had the earliest impact on my life, without me realizing it at the time, was Arthur C. Clarke, 2001 Space Odyssey, 2010.

It was happenstance. I was living in Sri Lanka at the time. I met him while he judged a school writing contest. He liked what I wrote. In fact, he gave me a ribbon and told me not to stop writing. He advised me to eat, breathe, sleep the craft and reach for the stars. Being a teenager, I had more important things on my mind like boys, but I kept a journal of all my travels. So I guess in a way, I was following his counsel.

It wasn't until the late nineteen-seventies when I met Eugenia Price; Lighthouse, Beloved Invader, did I seriously look at writing. At the time I had a child with a disability, she told me to write, no matter what. Just write it all down.

The point of both advisors was whether it's a good idea or not...just write it down. If the seed bears fruit, then you know it was a good one. If it doesn't, put it aside for another day. Because of my idea file, I never run out of ideas to work from. I've been collecting them for over thirty years. The advent of the computer makes finding the idea I want much easier by catalogiing them. Bits and pieces of ideas can multiple into storylines, articles, novellas, novels, and non fiction books. Unless you seek to be published, then your writing ideas, dreams, journaling are just that...yours. Your ideas for storylines and articles need to be held close like a lover's embrace and nurtured into growth. So all those ideas popping into your head, write it down and write on...

Happy Birthday, Baby

As the header implies, it's birthday time in the Murphey household. Our youngest daughter turns 21 today. In our house birthdays are usually hearlded in by my husband waking our birthday children with his rendition of "Happy Birthday to you." This year is no exception although the timing has changed.


Our youngest works as a pastry chef in a five star-five diamond resort. It means she goes to work by four AM each morning. She has today off, but my husband didn't realize it...so at 2 AM he grabbed a pot and metal spoon from my kitchen and headed towards her room. He beat the pot unmercifully and sang happy birthday to her. She started awake, looked at the clock, and buried her head. When I came in laughing, she told me my husband was crazy. I giggled and told her at least he didn't forget your birthday. She mumbled and grumbled something about it being 2 AM, and then went back to sleep.

It being her 21st birthday, we have to get her ID changed..it will no longer say "Under 21." We've planned a cookout for just family and close friends, but as in previous posts you know it isn't that simple. So far, twenty-five have accepted invites for day one of partying. Cook-out and swimming, with cake and ice cream. The pool comes in handy for when the food fight begins, and the leftover cake and ice cream become weapons of mass mess and mayhem. Usually the birthday person is covered from head to toe.

Tomorrow day two of partying begins at 9PM, with a surprise party at a local watering hole. All her friends, coworkers, and family will be there to give her her first alcoholic drink. And no, she's always been a good kid and not drank. I can't think of a better way of going to a bar for the first time. She won't have to worry about guys bothering her, if she doesn't want them to. With one brother-in-law as a construction worker, another works at the Port Authority, another being a firefighter, a cousin who's Chief of Police, and uncle in the Georgia Bureau of Investigations, and three cousins who are police officers, a cousin in the Marines, a boss who just got his black belt in Karate,...not to mention older sisters and parents...who's really going to mess with this child?

Only a fool soon parted with his head or a few other bodily parts.

She should only be slightly embarrassed...but not if her sisters have anything to say about it. This is their little sister after all, and what big sister doesn't like embarrassing their little sister? As for us old foggies...we'll just sit back and enjoy. All your children being legal, has its advantages.

Itsy Bitzy Little Bit Gets a Home~The Rest of The Story

Our neighbor's cat had three beautiful kittens. I know because I saw them within a week after they were born. I have a soft spot for cats, kittens, dogs, puppies...just about any animal. Well, I fell in love with one little kitten. She was white with tan and gray spots. One tan spot falls low on her forehead and travels down her face to her pink nose. She also had the most gorgeous turquoise colored eyes. I had never seen a cat or kitten with eyes this color before. It just endeared her to me even more.

When she was about three weeks old, I picked her up and brought her home to meet my husband. My husband was hesitant. We already had two cats, Milo Kitty-sixteen years old and Patches-eighteen months old, and a Yorkshire terrier, Alex-eight years old. He kept asking me why we needed another cat. I held her out to him and she curled up in my husband’s beard. "Can’t I have her please? She’s so sweet.” He shook his head. I took the kitten back to her momma, knowing I had a couple of weeks to win my husband over.

A couple of days later, my neighbor called me in tears. The momma cat had been hit by a car. She was dead and my neighbor didn’t know what to do with kittens that small. She told me she was going to take the three orphans to the Humane Society the next day because they could care for them. Well, I rushed over and picked up the sweet little one, I fell in love with and brought her home.

When I told my husband what happened to the kitten’s momma, the old softie agreed we could keep her. I left her curled up in his beard and went to the store for an animal baby bottle and kitten formula. I christened her Itzy Bitzy Little Bit, because she was so small she fit in the palm of my hand.

Later that night, my daughter was babysitting my neighbor’s year old son. She heard a hissing noise and went out to investigate. She found my neighbor’s dogs had jumped the fence and were playing tug-of-war in the front yard. She took a step closer and stepped on something soft and squishy, and then she realized what the dogs were playing with…a kitten. The squishy thing she had stepped on was the dead body of Little Bit’s brother and the dogs had her sister in their jaws ripping the small body apart. My neighbor’s husband came home and killed his dogs. My daughter and my neighbor buried the kittens. Now, Little Bit was truly an orphan. My daughter came home in tears and picked up Little Bit looking into those big turquoise eyes and told her how lucky she was to be in our home.

Now, it’s been a long time since I’ve gotten up for 3AM feedings, but I was back in the habit after the first day. Eventually, Little Bit warmed to the nipple on the bottle. After five days, she was suckling with gusto. Earlier concerns that she might not survive vanished.

One evening she was so aggressive with the bottle that she bit off the tip of the nipple. It got caught in her windpipe. Her eyes bulged, her paws steadily rubbed the sides of her face, froth appeared at the corners or her mouth, and she couldn’t breath. I turned her upside down and shook her, and she went limp. Now, I knew this little kitten was going to die. I had tears running down my face and my husband was asking me what we should do. By the time we could get her to the vet, the kitten would surely be dead. My mind raced and I grabbed her around the middle just under her rib cage and did a quick abdominal thrust upwards. The nipple popped out and she started breathing again.

I’m not sure how many lives a cat has, but surely this kitten has used a few. Our new addition may be small, but she’s making her mark in our home and our lives. When she wants to explore the house, Milo Kitty leads the way.

When she gets lonesome, she seeks us out. When she wants to play, she seeks out her big sister cat, Patches. When she's scared, her big brother Alex Puppy runs to the rescue.

And when she wants to cuddle, she will mews softly and look at you with those big eyes of hers until you just have to pick her up. I think Itzy Bitzy Little Bit has a home at last.

Playing Hookie

Okay all, I played hookie from work today and trying something different on this blog...a lot of pictures. I figured after up teem dozen hours working on my website, blogging and editing this page, and doing the illustrations for one of my children's books...I deserved a break. That the beauty of being self employed as a freelance writer and author...I can divvy up my time the way I like so long as I don't break my deadlines.

My idea of a break is what any good grandma would do...I called one of my grandchildren to make cookies. This is my number two grandson, Triston, and my youngest daughter, Jennifer. There's nothing better than the smile you get from children after making something yummy.
In case, y'all were wondering...my youngest does this for a living.
Yes, she's a pastry chef. Great for her, but being a diabetic...it's HORRIBLE for me. Back to my grandson and my playing hookie today. I couldn't leave Triston hanging...after all, it was his day at grandma's house. We decided to go to the playground. So I called...

his brother, Camren...

and his cousin, Grant and ...they all had a blast!

Today wasn't totally hookie day, after all the playing around I did manage to get some work done. If you can call it that.

My current children's series of books involves candy as characters...so this grandma just had to go to the store for candy bars and create a new story for her grands. I call it research and product testing. My grandchildren, although this was only three of six, call it fun and a sugar rush time.

When I do the story-telling a big pile of candy sits in the middle of the floor with this author and her grandchildren making a circle around the pile. As I mention a candy character, the first grand to find the correlating candy bar gets to keep and eat it after the story is done. Each time I mention a character/candy bar, the child is suppose to stand up and wave it. Yes, I buy several different types of bars in lots of three. It's a madhouse romp! I always run my children stories by my grandchildren. After all, they are my target audience. I usually finish my story just in time to send them home to their parents...I just love being a grandma!

The Illiterate Computer Literate

Today, I've spent almost the whole day on this computer updating my website and reading through HTML how-to's until I'm cross-eyed. I honestly thought I was trying to do something simple in my blog space...add a button to access my disclaimer and copyright information. As a writer I always protect my rantings and ravings, and writing with my copyright. I just didn't want it to appear on the bottom of my page in tact.

Well, one hour turned into two hours, into five hours and now eight hours. I've had one of those days and totally DOH! moments where my brain doesn't engage properly. Thank you Rat for all your help because you have been trying to show me the obvious and it's just not sinking in. He asked me if I was dizzy...now you can take dizzy in a couple of different ways...either a nut or the spinning around sort...I'm both at this point. I messaged him back and told him that I was a dizzy, old broad trying to some new tricks. I'm a dinosaur. Although my age in my bio says 49, it should read 49 and holding. Today is just adding more gray hairs to my head.

I'm not a total computer illiterate. Once upon a time,I made pretty good money as a programmer. That was back in the day, when Bill Gates said all the average home computer would ever need was 640K of memory...then he created Windows. When I first started with computers, programs were copper disks and punch cards, and computers filled an entire room. I kept up with the times when COBOL, Pascal, and even Basic came on the scene...then came the programming explosion. C, C++, C+++++++, and HTML came on the scene and were changing things faster than this old dinosaur could keep up. I do know enough HTML to get myself in trouble and actually do from time to time.

I was just beginning to run circles around Windows XP and then comes VISTA with all the bugs and patches. I just bought a refurbished laptop because it still had Windows XP on it. It's not because I don't like challenges, because I do. I'm one of the original Don Quixoites tipping at windmills. Fortunately, I know when I'm licked and I call for help. When something irritates me so much I actually start yelling and hitting inanimate objects. It's time to walk away and call it a night, kick the habit, and play Scarlette O'Hara...I'll think about it tomorrow.

So You Want to be a Published Author...

Why? What is your motivation? Do you want to be the next Dan Brown or (insert author's name here)? Do you want to make tons of money because the writing is the easy life?

The reality of most published author (me included)...

You can spend months or years finding a reputable agent for your masterpiece, the Great American Novel. You finally get an agent. Yippeee! Yahooo! But that's only the first step. Now your agent has to sell your book to a publisher, this can happen within a few days, like it has for some friends of mine, or it can take two years, like it's happened to another friend of mine. Here's the low down on publishing...

Unless you have a track record in published works, advanced royalties are going to be small...in the neighborhood of $0-$5,000. When you balance it against the time it took you to write the "Great American Novel," you've probably made pennies an hour. On average it takes six months to a year to complete a novel, and another twelve to eighteen months before it hits the bookshelves in your local Books-a-Million.

On one end you read in the paper that such-and-such author had a one million dollar royalty paid for writing their novel. Not bad you think, but read the small print. That contract many have been for several books in a series.

An author friend of mine got such a contract from a publisher. Great! Terrific! Sounds good, right? Now consider. It took her six years to write the three books in the contract. Most advances are paid out in portions; X amount at signing the contract, X amount on completion of an ACCEPTABLE manuscript, you can go through months of rewrites to reach this point, and X amount when it hits the shelves. Now, if you have a three book contract...you do the math.

Most published writers do not make enough money to support themselves unless they publish several times a year and keep going on that cycle. You say, but you can earn royalties on the books as they sell. Yes, that's true, maybe. On average, trade paperbacks have a shelf life of three months, nonfiction up to two years...both is determined by sales. You essentially have to pay back the advance you received in the beginning before you see a check on royalties. First run printings will not cover your advance. So your book will have to sell really, really well and go into multiple printings to see royalty checks. Royalties are paid every six months.

Most publishers want first look at your next one or two books to decide whether or not they will publish it. Depending on the sales of your current book, they may not want to publish you again. In that case, your agent will be shopping for another publisher for subsequent works. This is a double edged sword because the new publisher will look at the stats for the previous book also before he decides to buy your book.

Complicated, isn't it. Was it what you thought it would be? Probably not. Is it rewarding? Is it what you want to do? You have to write for the love of story-telling and writing. That's not to say you won't be the next J.K. Rowlings, Diana Gabaldon, or Dan Brown. You could be. Write on!