Breaking 40

I sent out five more queries today to agents to try to get someone to represent me as a writer  I’m up to about 40 total now, maybe like 43. Only 160 more to go before real discouragement sets in. There is so much out there on the internet with tips about querying, writing the perfect pitch letter, blah blah blah.  It’s dizzying. One blog post I read by an agent said they had over 2700 queries in their inbox. Can you imagine!  2700!! I mean seriously I can’t even imagine where you would start.  It’s probably eenee-meenie… Similarly when looking for an agent there are so many out there.  There are lists to help you find one and I realize that almost all of my queries have been sent to company’s A-C.  I haven’t even gotten to the middle of the alphabet yet.  I think I might start with Z next go around. I really have to be in the mood to send them out.  It’s not like you just write a blanket query.  Although I wonder if maybe I spend tooo much time thinking about it. Between researching the company and then researching the agent and then submitting to their specifications well I’m exhausted.  I mean it’s possible to get an agent that never does anything for you, you know? So I worry about that too.  Getting that interest is just a first step…There are so many more steps to go through.  But first I have to get my foot in the door!  It’s so much like temping.  I have such a hard time getting a job based on interviewing but when I temp I’m hired in a week.  Maybe it’s the same thing with my writing, I just need someone to read it.

I want to start another blog adventure. I saw on Facebook some travel immersion type experience where you go live in a city for 6 weeks and immerse yourself in the culture.  So that’s what I want to do.  6 weeks in Paris, 6 weeks in Spain and 6 weeks in Italy.  Sounds a little like Eat Pray Love doesn’t it?  But you know my voice is different. So someone has to finance my first book so I can write this second book, in Europe.  This is my new living in my head idea. I gotta make one of those vision boards.

One of the questions I get really stuck on when writing these query letters is when asked to include an autobiography.  A short autobiography.  What is it do you think they want to know? Do they want to know about my kids?  My mom? My siblings?  How about the babies?  Do they want to know where I went to college?  Where I dropped out of as well as finished?  Or all my office jobs?  My meeting planning life?  Do they maybe want to know about the blog 5 people read?  Probably that, but if I include that I have a blog they want to see you have 10,000 followers minimum.  I mean I’m just not that kind of blogger.  I have 20 friends ya know?  Maybe they want and should know about my friends because realistically they are who have gotten me through life and the whole reason I started the blog in the first place which made me chase this dream of being a writer.  There was also a question to summarize my book in one sentence.  These are so “Julia” (my boss) type questions.  Remember when I said they ask people for a 6 word story.  Sometimes those 6 words are fun, but seriously it’s just an exercise to drive the rest of us crazy.  I looked through my book and came up with this one sentence: I don’t have one regret, I would not have done anything differently.  

It’s frustrating when you hear people use JK Rowling’s as an example of getting turned down in the literary world. She was only turned down by 13 publishers. That’s nothing.  James Patterson was turned down by 70.  My friend Aimee went to self-publishing after 70.  Chicken soup for the soul series I’ve heard 200 rejections but who knows if that’s true. I truly believe it’s right place, right time with everything at least in my life.  I mean you must have a base but with jobs and men it’s no doubt right-place-right-time for me. My time is tomorrow.  I will start packing for Seville (Spain) and pack that extra toothbrush for my new man, who will forget his and be happy that I remembered to pack an extra which I will tell him while we’re sitting in the first class seats on our flight.  I’ve got his back for the little things.  I’m a good girlfriend from what I remember.

xoxoxox