The Blues

Sunday Nightis

On June 20, 2010, in Books, Writing, by Rosie

Don’t know about you, but Sunday night is one of those times in the week where it feels as though it’s all about the dreaded anticipation — whether to have a drink because Monday morning beckons, whether to have a third coz you need to get up in the morn. Getting to bed on time for a good sleep, as Monday is on the horizon. Eating well due to the energy required in twelve hours time. Getting clothes ready, schooliforms organized (Lauren Child’s wonderful term for ‘school uniforms’) and setting clock radio alarms.

I wonder if you’ve ever set your clock radio SO loudly, that you wake up to the news broadcast blaring bulletins that give you a headache, even though you don’t have a hangover. Or music which has enough volume to be heard by the next street. OR, if you’ve set your radio dial in between stations, so that it’s LOUD and sounds like the fuzz you’d expect if you’re involved in a dream of XFiles proportions? Pure static?

Welcome to Sunday Nightis. A semi-regular post from the chasm where a weekend of fun turns into the ponderous grind of the working week.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been working on my manuscript ‘Unravelling’. I’ve been rewriting it, redesigning, rewriting, reworking, and drafting a ‘query’ email or letter to send to an agent, hoping that someone would think it sounded okay and wanna read it. If you’re reading this post and not involved in writing, here are some factoids: you don’t HAVE to have an agent in Australia. You can send your work to a publisher directly, however the likelihood of them picking your manuscript up are pretty minimal.

You might have a Socceroos chance in the World Cup of winning a game/getting published/beating Brazil or having your novel manuscript seen by an editorial team if you send it straight to a publishing ‘ouse.

So, it would be nice to secure an agent in order to have professional representation.

It’s quite nerve wracking, sending enquiries to an agent or literary representative. Yep, you’re prepared for rejection, coz JK got that 25 thousand times before Harry was published, Steph Meyer would have been rejected if she’d queried about Breaking Dawn, and any self-respecting learner-writer needs to be rejected so he/she can wear that badge of honour! It’s all part of the writing camaraderie.

It’s a process that sticks in my (Maxwell Smart) craw. I’m scared, and I think it’s one of the trilogy of reasons I self-published a few things in the first place.

While in the process of rewriting ‘Unravelling’, I got impatient. I’m an extremely impatient person at the best of times (although writing teaches one to develop some patience) but this particular day I decided to send out a query to an agent I had bookmarked in the ‘Australian Writer’s Maketplace‘ just to do something proactive. Something different and a bit exciting (don’t get out much. Writing emails is like having a night out on the town and dancing till dawn nowadays!)

With the help of a couple of wonderful people from the Writer’s Resource Network, I was able to draft something about ‘Unravelling’ that sounded interesting. With an eye on the agent web-page submissions guideline (for INITIAL inquiries only) I plugged in the email address, checked the body of the text, re-read a couple of times, dotted the i’s and crossed all my t’s. I was patient, and thoughtful, and rechecked and checked again.

Before sending the email, I made myself a cuppa strong tea, walked around the house chanting an ‘ohm’, was kind to a salesman at the door who questioned me about our gas supplier, lay down for a moment, offered a pray, breathed into a paper bag …

Then, just as it was nearly time to pick up the kids from school, I pressed SEND! The email was gone, shunted into cyberspace with the hope of locating a literary agent’s heart (contrary to popular belief, agents are NOT the only living heart donors in the world). Reassured and resigned that the email had gone and there was nothing I could do about the contents anymore, I went about my afternoon activities, trying to forget that I had just sent an agent a representation query.

Before bed that night, I decided to look in my ‘sent’ files of email, pretending I was an agent finding my email in his/her inbox the next morning. I put on my surprised and delighted agent’s face, clicked the sent file that housed my query to that beloved agent, and opened the email that had been sent to her. By me. A writer that would love her representation for ‘Unravelling’.

Because here I am, Rosie Jones, writing, enquiring, shopping my manuscript, grooving, shaking. Trying.

Yes. There was my email. By some force of cyber-nature, the contents of the email had CENTRED themselves on the page, effectively cutting off the last words of every second line, and rendering the email garbled (although beautifully formatted) nonsense.

Good God!

Suffice to say, I haven’t heard from that agent. Understandably, I haven’t sent the query email out again, because my Australian agent list has just got shorter. As we say down here, what a bloody idiot!

Moral of the story? Finish the manuscript rewrites before asking an agent for representation. And, as the old adage goes: ‘if you can’t be good, be centred!’