Wading Into the Slush Pile (Again)

When metallic, painted pigs fly

In November, with the latest revisions to The Book having been keyed in and triple-checked, I contacted an agent who had read an early version and had expressed interest in the story.  I offered her a one-month exclusive (as her agency prefers) and tried to not let my high hopes get that high.

The most reasonable thing I could think to do in that regard was to start building a new list of agents to query over at QueryTracker.net.  My first stop was my RSS reader to go through all of the MG agents I had marked as being of possible interest.  Then I headed over to Literary Rambles and Casey's list of Agents Who Rep MG.  (Seriously, between Lit Rambles and QueryTracker there's no excuse for not being able to target your query to an accurate list of agents who rep what you write.  For free.)

When I heard back from the aforementioned agent that she had decided to pass, I gathered my bruised ego up and dutifully started sending out new queries.  Of the nine queries I've sent out thus far I've had two quick, form rejections.  I've also had two auto-response emails from agents letting me know they had received my query.

What a nice, professional thing to do!  These two agents might take a few weeks to get back to me, but they are giving me the courtesy of letting me know they received my query.

(And, yes, this goes back to the entry I wrote last month.  See Heather's comments to that entry and my response for more on this.)

How is your writing going at the start of this year?  Are any of you querying as well?  And what's your Word of the Year?


-- Tom