Stop! It’s Query Time

So that’s probably the dorkiest post title I’ve ever written. Do I care? No. No, I do not. Actually, I should probably change my whole blog/site title to something dorky, for the sake of accuracy.

Anyway, as stated: it’s query time.

WHEW BOY. NO ONE PANIC.

It’s actually incredibly exciting. I can’t tell you how I felt when an agented friend finished the latest draft of the Chosen Grandma story and said, “This is it. You’re ready. GO FORTH AND QUERY, MY CHILD.”

Like, look. I’ve been writing seriously since middle school (well, all right, “seriously,” because how seriously was I doing anything at 13?) and I’ve been seriously eyeing eventual publication since probably 2012 or 2013.

And now. Here we are.

Sending actual queries to actual agents.

Holy shit, amiright?

Of course, I wasn’t sending actual queries to actual agents, like, the moment I got my friend’s feedback – although that certainly decided me that THIS WAS IT. First I had to find the list of agents she sent me two years ago when she began her own agent research. And then I had to update said list, because agents have retired, or changed careers, or switched agencies, or maybe died?

I don’t know, I get a little concerned when an agent who used to be active on Twitter is no longer at an agency and hasn’t tweeted a thing since 2017.

Maybe that’s just me.

The point is, it took a lot of research. At first the time-consuming work of research maddened me – not least because, ya know, grad school. So this was like research on top of unrelated research on top of still more also unrelated research, even though that last bit is entirely my own fault because no one told me to take two master’s programs except me.

Well, me and my favorite professor, who I will be blaming for my poor life choices until I’m dead, and probably beyond.

But as I reached the end of the list and got all my research in order, I felt myself backing off. You know how when you’ve wanted something for so long it’s actually 100% terrifying once you come anywhere close to getting it? Yeah. I spent *checks notes* all of lockdown going hard on final revisions, line edits, more line edits to fix the typos I either missed or introduced during initial line edits, final edits, query materials, and agent research, only to come to a screeching halt the second I had everything ready for querying.

Luckily, I have some incredible friends who took up the gauntlet when I went online like “SOMEONE BULLY ME INTO PURSUING MY OWN DREAM, PLEASE.” So not only am I ready to query, I now have a deadline. By Monday, my first batch of queries needs to be sent.

Without said deadline, I probably wouldn’t have any queries sent by then. With said deadline, they’ll probably all get sent today, in true rip-off-the-band-aid fashion.

INTO THE TRENCHES WE GO, FRIENDS.

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