A New Blog

I'm a new blogger here on blogger.com. Not a novice blogger - I've another one on a writer's community website - but I flound this place and thought, what the hey, the more exposure the better. Maybe. See, the deal is, I'm an aspiring novelist. I've been writing short stories for many years - I won't say how many - and a few years ago decided to tackle big stories and see how I do. I've written one novel - which I self-published am currently trying to sell to a traditional publisher - and I'm now working on a second, with a couple of other projects percolating on the back burner. This also explains the title of my blog. My way of making fun of myself by using five dollar words to say that this blog will consist mostly of stream-of-consciousness ramblings and occassional rants. Writing is also my way of putting some order to my thoughts, though it may not appear so here. I won't be editing heavily.

Subconsciously I'm seeking your approval, hoping that you will comment on what an insightful, witty and articulate guy I am. I hope you will be fascinated by my stories and perspective. Look how interesting I am... Just kidding. Or am I? I think anyone that puts their thoughts on the internet must be seeking something. I know I am. I'm seeking an agent at the moment.

As a first time novelist, landing a literary agent is no easy task. It is a process filled with rejection. For most writers, anyway. For me, certainly. I've queried about 50 agents so far, sending the queries out steady for about a month and a half now, and only this Wednesday have I finally had an agent request the manuscript. Requested "the full" as they say in the biz. I sent it yesterday. I'm currently going through another edit, cover-to-cover, and I hope it's polished and tight enough. I still have about 90 pages to go on this revision. I've edited this thing so many times and if he likes it enough to rep it, he'll probably have me edit another 20,000 words out of it. It was 121,000 words when I finished it and I thought I had cut it down it pretty well as I wrote. Then I went through it from page one and did a complete edit and cut out 6,000 words, and had it down to 115,000. Now, I'm 2/3 through it again and it's almost into the 112,000 range. It will be at or below 110,000 when I finish it this time, I'm sure. Depending on the feedback I get from this guy, I may hire a professional editor to work on the book. We'll see. Self-editing is a tricky business. After you've written something and reread it about twelve thousand eight hundred and forty seven times, you tend to stop seeing it, you're only seeing what you think is there. And you miss things that a fresh pair of eyes would catch. Thus the need for professional editors.

I should hear something back from the agent by next Friday, or so his email said. If he rejects it, I'll live. At least he will provide some professional feedback, which I've not received from any of the other agents I've queried. The responses to my queries - a query consists of a cover letter, synopsis, and one to three sample chapters - have been pretty much form letter rejections, or an occassional email that says "while we think your project has merit, we're not sufficiently enthused... blah blah blah..." So at least with this he will be able to tell me if it's worthy, close to worthy, or not worth the time it took to open the email. However it goes, at least I will finally have a professional opinion to consider.

Well, I think I've rambled enough for one night. Peace and warm waffles with butter and syrup...