I've always wanted to be a writer--ever since my first grade teacher Mrs. Bradley told my mother that I had talent. I still have some of the letters that I wrote to Mrs. Bradley over the summer, though they're hard to decipher (my talent for spelling came later).
I started a handful of novels during high school and college, but never made it past the third page. That finally changed in 2016, when a friend told me about NaNoWriMo. I decided to give it a try and finished the month with 40,000 words of pure nonsense.
I didn't meet my word count goal and I could tell that what I had written wasn't very good, but I had finally broken through my three page mental block. The next year, I tried again and completed my first YA novel (though it took more than just one month). It was good! It read like a real book! All my friends said so! So I spent one afternoon researching queries and then started sending it out to agents, sure I would sell it by the end of the year.
,Surprise, surprise, writing and querying is not that easy. I actually had a handful of full requests, but none of them led to representation, and after six months I realized it was fundamentally flawed in a way I didn't know how to fix, so I shelved it and moved on to a new project.
My second novel was a MG inspired by some of my own family history. I applied for a Writementor in spring of 2019 and I was thrilled when A.J. Sass chose me as his mentee! We spent the summer reworking my book and preparing for the agent showcase in the fall. I got quite a few requests for that book, including an R&R, but after 14 months, I finally shelved it. Hoping to dust it off again someday, though!
While I was querying my second book, I started writing another YA. This one was very different from my first two projects, and it was slow going. I would write 40,000 words and then delete 30,000. I finally finished a draft and sent it out to my critique partners, and then started the never-ending process of revisions.
Finally, it was ready to query! I felt more prepared than I had ever been. I had a list of about 30 agents with specific MSWLs that were a perfect fit. I had mastered the art of the query and synopsis (with the help of my CPs!). I sent it out, anticipating immediate requests.
And then the rejections started rolling in.
But I didn't give up and my story doesn't end there.