Let's Talk Books

As of last month I am officially a querying author. It is a strange place to be. Liminal. Neither one thing, a person whose writing is their’s alone, nor any other, a person whose writing is shared.

On the build up to querying I spent a lot of time researching things, drafting query letters, trying to work out how to reduce a 155,000-ish word novel into a summary of no more than a single side of A4. It was tough, like homework with stakes, and I disliked it as a process. It felt like the worst aspects of job applications, but with so much more importance. I spent a lot of time, over those same few weeks, coming to terms with things.

Things like,

1. the likelihood (high) that I would not get an agent.
2. the likelihood (higher) that if I did they would want me to change so much about my book I would hardly recognise it.
3. the likelihood (highest) that I wouldn’t just ‘not get an agent’ but that the rigmarole of it all would crush me.

I came to a few conclusions on those. I have decided, ultimately, that this might not be the novel that gets me an agent. It might not, despite being the first I have written, be the book I publish first. It’s long, and expansive. It is a thoughtfully plotted, consciously populated, conventionally unconventional high fantasy novel, and it is not, perhaps, the kind of book one debuts with. Not because it isn’t good, I, personally, think it’s pretty excellent. But because to debut with such a novel is not the oft done thing. This may not be the novel I debut with, but for right now, on account of it being the only one I have, it is the novel I am querying.

There’s a lot of advice out there on writing, and on querying, and as someone who has had, again in my personal opinion, moderate success with the first, and no success (as yet) with the latter, I wanted to add my inexpert opinion to the mix. Writing can be learned, of course it can, almost anything can be learned, but writing is a hard thing to teach. No one can hand you the skills you need to be an excellent author, they can tell you them, show you them, explain why something is effective, or how various techniques work, but they can’t apply them for you. Even the world’s best teacher can’t make you a good writer, because ultimately, what you write is yours. Your mind, your ideas, your soul poured out onto a page.

I think querying is much the same. There is material out there, things that streamline the process, that make it easier. There are templates, and how-tos, coaching sessions, and advice given freely on TikTok. Some of it, most of it, is contradictory. Put your bio-note first; put it last; put your comps in the first or second paragraph; don’t worry if you can’t find an accurate comp, none is better; no comps is a death-kiss, no one will read your query; that word count is genre appropriate; and also too high; and also within the realm of possibility; and also the reason you can’t find an agent; your language is to sales-man-y; you’re not selling yourself; you’re doing it right; you’re doing it wrong. It is never ending. It seems to me that querying is another thing that is incredibly difficult to teach. How do you teach someone to believe in themselves?

And so here it is, my advice, my inexpert opinion : Belt up. It’s hard. It will be hard. You’ve done harder things. You wrote a book, for one. And you wake up, everyday. You open your eyes, your mind fires neurons, your body converts oxygen into carbon dioxide. You do harder things without thinking, metabolic, amazing, unconscious things, than writing a bloody letter and hoping for the best. It will be what it is, all you can do, all you are able to do, is put yourself out there. Try as hard as you can, because you should in everything you do, and then wait. If it isn’t now, that doesn’t mean it won’t be ever. Wake up, fire your neurons, breathe your air, write the next thing.