Dear Writer...

I've started submitting the revised draft of my novel You Don't Think She Is. Last year around this time, when I was still living in suburban Philly, a few months after I graduated from Goddard, I submitted the first draft of the novel. Ten submissions; ten rejections. You'd think that'd be a disheartening and discouraging experience, but really, it wasn't. After carrying the book around, in various stages of completion and then in various incarnations, since 2001, it felt good to finally put the work OUT THERE and get feedback on it, even if the feedback was just ten "Sorry, not for us"s.

That first round of submissions was also a learning experience, in so many ways. It spurred me to really look at the book and see what its strengths and weaknesses were, and to focus myself on further revisions so I could submit a stronger version of the book the second time around. But it also taught me a lot about the submission process itself.

I found that the most discouraging and frustrating rejection letters I received were not those that I had to wait the longest for; they were the ones that came almost immediately. These were responses from agents to whom I'd submitted no sample chapters or excerpt; just the prescribed one-page letter with my curriculum vitae, my publications and prizes, the "elevator pitch" ("Pretendyou'reinanelevator andthedooropens andanagentstepsin andyou'vegot30seconds beforehegets out sopitchyourbook whatdoyousaywhat'stheplot what'sthestory andnowthedoor's opening TOO LATE! BZZZZZZ! HE'S GONE FOREVER!!!"), and the marketing/positioning statement (where I see the book fitting in the racks at the stores. To which the only reasonable answer is, "Right at the front, on the BESTSELLERS table." But I digress).

How, I wondered as I wrote and sent these letters, can someone possibly judge my BOOK on the strength of a letter which contains none of the elements (voice, plot, subplot, story, dialogue, narration) that make the book what it is?

Those few rejections made me realize that, during round two, I wanted to submit only to agents who accepted excerpts or sample chapters. I didn't want my work to be judged or rejected on my strengths or weaknesses as a letter writer; I wanted it to be judged and accepted on its strengths as FICTION.

A few weeks ago, I got the idea to write my query letter in one of my characters' voices. Voice, after all, is such a huge element of this work. The narrative voice of Brian, of course, holds the book together, but woven into the work are the voices of his best friend Margo and his soon-to-be-girlfriend Christy, in both dialogue and in epistolary interludes.

Why not have Margo write the letter for me?

Dear Agent,

Well, it may seem weird, having a character in a book write the query letter for a writer (if he can write a book, why can't he write a letter?) but that's what I'm doing, so weird or not, here goes.

My name is Margo LeDoux, and I'm one of the characters in Max Harrick Shenk's novel You Don't Think She Is...

It felt like it solved the problem. Somehow, first of all, writing the letter in Margo's voice gave me a detachment that I'd lacked when I tried querying the first time. As I wrote in a previous post on this blog, part of my revision process was that I found it difficult to state concisely what the book was about, what the story was, what happened. Strangely enough, though, when I sat down and typed it out in Margo's voice, the single 'graph, 20-second-stuck-in- the-elevator-with- the-agent plot summary came right off my fingertips:

...So what's the book about? It's about me, and about my best friend Brian (he's the narrator) growing up... and this neighborhood girl, Christy Kelly, who has a crush on Brian and who hates me because I like him... but she figures out by eighth grade that if she wants to be with him, she has to get through me... and the rest of the story is what happens when she finally figures that out.

Simple. That's the story. Why didn't it come out in MY voice in those OTHER letters?

More than this, though, I felt like I'd communicated one of the book's biggest strengths: THE VOICES OF THE CHARACTERS (Margo's voice in particular) and their sense of humor.

Finally, remembering all of those boilerplate form rejection letters I'd gotten last spring, I addressed the letter to "Dear Agent," with a P.S. from Margo:

Forgive the impertinence of the salutation, but I've seen some of the rejection letters that Max has gotten. If you agents can send him form rejection letters that start out "Dear Writer," then HE can send YOU form submission letters that read "Dear Agent." Just trying to be fair.

I felt a little hesitant about this approach-- it wasn't "by the book"-- but something about it felt right. It felt like it reflected the spirit and character of the work more truly than the boring step-by-step template queries that WRITER'S MARKET and so many other writer's books and workshops prescribe. It reflected my strengths as a writer, my sense of humor, my story, my characters' voices, all of it.

If an agent didn't like the letter, then that agent probably wasn't a good match for my work... but they would DEFINITELY get a feel for my book from reading the letter.

Still, before I started querying, I sent a rough draft of the letter to a Goddard friend of mine, who responded that it was "brilliant" and that I should use it.

So earlier this week, I started round two of submissions. I went into the online WRITER'S MARKET agent listings and did a focused search (agents who worked with new writers and who represented mainstream novels and YA --young adult-- titles), and, armed with a list of eight agencies, started sending. I sent the letter and a sample chapter (chapter one: thirty pages) to one agency, and (grudgingly) sent a letter only to a second. I did NOT use the "Dear Agent" approach in either letter; I feared that it was somehow too over-the-top. Instead, I addressed the letters personally to the agents in question.

Two days after sending out the first submission email (the one that was a letter only), I received my first reply:

Dear Writer,

Thank you for your query. Unfortunately, your project is not right for this agency at this time.

Best of luck to you as you seek representation.

Warmest regards...

"Warmest regards." Indeed. How warm that form letter was.

If submitting a work, like every other part of writing, is a learning process, then I learned two things from this opening round of two submissions. One, that I need to try to submit only to agents who are going to actually READ MY WORK regardless of the letter... and two, if I am going to send a letter only, use the version where "Margo" addresses the letter "Dear Agent."

Just trying to be fair.

To read chapter one of You Don't Think She Is, click here.

.

My God controls the universe...

One of my favorite statements on the power of faith and God is in the documentary When We Were Kings, the movie about Muhammad Ali and George Foreman's 1974 heavyweight title fight in Zaire (the "Rumble In The Jungle"). Ali came into the fight as an underdog: Foreman, the writers said, was too young, too powerful... his right hand too devastating for an older Ali to reckon with, much less defeat.

Ali, though, saw the heavyweight fight as a chance to help his people's cause at home, and in a prefight sequence in his hotel room, he shadowboxes as he talks about his approach to the fight:

"Now when I go in the ring," he says as he dances, punctuating his words as he punches the air with jabs and crosses, "you see what kind of mind I got now? I've just got a POWER now. I mean, I've got a power that I'm not even gonna realize, until after, I might look him in the face and say 'How did I do that?' Allah, God, I'm his tool. God got in me. My purpose is my people. This man looks slow... God has made this man look like a little kid... that so-called right hand ain't NOTHIN' now... I don't even FEEL him... I ain't got no feelings... I walk right in and I take my shots... because I got God on my mind. I'm thinkin' of my people bein' free... and I can help with just one fight. Now he looks little in comparison to what I'm gettin' FROM it. He ain't NOTHIN' now! But..."

And Ali stops punching and his eyes get big and scared, his voice hushed.

"...if I think about ME... just me... and 'George Foreman knocked out Joe Frazier,' like HE was God... 'George Foreman knocked out Ken Norton'... and the white press, the power structure, ranked me to get tired in five, six... then I'll go in like Norton and the rest of them and get scared.

"But I'm not lookin' at the world and what THEY see. MY God controls the universe."

AOL Welcome Screen Headline Of The Week

It'd have to be a pretty good week for any headline to top this one:

New Celeb Mom Can't Stop Talking About Her Chest

.

Bee is for baseball

Last week, I was umpiring a minor league little league game in Stowe. The kids in this league are between 7 and 10 years old, and, according to the one coach, "this is the first time some of them have ever faced live pitching." If you can call the pitching "live:" as my friend Shawn, who hooked me up with this gig, said, "Get used to saying BALL FOUR! a lot. Lots of wild pitches and passed balls and bases-loaded walks."

I've been studying the rule book to get nuances of the game down for potentially sticky situations, but sometimes, as anyone who's ever followed baseball will tell you, there are situations that you could never have been prepared for. Like last week's game, at the Moscow VT little league field: the Stowe Mets vs. Hyde Park. With the bases loaded, the Hyde Park kid stepped into the batter's box and took a beautiful pitch right down the heart of the plate. If he'd swung, he would have walloped it a mile. Instead, he barely looked, and in fact was the proverbial Frozen Statue as the pitch ripped by him. I remembered the feeling well: standing up at the plate, facing a live pitcher... sometimes I couldn't even take the bat off my shoulder.

I empathized, but called a STRIKE... as the Stowe catcher lobbed the ball back to his pitcher, though, the Hyde Park batter STILL barely moved. Paralysis... and just as I was anticipating a three-pitch called strikeout, the batter slowwwwwwly turned his head only --no other motion at all; just slowly turned his head-- to face me and call time.

"I can't swing," he said nervously, quietly. "There's a bee on me."

I called time and swatted the bee away... the kid stepped in, took his next pitch... ball low, outside, which bounced a few feet away from the catcher... who reached for the ball and then, like the batter a pitch earlier, froze in place.

"Time," I called, and I swatted the bee off the catcher's arm. "I'm the ump, guys," I added. "If they're going to sting anyone, they'll sting me."

This seemed to make sense to them, and play resumed, bee-free.

No matter how long you study, some situations just aren't covered in the rule book. Nor is the most simple rule of all: with some age groups, and some kids in all age groups, you are more than an arbiter. You are a mentor.

More than that, you are a bee swatter.

Addendum: Yesterday (Sunday, May 18), in the ninth inning of the Phillies' loss against Toronto, Phils' radio play-by-play man Scott Franzke and color man Larry Andersen had the following exchange, one which illustrates perfectly why this duo is one of the sharpest, most fun announcing teams on major league radio:

Franzke: Coste asks for time again to wave at a bee in front of him.
Andersen: Or to swat it away.
LONG PAUSE, then Franzke started laughing.

Took me a second, too.

Favorite cartoon of the week

AOL Welcome Screen Headline Of The Week

No further comment needed on this one, I believe:

Mary-Kate's Thigh-High Slit Is Scary

.