Blog Post Two A: The Quest For A Literary Agent and The Information Temptation

Well, I’ve gotten a couple of rejections under my belt now. Not an easy thing to admit from a die-hard perfectionist - but I feel like I’m officially querying now. I’m one of that vast legion of questers holding on to hope as the very polite no-thank-yous slowly trickle in. It’s a very strange dance though. I’m prone to researching, even over-researching just about anything I do. My last vacation to Universal Studios not only had meal plans and itineraries, but pages and pages of possible retorts to use when talking to the meet-able characters to elicit the best reactions. (ask me about my use of ring pops) Between Querytracker and Squarespace site analytics and a cursory glance at social media, I feel like a stalker grasping at every possible clue that might tell me when someone is looking at my site or my query and how they might respond. What browser did they use? How long were they on a single page? How many queries are still ahead of me in the queue? I’ve had to cut myself off. The information is there - ready and available – but it seems… sneaky. I don’t want to be one of a hundred query-focused micro-managers salivating over someone’s rejection because it pushes my own up the list. I wish everyone else querying the best possible results. We need more good books. And I wish all the agents being queried a little breathing room without my constant refreshing of their average times to reply. Information has always been my addiction. For now, though, I’ll just be satisfied hitting the refresh button on my email instead. Wish me luck.