The temperature is dropping, leaves are turning color, beverage flavors are turning pumpkin, Twitter is complaining about how awful candy corn is…
I guess that means NaNoWriMo is right around the corner. Ugh.
I didn’t participate last year because I was revising Plague of Cataclysms. In 2019, I did this:
*Sad face emoji*
I thought maybe I was finished with NaNoWriMo, since I seem to suck at it and never get close to 50k words, but it just so happens I’m about to start writing a new novel in a couple weeks, and boy would you look at the calendar…
I guess I have no choice this time around đ¤ˇââď¸
I’m switching things up a bit with my next project, gonna try my hand at sci-fi instead of epic fantasy. I’ve written a number of (terrible) sci-fi short stories, but this would be my first ever novel-length sci-fi work, assuming I follow through and complete it. I’ve been reacquainting myself with machine learning and AI this year, and I thought it would be fun to incorporate some speculative ideas I have within that realm.
Here’s to hoping I can top my most recent incredible effort of 16,850 words this year đť
And so the time draws near, that inescapable fate of the writer. The time for inevitable rejection.
I’m finally approaching the finish line of my 8th manuscript, PLAGUE OF CATACLYSMS. When I say the finish line, I hope I mean kind-of-the-starting-line. But that, of course, depends on if I see slightly less than 100% rejection.
Ah, rejection, my old friend. Nemesis, really, but we know each other so well that it’s hard to tell the difference at this point. How does a writer deal with that rejection? In my case, poorly.
But! I’ve decided to look for some positive in the rejections. By taking the viewpoint that in getting rejected, that means I’ve tried, I gave it my best, and that’s more than many people have accomplished? No.
No, gross! Losers always whine about their best…
Instead, I’ve created a document where I can paste all the “encouraging rejections” I’ve received. The few (and it’s very few) that include positive personalized feedback or encouragement. I’ve also augmented it to include feedback I’ve received from industry professionals through freelance editing hires or charity auctions. As I gear up for the first round of queries for PoC later this month (yes, I realize the acronym is a bit awkward nowthesedays, but the title is awesome so đ¤ˇââď¸) I thought I’d share a few of the entries.
A rejection from the slush pile for my previous MS, THE OBSIDIAN PYRAMIDS:
Thank you so much for giving me the chance to consider THE OBSIDIAN PYRAMIDS. I was excited by your query and the premise of your book. Itâs clear that youâve devoted a lot of hard work to this project, and your passion comes through in your writing. However, while there is a lot to be commended, I struggled to connect with the manuscript in a meaningful way, and therefore donât believe that I would be the most effective champion for your book.
OK, not exactly glowing praise, but something positive, at least. More than a form letter, ya know? At least she recognized I tried hard and gave it my best đ
From an agent I pitched TOP to at a conference, who gave me a full MS request:
Thanks so much for reaching out and for the opportunity to read your book, The Obsidian Pyramids.
You have such a strong narrative voice and I liked the amount of thought and detail that you applied to your world-building, especially when describing the ancient ruins and the power of the pyramids. Your writing has a very cinematic feel to it, which made for an engaging read.
However, while there was so much to love about your book, I found that the amount of information and backstory overshadowed Alaeric’s character. I unfortunately did not emotionally connect with him [sic] character as much as I had hoped to in order for me to take this project on in such a crowded market. I am so sorry that I do not have more positive news for you! But please know that I sincerely do like your writing style and believe that you are very talented!
Well, at least this agent recognized I’ve got talent! And a strong narrative voice!
I also participated in Pitch Wars, and one of the writers I submitted standard materials to sent me a brief email, even though she didn’t request the full MS:
Hi! I just wanted to drop you an encouraging note to let you know that The OBSIDIAN PYRAMIDS was in my top twenty. I thought the concept was really cool (and you wrote a great query — kudos!), and I wish you all the luck with it! I hope you’ll keep me posted.
I think she received around 200 submissions, so top twenty is pretty solid.
A few months later, I received a full MS request from the slush pile for TOP, which led to… my very first R&R! The original response to my full submission:
Thanks for sending OBSIDIAN PYRAMIDS! I think the concept is fantastic, and I love the setting. There’s so much potential here! That said, I got a bit distracted by Alaeric’s internal dialogue and the balance between description and external dialogue. Just to expand a bit, Aeleric spends a good amount of time in his head asking himself clarifying questions about what’s going on. It’s always best to avoid that internal dialogue and either nudge the reader to ask those questions themselves or show that the character would be thinking them through action, physical response, dialogue, etc. The less time in a character’s head (“telling) and the more time showing through action, the better. Secondly, you have such a rich world here but the balance is much more heavily weighted towards dialogue than description. I’m all for fast pacing, but we do need description to set the scene and help us feel grounded in the world. Description of where we are, who’s doing what in the moment, etc.
I don’t normally respond with this much information, but the manuscript and concept is absolutely worth it. If you want to revise and resubmit, I’d be happy to take another look. Either way, best of luck and happy writing!
And the response to my revision and resubmission:
Yes, thanks so much for sending OBSIDIAN PYRAMIDS! You really did execute my editorial suggestions, and I think the manuscript is much stronger for it. Unfortunately, though, I’m afraid the voice still didn’t capture me in the way that I hoped. I’m going to have to pass, but I really do appreciate your revision work and the opportunity to read. Please donât be discouraged…publishing is a marathon, not a sprint, and you just need one person to catch that shared vision. Best of luck to you!
Son of a đĄ
Fine, well, even if I have a strong, cinematic, narrative voice, I guess it’s not the right voice, at least for that MS.
And so, after that, it was time for me to move on to my next project, PLAGUE OF CATACLYSMS. No rejections yet, encouraging or otherwise, since I haven’t started querying, but I’ve hired some freelance editors to critique my drafts, and here are a couple pieces of positive feedback I’ve received:
Editor #1:
Thank you so much for letting me dive into Plague of Cataclysms! It was awesome to experience the deep world that youâve built and to get to know all of your characters. You have a great eye for detail, for action, you have phenomenal chapter transitions, and as I mentioned before, you can certainly see the influence of Brandon Sanderson. Plus, that ending! What a cliffhanger! The pain of being an editor is wanting book two, and knowing it isnât written yet!
I loved to see how your three main characters slowly weaved their way to each other. It is one of my favorite aspects of Sandersonâs writing that I think you captured beautifully. I also enjoyed that your characters were very morally grey. No one was necessarily the âgood knightâ to save the day, but everyone was just trying to survive while handling their own baggage. Those types of characters truly speak to readers, so it is phenomenal that youâve built that into all three that we follow.
Editor #2:
I had a chance to sit down with your work this afternoon, and honestly, Iâm so impressed. This first chapter of yours is in truly excellent shape, and your query letter is probably only a revision or two away from being ready to go.
I know that I promised you an editorial letter that addresses any big-picture issues that I spot in your first chapter, but⌠I donât think there are any. This isnât to say that I wouldnât find any big-picture issues with the manuscript as a whole, if I were to read more, but the chapter that I did read is in stellar shape. Your narrative voice is so strong, and the details of your world, both large and small, are incredibly clear.
Call me Dr. Strong Narrative Voice đ
These particular editors have pretty strong credentials in the publishing industry, so I find these comments especially encouraging, though they still found plenty of constructive criticisms to give me, which I’m still working on incorporating into my revisions.
Even so, rejection is inevitable. Inevitable, yet painful. I already have my next MS planned out, and I expect to start writing the first draft within a week or two of sending off the first round of queries for PoC, so if nothing else, I hope some of my rejections are encouraging. Preferably, something else: an offer from an awesome lit agent.
I’ve been tinkering around with code to analyze my manuscripts for a few years, and I finally got serious enough about it to build a real-life application. I named the app Thothafter the Egyptian god of writing and magic (among other things).
After writing several bad books and getting helpful (though sometimes painful) feedback, I realized I had a number of tendencies that showed up as weak writing. I also figured since I’m a heavily experienced programmer, I could make my own revision process easier by setting up some logic to analyze my manuscripts and identify those weaknesses with fancy charts and whatnot.
Admittedly, it’s far from perfect. With my writing, I’m typically very reluctant to let anyone else see it until I’ve spent months revising it. This is essentially a first draft, and as we all know, all software has bugs. Mine is no exception. The format of the PDF report generated could be cleaner, and the text I coded in could be better written. Also, I wish the download process was a little faster and easier. (It’s not really that bad, I promise!)
I plan to work on improving on these weaknesses, as well as adding more features in the future. But cut me a break here, please – you have no idea how much fucking time I spent on Stackoverflow trying to figure out why matplotlib was crashing the app and why pyinstaller and plotly don’t play so nice together. ON MY BIRTHDAY NO LESS.
Even so, I think other writers should give it a try. Oh, hey, did I mention it’s TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY FREE.
Here are the reports generated within the PDF file:
Or possibly, I hate NaNoWriMo? I guess it’s all the same, really.
I skipped NaNoWriMo last year, as I was focused on revising THE OBSIDIAN PYRAMIDS, which I’m still trying to sell. I hadn’t planned on doing it this year either, though I’m just over halfway through the first draft of my current WIP, PLAGUE OF CATACLYSMS. But I’ve been writing much slower on this WIP than normal, and I felt I needed some kind of motivation to push me to write more words per day.
When I logged into my account to set up the page for the new WIP, I noticed that I had created a project and tracked my progress for each of the last four manuscripts I’ve written. I hadn’t realized that before looking, but this stretches all the way back to my third MS, THE BOOK OF TERRORS, all the way back in 2012.
I’ve posted on this before, but I’ve never been a binge writer, and haven’t come close to writing the goal of 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo in any previous attempt. My best attempt is only 25,000. Lame, I know.
I can say with full confidence that I’ll never “win” NaNoWriMo, and you know what? Oh, well. I’m sure other people have fun with it, but it really just ain’t my thing. After two days, I have a whole 1,099 words, on pace for 16,485. I do hope to write more than that, as I’m trying to finish the first draft of Plague before the new year. I started the month with 60,000 words, targeting 110-115k for the full first draft. I’d like to return the the Chicago writing convention I’ve attended previously this upcoming summer so I can do at least a couple pitch sessions, and I figure I’ll need at least six months of revision before I’m ready to start querying agents on this MS. This is assuming, of course, I don’t get any offers on Pyramids before then. I just sent out another round of queries to 8 agents this week, and I have 9 left on my list.
If I can match my all-time best of 25,000 words in November, I’ll be pleased, and that should put me on pace to finish in 2019. But we’ll see…
I’m not a big fan of cliches, and the phrase “so close, and yet so far away” has always seemed silly to me. And yet, it describes my most recent experience in querying pretty well.
I’ve been trying to sell my most recent finished manuscript, THE OBSIDIAN PYRAMIDS, for almost a year and a half now. I’ve queried about 35 agents, and I did 2 verbal pitch sessions at a writer’s convention in Chicago last summer. If you haven’t read my earlier posts on this book and others, THE OBSIDIAN PYRAMIDS is the seventh full MS I’ve completed, and the fourth book I’ve queries agents on.
At the end of January this year, I received my first ever request as a reply to a query. I sent in the current version of the MS, and a little over 3 months later, the agent responded with a revise and resubmit request. She said she loved the concept, and that the MS had a ton of potential, but gave me two general criticisms on the writing (too much internal dialogue, and not enough description to go along with the external dialogue). I spent almost two months revising based on those comments, then sent in the new draft at the end of June.
This morning, I received a reply to the submission. Sadly, a rejection. The agent did say she thought I did a good job of revising based on her feedback, so at least I have that to provide some level of comfort.
I went from a 100% rejection rate in the slush pile to an R&R and (I think) almost an offer with a single agent. So close. And yet, now I’m essentially back to square one. I have about 15 agents remaining on my list for THE OBSIDIAN PYRAMIDS, and none of them have ever heard from me before. Starting over from scratch, so far away from getting an offer.
I was a pantser. Full on discovery writer, gardener, whatever you wish to call it. With my first two books, I started writing them. That’s it. I started with word one and just kept going.
Many years later, I consider myself a pretty heavy plotter/outliner. I HAVE MANY SPREADSHEETS.
Someday, I should talk about my evolution in this aspect as a writer, but that’s a much longer, more involved blog post. For this, I simply want to put down in words as it happens, in case this goes horribly wrong, or horribly right, what I’m experimenting with on my new WIP.
Back in 2007, when I was still (sort of) young, when I started writing my first book, for a few days, I tried writing two books. At the same time. When I’d never written (finished) a book before. Seriously.
It was dumb. I gave the unfinished book a working title of Hell’s Gate. I think I wrote about 10,000 words in it, but unlike every other MS, I tried writing it out of order. It’s a strange concept to me now, and I found with that it was much easier to stick with my other project, The Doorway, by writing linearly. Like normal. Strange, but…
I’m doing it again. Kind of.
I’ve been working on my newest creation, Plague of Cataclysms, for some time now. Way too long, given that I haven’t started writing the first draft yet. But I have written a few scenes. I’ve decided to try playing around with each POV character at once, in her/his opening scene. And heavily revising before moving on, which is something I never really do.
I’m doing it because I want to work on character voices before I really dive in, and also because I want to practice with some fundamental aspects of writing I think I’m weak on. I’m not sure how this will impact the finished product, but I hope it makes me a better writer in the long run.
The outline is far from finished, and I still have worldbuilding details to work on. I count what I have as the zeroth draft. I feel like I’m pretty deep in this thing, but I still don’t count this as a start of the WIP.
So I guess the question is: Am I pantsing or plotting? In between? Or some freaky, mutant combination of the two?
I’ve spent more time working on my most recent MS, The Obsidian Pyramids, than any other book in my past. It even feels like I’ve spent more time on this one than the others combined. Unfortunately, the querying process hasn’t gone much better than before (though I did at least receive a couple personalized rejections for the first time ever, so maybe I should count that as a win).
But the world moves on, and the time approaches when I need to focus on the next project. I’ve worked on my next book a fair amount (mostly pre-writing), but I haven’t been able to get myself to stick with it consistently like I have in the past. Part of that is my career – I started a big, new project a month ago and I’ve been devoting most of my evenings working on it. But the hardest part is convincing myself I’ll find more success with book 8 than numbers 1-7. Creating a novel takes a lot of time and effort, and it can be hard to ignore distractions and put words to page (screen? hard disk?) when I expect only a handful of people will ever read it.
Still, I must push forward. I am excited about the premise, and I think the characters should be pretty awesome, but even though I’ve spent a good deal of time “designing” them, and I know about them, I don’t know them, know them yet. Not like my already-written characters. These new people seem so distant right now.
Anyway, I just sent out round 3 of queries for TOP, so now I hope I can get myself to fully focus on my new WIP, The Plague of Cataclysms. At the very least, I think I’m winning with the title…
As in pitching a book to a lit agent in a pitch session, not baseball. Though the Brewers pitching staff has been quite good this year, especially the bullpen.
I’m headed down to Chitown tomorrow to my first writers conference, and I signed up for two pitch sessions with agents. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but as it’s now here, I wonder what I was thinking when I decided I would try to sell my work by talking to people. In person. Oops.
Anyway, I’ve seen some conflicting advice regarding how to go about the pitch, so I probably won’t do it right. My pitch is about 45 seconds in length, provided I don’t break down in tears in the middle and need time to recover. When I was in college and needed to give presentations, even including a couple at academic conferences in foreign countries, I always thought I did a pretty decent job, and never really felt that uncomfortable. But with those, I had visual aids to help guide my thoughts, and the stakes weren’t quite as high if I did a poor job. It mattered, but it didn’t mean crippling rejection over a book I slaved away for 17 months on.
Oh, and I wasn’t sitting directly in front of a single person who will probably want nothing more than for me to leave so she can get the damn day over with.
But we’ll see how it goes. I’m stuffing a portable box of wine in my laptop bag so I can start drinking the instant I’m done shaming myself.
After 17 months of hard work on my most recent MS, The Obsidian Pyramids, I sent out my first round of queries seven weeks ago; four rejections so far, but I’m still waiting to hear on four others. I also decided to enter #QueryKombat last minute. We’re supposed to hear who made the cut (64 out of 428 entries will make the tourney) next Friday.
I’ll try to keep track of my query adventures here, starting by posting the current version of my query and the first page of my MS (this is essentially the submission to #QueryKombat).
Query:
Dear [Agent],
Twelve obsidian pyramids have stood since before memory, conferring arcane powers upon those who seek them out. Most who pursue them become Endowed, acquiring one of twelve special abilities. But a few unlucky initiates are instead marked â physically and spiritually â as Accursed, and are treated as little more than animals, thought to possess stained souls.
Alaeric Helskor is one of those unlucky few. After years traveling lost and alone, heâs visited by a mysterious shadow-woman who grants him the unique ability to temporarily siphon Endowedsâ powers â but only after heâs slain an Endowed of matching ability. Promising him redemption, she convinces him to travel to Lake Celes, where a self-proclaimed prophet named Ben Tobagho has taken control of ancient ruins that contain the secrets of the pyramids and their creation.
After an Endowed poisoned his daughter years ago, revenge sparked in Tobaghoâs heart; he now plots the destruction of the pyramids and the end of the Endowed, playing on the fears and jealousy of normals â men and women whoâve never visited the pyramids. When the shadow-woman prompts Alaeric to steal a mystical artifact from within the ruins, he quickly makes himself Tobaghoâs enemy.
As Tobaghoâs vitriolic message spreads and his power grows, Alaeric becomes caught in the middle of the ensuing war between Endowed and normals. To save the pyramids, and the shadow-woman who granted him his powers, he must expose Tobagho as a fraud. But the prophet holds all the cards, and Alaeric must decide if redemption is worth his life.
THE OBSIDIAN PYRAMIDS is a 110,000 word adult high fantasy that melds the western-style setting and innovative magic of Brandon Sandersonâs THE ALLOY OF LAW and the morally flawed yet likeable characters of Scott Lynchâs THE REPUBLIC OF THIEVES.
I work as a portfolio manager for Crabel Capital Management, and I earned my B.S, M.S., and Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from Marquette University. My greatest writing influences include Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson, and Jim Butcher.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Best Regards,
Kevin Indrebo
First page:
Alaeric pressed his body against the rock outcropping that concealed him, fingers wrapped around the hilt of his sword. He controlled his breathing, keeping it slow and calm. The eerie silence of the late afternoon was loud in his ears.
Below, the woman whoâd been tracking him picked her way along the gully. Her blood-red hair stirred as a slight breeze picked up, and she glanced around, eyes wide and alert for anything â not the look of someone who assumed she was alone. Days since he discovered her, this was the first time heâd managed to gain the advantage and get a good look at her.
She was quite striking. Beautiful, even. She wore tight, black leather pants and a matching jacket, with a small bedroll strapped to her back. She walked with an otherworldly grace, one that made her appear out of place among the stunted plants and rocky, dry terrain. Like a thorny, vibrant flower in a dying, unkempt garden.
A Dancer. No doubt about it. She floated over the uneven ground Alaeric had stumbled and struggled his way through a few hundred heartbeats earlier. A high-level Dancer, at that. Too high for Alaeric to sense how many pyramids sheâd seen.
This complicated things. For a time, when he first noticed the signs, heâd wondered if he was imagining the womanâs presence in his wake. The djinn knew he was having a fuck of a time distinguishing real threats from fake these days. But even when heâd convinced himself someone was tracking him, heâd still held out hope it was a simple brigand. Simple, but persistent. Alaeric may not have looked like much of a target, but out here, in the lonely and vicious Miraji Desert, some folks were desperate.
A few weeks ago I had the flu. I had it bad. I get sick somewhat frequently, partly because I fly a lot, partly because I drink too much and that probably weakens my immune system I can only assume. But I haven’t had the flu much since I was a kid. This was definitely the worst I’ve had it since I turned 18.
I couldn’t get out of bed for 3 days except to go to the bathroom. Could almost eat nothing.
It was also hard for me to sleep during the day, feverish and sweaty that I was. Fortunately, I had one little piece of luck on my side. Something that made it easy to get through. OK, not easy, but possible. I was reading Brandon Sanderson’s Oathbringer (Stormlight Archives 3) at the time.
Now, I read a lot of big books (I love big books and I cannot lie). Epic fantasy has always been my thing. I used to go to the bookstore and randomly choose books from the fantasy section based on which one was the thickest.
But I’m pretty certain this is the longest book I’ve ever read. Over 450,000 words. More than 1200 pages in hardcover with basically no margins. That’s about four Kevin books in one.
The final sequence, which involved about a thousand threads converging on each other in an epic confrontation, was the equivalent of a normal-sized novel. And holy shit was it emotionally exhausting.
It was incredible, and the only bad part about it was: I was sad it finally came to an end. 450,00 words and I wanted more immediately.
I want to be able to write like that. To create something so epic, so gripping, so dramatic, an epic fantasy reader can read the longest book she’s ever read and think it was too short.
But I can’t. Or at least, I can’t imagine ever getting to that level. I’ve learned more from Brandon than any other author, and I think a lot my strengths as a writer are similar (though not as good by any means) to his. To do what he did in this book, though? I just can’t imagine ever having that ability.
But it doesn’t mean I won’t try. I just finished the fifth draft of my seventh novel, The Obsidian Pyramids. Shortly after publishing this post, I will be embarking on one of the scariest, most painful, frustrating experiences a young(ish-in-a-way) writer can have. I will be sending out the first round of queries.
Pray for me. If you do that sort of thing. I’d say have a drink for me if not (or if so!), but I will be having plenty for myself this weekend, so I think I have that covered.
