The Writer's Market
The novel "The Majik of Spark" is finished and got it's first look by a literary agent at the San Diego Writer's Workshop on October 9th. The details can be found in the October 10th post. In a nutshell, the agent, Jennifer Azantian, liked my pitch and requested I send a formal query letter.
Jennifer responded to the query letter on November 12th. In her response she said: "I found your story to be very strong and truly believe you're quite talented." Then she politely said no, the book wasn't right for her, and wished me all the best.
Finishing the book was my first milestone as a writer. The second milestone was getting the attention of a literary agent. Now I have a third milestone - my first rejection letter.
I consider that positive news. Using tools such as the Writer's Market book (and it's online version, writersmarket.com) published annually by Writer's Digest, I am building a list of literary agents and publishers that might be interested in the book.
My first search on the website for literary agents turned up forty. I am working my way through those listings and will report on how that goes.
I'm still writing, of course. The advice I've been given from several sources is NOT to go right into working on the second book of my trilogy. Should the first book not fair so well, few if any would be interested in part two. Well, I can't help but work on the second book, at least part time.
I am branching out, though. I have two short stories in progress, and maybe it will surprise readers to know neither is fantasy or science fiction. The first story has the working title of "Belefonte's Device" and began its life as a science fiction story. When I pitched the idea to my wife, she asked a very good question. "Do you always have to write fanatasy and sci-fi stuff?"
My knee jerk answer is yes, I always write fantasy and sci-fi. But then I took another look at the story, which centers on two friends in their sixties, Nathan and Madge. It didn't take much thinking to see that the story could be better told as straight fiction, and that's now my approach.
My very smart wife also suggested I should write something closer to home. I knew almost immediately what I wanted to write about. In 1968 my Dad was stationed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mom, Dad, me, and my two brothers lived there for three years. I remember very little of my childhood, but the three years I lived in "Gitmo" from the age of twelve to fourteen stand out in great detail in my mind. So I can now add a non-fiction story to my list of projects.
