Sunday, September 16, 2007

Back to the drawing board. Or keyboard.

I sent out a few queries on Friday, which is always a little nerve wracking. To my incredible delight one of my top picks for an agent emailed back asking for a few pages. Yippee! I sent the pages. Very soon, I received another email from her saying that she liked the pages and could I send her about 50 pages. I sent them.
Saturday morning I received another email from the agent pointing out some problems with the three chapters I sent. Then she wrote the magic sentence: Let me know.
Let me tell you. It doesn't get any better than this. Seriously. Of course, I mean other than the agent dropping everything to call and beg you to become her client.
I've been querying for a long time. I've queried several thrillers and one mystery. And I've received everything from the form rejection letter to handwritten notes telling me they really, really liked it but it wasn't right for them or they just didn't love it enough. Or vague comments that were hard to interpret like: "You have a great character, but you need to raise her game". Once an agent took the time to write me a 2 page letter of comments plus notes on the manuscript and sent the manuscript back at her own expense so I'd have the notes she'd made. Believe me I thanked her profusely. And it was probably an opening to a dialog, but I didn't take it. Because from the comments the agent made I knew that we would probably never see eye to eye about a manuscript. She just wasn't the right agent for me.
So, why was this one different?
Because her comments made sense to me. One thing she pointed out I'd thought of several times but had convinced myself was ok. It wasn't.
I wrote her back asking if she'd like to see a revision. I asked because it seemed the polite thing to do. I know this agent has to be busy because she's got a lot of really good writers in her stable. I'd like to become one of them.

3 comments:

Erica Orloff said...

Good luck. Busy people don't often send constructive feedback, so it sounds like she really sees the potential and this is a potential in. :-)

E

Spy Scribbler said...

Good luck! I'm really rooting for you!

Liz Wolfe said...

Erica, thanks so much for the comment. I hope you're right.
Spy, you're like a one-woman pep squad. Geez, do they even call them pep squads anymore?