#amNOTyetquerying

#ambreakingintoasweatjustthinkingaboutit

So I have found three amazing people willing to read my final-for-now draft of my novel, and while I wait for feedback, I have begun researching what to do if I reach the point to pitch the book to agents. Since my readers’ feedback will likely inspire a fresh round of revisions, there’s no need for me to panic about the querying process. But who am I to put off until tomorrow what I can do right now?

Part of the process is to gather a long list of agents to query. This all makes sense to me, but this morning I realized it feels as if in high school someone would have told me to make a list of the most popular boys so I could call them all to see if one of them might take me to the dance. “Of course, most if not all of them will reject you, but as long as you have a long list and make a lot of calls, you will be on the right track.”

Great. Of course, there’s the added bonus that I should research them so I can find out how totally awesome they really are, just before, you know, they reject me.

Just a reminder, I’m technically not at this point. Still, I have been giving myself various pep talks about undertaking this process ranging from jaded versions of the WTF or Why Not genre to over-the-top rants in which I take my work way too seriously. Either way, there seems to be a lot of rationalization and (hopefully benign) self-deception.

Then again, I am a writer. We have to be good at something, you know.