Well, I have all my query letters sitting in draft mode in my inbox. I have gone over my manuscript obsessively, spent the last 3 months letting the first draft simultaneously sit and then working on it like a fiend. It’s gone through multiple revisions, had some really helpful feedback and rewrites put into it, many thanks to my awesome beta readers, and now: It. Is. Ready. To. Query.
At least, I sure hope so.
I am going to force myself to hit ‘send’ on all of those this weekend, and I’m experiencing the mild (more like major!) anxiety that comes with pushing the ‘send’ button.
This is my third time querying for a book, and each time, I feel like I wait to send until there’s nothing else I can do to it. On my own, with my own team of trusted readers, with the time I have, this is as far as I can take it. It’s my best, most valiant effort. This manuscript has taken me around 300 hours to complete, and close to a year from start to finish.
And the thing is, even if this book doesn’t go anywhere, even if it’s not the magical “one” that is going to get published, that’s ok. I loved writing it. I loved working on it. I’m incredibly proud of it.
I’m soooo ready for someone else to have it on their ‘to-do’ list for awhile (Dear Agent, I can’t wait for you to pick it up and not be able to put it down!) so I can move on to the next idea, which I have been incubating, but haven’t actually started writing yet.
At some point, you have to push the baby out of the nest. So, with a hearty little shove, given in love, out it goes. (You will now find me obsessively hitting refresh on my email inbox and exercising deep breathing.)