Category: Progress

Posted in Agents, Getting Organized, Picture Books, Progress, querying, Research, The Writing Path

Query Prep: Researching Agents

Posted on by beckylevine

Luckily for me, I enjoy research. I like doing a quick search and seeing if I hit anything interesting on the first try. I like going down rabbit holes. And I like pulling my discoveries together into some kind of recognizable order.

All of which is a good thing. Because, as I started getting serious about agent research this month, I remembered that it is a particularly twisty-turny rabbit hole.

It’s pretty easy to find a list of picture book agents. It’s pretty easy to find an interview or a quote that tells you a tiny bit about the agent, what they like, and if/where you might connect. It’s pretty easy to start popping their names into a spreadsheet.

And it’s pretty easy to find a reason why you won’t be querying them.

I took a bit of time to set up a spreadsheet, with a tab for research and another tab to actually track queries. I know lots of people like QueryTracker, and I may go back to it when I actually start sending out queries. But I’m not very visual, so it helps me to see all the info in one place. If you decide to use a spreadsheet, obviously, you’ll set it up for the info you want to track. But I did this a little differently than the last time I was querying, so I thought I’d highlight some of the columns that I added this time around.

  • I have two columns for Publishers Marketplace rankings. One is for the agent’s ranking, and the other is for the agency ranking. This will let me watch for newer agents who may not have a lot of sales yet, but who are working at an established agency and who may have support from the more experienced agents there. I want to sort by this column, so for any agent/agency I can’t find a PM ranking for, I’m just entering 1,000, so those rows will filter down to the bottom of the list.
  • I have a column for whether or not an agent represents picture book, and I’m making sure to separate out those agents who are looking for authors and not just author/illustrators. Because I can barely draw a stick figure!
  • I have another column for whether or the agent is currently open to queries. This column was really frustrating me. I felt like I just kept bumping up against agent after agent who are not open to querying. I knew QueryTracker information included this info for each agent, so I posted in the 12X12 Facebook group and found out that the QT info is almost always accurate and up-to-date. So I did a filtered search there and came up with a list that only includes open agents. It was a decent length and has me feeling much less discouraged.
  • I added a column for the most recent date on which I’ve added research info for each agent. I remember, last time, not doing this and finding out that I was definitely not carrying that factor around in my memory.
  • I put in one more column for my own ranking of agents on a scale of 1-5, 1 being the agents that go to the top of my query list (and get added to the tab for actual querying and tracking). 4 is for the agents I would love to query, but who aren’t open right now or aren’t taking any more picture book authors. 5 is for the agents I don’t see myself ever being a fit with; again, if I delete them, I won’t remember that I’ve already researched; this keeps them on the spreadsheet, but out of sight. 2 and 3 are kind of nebulous, more a gut feel where I think the agent falls after my #1-ranked agents.

This is really getting into the weeds, and you may be reading it and saying, “Duh!” But I remember when I was first starting to do this, years ago, I felt like there was a lot of info floating around out there, and I wasn’t sure how to best organize it, and I kept finding info that didn’t fit into my spreadsheet. I’m feeling better about this one, even though I’m sure I’ll keep modifying it as I go.

So if you’re already set, my best wishes to you for a successful query path. If you find this helpful, I’m glad to have tossed it up here!

Posted in Chapter Books, Getting Organized, Organization, Picture Books, Progress

Sometimes Life is Like a Snow Globe

Posted on by beckylevine

Okay, sometimes life is like being inside a snow globe. It’s an odd metaphor for a summer, but it’s a summer where things have been shaken up, settled briefly, then shaken up again. In July, we “hosted” my husband’s kidney stone about three weeks. (Go get a big glass of water. Right now. I’ll wait.) Then the heat wave hit, and now California is basically one big firestorm. I’ve been able to get things done at work and make some decent progress on a writing project, but concentration and focus haven’t been my friends for a while now.

When my snow is “settled,” I’m good with having a lot of writing projects up in the air. I can shift back and forth, letting one simmer while I move forward on another. When the snow is whirling, though, having that many first drafts and revisions in my head is like being in a blizzard. (Not that I’ve ever been in a blizzard.)

This morning, after I checked the news on the fires, I took a few minutes to sit and breathe (the smoke has been better at our house for a couple of days!). The wind in my head quieted down a bit, and my mind wandered over to my current writing projects: a new picture book idea I’m excited about, three revisions I have some good thoughts on, and whatever continued writing I want to do on my chapter book wip after the Highlights workshop at the end of this month.

Needless to say, the thought of all those projects waiting for me kicked up the wind, and my mind was back in the snowstorm. I reminded myself that, at times like this, it’s good for me to step back into a sheltered place, line up my goals neatly by the fire, and make some decisions about what comes next, then next after that, and then next again. A row of “nexts” is much better than a swirl of “NOW!”

I put my row in this order:

  • I want to write another chapter on the chapter book WIP. I’d been putting that on a shelf, because it isn’t required for the workshop, and who knows what direction I’ll be going when I’m on the other side of all that learning. But I realized this chapter is calling to me, I can see my MC struggling and coming out (temporarily) ahead by the end. This sounds fun, and fun is good. Assuming the snow settles a bit, that’s the writing I’ll do this weekend.
  • I’ll plot and think and brainstorm and get a first draft out of the new idea. When this year started, I had what I thought was four picture book manuscripts worth revising for (eventually) querying agents. Since then I’ve drafted and revised two new ideas into stories with a lot more potential. It’s clear to me that only one of those original ideas is good enough to revise right now, and the other three need to go on a shelf. I think this newest idea is another good one, and I want to get it drafted. Then I’ll be back to a stack of four, and a much stronger hope that I can turn them into something ready to show agents.
  • After the workshop, I ‘ll move into revision-only mode on my picture books. Four is enough, and I want to keep doing the hard work and getting more feedback from my critique group. I never say never, but at this point, I may not go on another idea hunt until Tara Lazar’s Storystorm comes around in January. (Which, the way time has been feeling lately, is right around the corner!) My goal is to start querying, and revision is going to be the best path toward that goal.
  • I’m not making any hard decisions about the chapter book until after the workshop. I may find out that this story idea just doesn’t have the potential for today’s market. I may find out that I’m on the right track, and I may “depart” from Highlights as or more excited about the story as I am right now. If the latter happens, then I’ll toss that ball into the air and have it handy to work on anytime I need to let all four picture books simmer for a few days.

Believe me, I’m perfectly aware that this list is my brain’s attempt to glue my snow globe to a shelf and keep anything else from shaking it up, and I’m even more aware that actuality is out of my control. But I’m looking at my plan as being like a snow shovel. If I don’t pick it up and do some clearing while I can, I’m never going to be able to get my car out of the driveway. (Not that I’ve ever held a snow shovel.)

How are you handling the chaos these days? Feel free to share any tricks and tips in a comment!

Posted in Progress, Revision, The Writing Path

Moving On: New Plan, New Path

Posted on by beckylevine

So for the past few months, I’ve been working to get a draft of the WIP done, for the possibility that I would get accepted into a SCBWI mentorship program. Best laid plans and all that, lots of reasons, that plan didn’t work out.

But I still have my finished draft!

My goal for this next pass has been to work with someone over time to strengthen a few building blocks of my story. The biggest challenges, in all my writing, but especially in my novels are

  • To come up with ideas for strong actions for my hero to take
  • To build a character-driven plot, where the things my  hero does are truly based in the person they are
  • To make my scenes part of a plot arc that grows in tension to the crisis/climax.

I don’t know why these are my sticking points, but they are, so I’ve got to deal with them. The rest of the WIP is still quite the mess, with about a gazillion unanswered questions, undeveloped side threads, and characters who kind of drop in and out of their own subplots at random. But those are all revision areas I feel like I can deal with. I have dealt with them on other projects. But these building blocks…

So I’m hiring an editor. I’ve done this before, to get some help on my first picture book, and the woman I worked with them also does middle-grade and is awesome sauce. She also just did a couple of more picture book edits for me, and her feedback was wonderful and brain-spark inciting. Anyway, she was open to my need for her to work on an earlier draft (let’s not go into how many drafts you can have and still call them “early,” okay?), to focus on a few specifics, and–hopefully, for her sake–to put aside the pain and heartburn of ignoring all the other elements that are still beyond rough.

So the manuscript is out there, if not to the place I originally expected it to be. I have the two picture book critiques to be revising from, as I try to bring two more books up to the as-ready-as-possible stage. And I’m keeping a notebook of Things That Occur To Me about the MG WIP, that I will want to tweak, strengthen, improve when I get that critique back and begin the work of re-stacking the blocks. Maybe even re-carving them.

I love revision, so in many ways, I’m really looking forward to the next step. But I know I’m also in this for the learning process, for understanding more than I do now about those elements I struggle with. I have this sense that now is the time to stop spinning in a circle, to climb out of the skill level I’ve been at for years. If not now, then when, right? So, yes, my end goal is still agent/aquisition/publication, but I’m trying hard not to focus on that goal for a bit (because it tends to play mind games with me.) Instead, my focus will stay on skill-building, strengthening myself as a writer, learning how to weave more power into the scenes I write.

“She made herself stronger by fighting with the wind.”
-Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

 

 

Posted in NaNoWriMo, Progress

Progress: The Muddy Definition

Posted on by beckylevine

I didn’t do NaNo this year. I keep saying that someday I will, but November never shows up on my calendar as a one-project, one-focus month. Every year, though, I follow along on blogs and Facebook and Twitter and eavesdrop on the conversations about how everyone is doing.

And every year, at this time of the month, with turkeys on order at the grocery store and cranberry sauce gelling in the pot, I think…how must NaNo writers be feeling. Four or five days with kids out of school, family visiting, and tryptophan sending us into naptime…and how many more words left to write?

I find myself worrying a little about NaNo stress levels and hoping that nobody’s really beating themselves up about word count or having to write The End in concrete in a week. I find myself hoping that they know there are many different meanings to progress and knowing that they have already achieved some form of it.

Here are just a few things that qualify, on my tally sheet, as progress:

  • Discovering the true, important goal of your hero.
  • Figuring out why your antagonist is so mean.
  • Working out the elements of your world–whether that be an elven forest, a far planet, or a particular street corner in your neighborhood.
  • Writing five chapters in a row without knowing what you’re doing, then realizing the connection between these scenes and the story arc—even if  you put off the revision till later.
  • Writing a half-page of perfect dialogue.
  • Writing one chapter in third person, another in first, two in present-tense, and six in past. And being okay with the fact that you’re playing around and experimenting.

Whether you did NaNo or not this month, I’m betting you achieved one of these progress markers, or another with as much weight. Let’s face it–the best progress of NaNo is taking your writing so seriously, with utter commitment, for this one month. And realizing, out of that month, that–minus the sore wrists and the exhaustion–this is the commitment you want to feel about your writing all year long.

What’s your definition of progress? What did you do this month that makes you proud of yourself as a writer? Leave me a comment and share.

Then go out and buy another two pounds of yams and another can of whipped cream for that pumpkin pie!