Well, it’s been a long time coming, but I’m now at a stage where I am ready to submit my novel to agents.
An amusing digression that highlights the passage of time: back
when I submitted a novel in 2011, the convention for indicating italics in
a manuscript was to underline. Naturally, I imitated this with the
current novel submission, and then thought to myself, when preparing the emails,
this is a hangover from the typewriter era that probably no longer exists now
that everything is digital. A little research proved my speculation to be correct.
Nothing much else has changed. I wish I were in a stronger
position with my ‘Writer’s CV’ but perhaps next year, I might be able to do
something about that (more on that in a future blog).
Anyway, the current novel has been through three redrafts to
get to this stage and is now entering its fourth draft. The feedback I have
received so far from Critique Circle has confirmed that the fourth draft is
more a refinement of the third, rather than a complete rewrite. This gives me
the confidence to feel I can submit the first three chapters to agents to see
if they are interested.
The wait time for a response from an agent varies, though the
shortest promises a 6–8-week turnaround. At this stage, they will either reject
you or ask to look at the full manuscript. I’ve never been beyond the stage of
a simple rejection, so that’s currently what ‘success’ will look like for me.
I plan to use the interim period to keep working on the
refinement of draft four. I’m in the process of digesting the feedback,
although I won’t have the full picture until the beginning of November.
However, the feedback so far has given me plenty to work on, week by week.
Another thing I plan to do is continue reading current Young
Adult Fantasy to find new agents to query. I have compiled a list so far of
about eleven agents, which is relatively small still (ideally, I’d like to submit
to twenty agencies). My usual process is to let the book guide me to the agent,
so it does take time to widen the net. However, the pleasure of this is being
able to discover new authors.
What chance, realistically, do I have? All I know is that my
current novel is my strongest to date. Should I receive twenty rejections over
the next six months, I have various alternative options to consider, so it won’t
be the end of the story.
