Good Times, Bad Times

Well, another 2 rejections have come in. One I was pretty bummed about because I thought that there might be a chance that the agent was taking her time getting back to me (you know, because she was LOVING my work or something) but that wasn't the case.

Danielle Svetcov - I gave her my old query letter (tailored a bit to her interests) and 50 pages of THE SHORT BUS JOURNAL. She gave a great, personalized rejection saying that she enjoyed much of my book and thought I had an extremely likeable protagonist. In the end, she didn't like the 'diary format' and thought it was kind of limiting to the story.

Hmm...I don't know that I agree. I sort of think it allows me to 'cut the excess fat' off the story and just deal with the stuff my main character deems important. That, and I think the whole purpose of the journal he writes in is that it's his therapy and his way of working through the mess of troubles he finds himself in. Maybe that doesn't make itself clear in the first 50 pages. I really think the book would lose something were it written in straight narrative. Maybe I'm wrong.

Stephen Barbara - I sent him my new-fangled query and the first 5 pages. Wow. The absolute FASTEST rejection I've ever gotten in my life. 7 minutes! He thought I had a interesting concept (normal kid riding short bus with disabled kids) but he didn't like the diary format, either.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Thomas, that's 2 agents in a row who said they didn't like the diary format. Change it! I have to exhaust many more options before I decide to change things up. I think I need to get feedback from someone who has read the whole thing before I go crazy and rebuild my book from the ground up. Am I being stubborn? Stupid? Both? I'd hate to change it on the whim of 2 agents...especially ones who I've e-mailed. They're flipping through thousands of queries a day. The odds of landing one of them is (to me) much slimmer than a snail mail one. Is that crazy talk? Mayhap...

I e-mailed to Terry Trueman, author of STUCK IN NEUTRAL and CRUISE CONTROL asking for his sage advice in trying to hook an agent. I thought he'd be a good resource since his book deals with handicapped children and there's obviously a market for this kind of work. I was amazed that he wrote back to me the next day. He gave me a couple of ideas of where to go. He suggested contacting his agent's former assistant (Paul Rodeen) and to check out the book STONER & SPAZ which is a book about a kid with cerebral palsy.

Read the book in 2 days. Great read. Just can't find who Ron Koertge's agent is. Hmmm...

Anyway, I sent a very short note to Paul Rodeen and mentioned that Terry and I were talking about my book and his name came up, blah, blah, blah... So far, nothing. We'll see if something transpires.

So, that's where I'm at. Still plugging away. I've got about 6 queries out in the great internet graveyard, waiting to see if anyone is interested. I need to knuckle down and start getting some snail-mail queries out there. It's time.

Oh...here's something that sucks. My computer has contracted some kind of virus. It's been a nightmare and I'm slowly trying to get things back up and running. It's so frustrating to be working on something and have some ridiculous pop-up come on the screen. It makes me look at the companies and the products they're promoting and swear like a truck driver. Also, I want to boycott any site and/or product associated with these scumbags.

So yeah, I've got my work cut out for me. It's made working on 'Goodhalo' sporadic at best. That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it. Well, for now.