Sorry I'm a little late posting this, Rick. Tenacity is definitely the word that comes to mind when reading your story. It is your realization that one only fails when one quits or refuses to get better that got you to this point; and it will get you further still. Congrats, mate! May this success be the first of many.
-Mike
My Long and Slow Journey to Signing with My Agent
In February 2016, I watched a television show called My Strange Inheritance,
where a man inherited letters between his deceased uncle’s mother and
JFK. After her son, a navy seaman under JFK’s command during WWII, died
during the attack on their PT boat, then Lieutenant John Kennedy wrote a
letter of condolences. The woman wrote back and the two corresponded
even after JFK became President of the United States. JFK helped the
woman receive her Social Security payments at one point. I thought this
would make a great novel, but I wrote middle grade fiction so I needed
to alter the concept. It inspired me to write it from the prospective of
a child whose father died in the war. The first draft was finished in
two weeks and then I revised it to what I thought was query ready (boy
was I wrong).
In
May 2016, I entered my manuscript into Query Kombat and was thrilled
when my manuscript appeared as a selected entry into the contest on May
26, 2016. I was on Laura’s team. In the first round, my query and first
250 words was pitted against an entry that dripped with voice. I lost
the first round in a landslide. That was the end. So I thought.
A
few days later, while out to lunch during my day job, I received an
email from Laura asking if I would like to be a host save because one of
her entries received an offer. I jumped at the chance. It meant I would
be included in the agent round, but I would not be competing in any
further rounds. The benefit of being the host save is that the agent
requests would be available for me to see and respond to while the other
rounds were still ongoing. I was blown away to receive 11 requests from
Query Kombat, one of the requests being from Caitlen from LKG. That was
it. I would surely get at least one agent offer from one of the 11
requests. So I thought. I was so wrong.
Over
time, my requests came back as rejections. I entered my manuscript into
Pitch Wars 2016, and was not picked, but two great things came out of
it. First, one of the mentors, I knew from a Facebook group, agreed to
be an unofficial mentor to me. Secondly, the mentor and her partner
suggested that two other writers and I explore becoming critique
partners. The three of us connected by email and hit it off. I was so
lucky to gain two critique partners who wrote such beautiful prose;
especially since my writing was more like cave drawings than their
poetry. After working with the Pitch Wars mentor and my critique
partners, I was ready to query again. I received a fair amount of full
requests from agents, but they all passed. One agent who passed took the
time to give me valuable feedback. I revised again, taking my
manuscript from 34,000 words to over 50,000 words, adding prose chapters
to my epistolary novel.
I
was ready to query again. Still I received more full requests, which
ended in rejections but I did receive an R&R from an agent. I
revised again and sent it back. She liked the changes but I missed the
mark so she gave me further feedback, which led me to revise yet again.
On
October 31, 2017, I decided to query Lauren Galit from LKG Agency. Even
though Caitlen from LKG Agency requested and passed on my manuscript
from Query Kombat, I reasoned it was practically a completely different
manuscript (which it was) and there was nothing saying they were a one
and done agency—that you cannot query another agent from the same agency
after a pass.
I
watched the data explorer on Query Tracker for Lauren and noticed that
she responded quickly when she requested more of a manuscript. A few
queries that were sent after mine received full requests after just one
day while the date of my query slipped further and further away. That
was it; it had to be a pass. So I thought.
On
November 29, 2017, Lauren requested the full manuscript, which I sent
the same day. On December 14, 2017, I received an email from Lauren
requesting a telephone call. I was thrilled. After all this time, this
was it. So I thought.
On
December 15, 2017, after a night with almost no sleep due to nerves, I
took a call from Lauren. She said Caitlen remembered my manuscript from
when I submitted it during Query Kombat and noticed how much different
it was. Lauren was such a pleasant person and had such great things to
say about my manuscript but also pointed out its flaws. I agreed with
all the changes that Lauren suggested. Her comments and advice were well
thought out and resonated with me, so when she asked for an R&R for
one chapter to see how I handled the revision, I jumped on the
opportunity, hoping the R&R was not a slow no.
I
worked over the weekend revising two chapters and writing a completely
new scene that Lauren suggested. On December 18, 2017, I sent the
revision to Lauren. On December 20, 2017, Lauren sent a second email
saying she liked the revision and wanted to set up another call. This
was it; it had to be an offer, right? Or so I thought. This time my
thought was correct, because on December 21, 2017, I took my second call
from Lauren and it was an offer of representation. Since it was close
to the holidays, Lauren gave me two weeks to hear back from the three
agents that still had my manuscript. On January 2, 2018, I emailed
Lauren and accepted her offer.
It was a long, slow journey, in
which I tried to give up on my manuscript several times, but due to
encouragement from my critique partners and constructive feedback from
rejecting agents at just the right time, I did not give up and have a
terrific agent as a result. I could not have done it without Laura,
Michelle, and Michael from Query Kombat who started the journey with me
and for all the help from friends along the way.
***
Rick Wheeler lives in Northern California in a
multigenerational household. When he is not writing middle grade fiction, he
works with at risk youth as a Deputy Probation Officer. He enjoys listening to
classic rock, hanging out with his dog, and having tea parties with his
granddaughters, not necessarily in that order.
Follow Rick on Twitter @eswheeler1992.
