I've returned from the dead, AKA Twitter, where I've actually been...enjoying myself?? And getting 550 followers?? I'm still baffled. But I like the writing community a lot. It helps take the sting out of rejections and the anxiety out of querying, somewhat, and I've learned so much already just from being there a few months. It turns out that Twitter doesn't HAVE to be a cesspool, as long as you're staying far away from the toxic parts.
It also turns out that--though I do agree with the agent who said having a website is important--having a Twitter presence does generally have more weight in the "finding an agent" realm than having a blog does. Random agents aren't stumbling upon my blog and I'm not stumbling upon theirs, but on Twitter, that happens every day (and especially during pitch contests).
So, since there is so very little of me to go around and so very much in my life to do, I've decided to invest my energies more in Twitter than in this blog. Clearly. I haven't updated since January.
But I did make a promise that when something major happens in author-land, I'd mention it here. No, I did not get an agent yet. No, I have not participated in a pitch contest since January, though I have been supporting others from the sidelines. No, I haven't gotten any more offers of fulls, beyond the one that got me a form rejection back in early February, though I strongly feel I'm in some agents "maybe" piles (agents are very far behind this year, due to the volume of submissions, and I really feel for them).
So then, what, you ask, is the big freaking deal?
It's a very long story, as all of my stories are. Buckle up.
Two weeks ago, I went to a conference in Hanover, Maryland. I don't want to dump on anyone's hometown, so I won't say much about the place itself, but the conference itself was lovely and rejuvenating --which is weird for me to say, because I usually get drained from people. But I think it was the fact that I had never felt so welcomed as I did among my fellow advisors, and, as I did not trust the hotel wifi, I was forced to set aside my emails for three whole days. I did not check my emails or my Twitter, or even think about querying, which took the weight of anxiety completely away from me. I felt as free as I had when I was first drafting, when publication was a very far-off pipe dream and not something scary and concrete and looming. I did zero author things during that time.
And so I came home and I also did not think about author things. I am a consumer tester for L'Oreal, so I tested eyeshadow products. I'm an ARC reader for NetGalley, so I started some of my ARCs. I am obviously an academic advisor, and one who was very, VERY far behind, so I did my actual job. During that time, I also finished the last pills in my first bottle of my new vitamins, which meant that I officially had 1 month of megadoses of iron and B12 in my body. I can't say I had more energy or I was in less pain, because I wasn't. But my head felt so clear.
My clear head and I drove to the library the Saturday after I returned. I picked up the copy of S. T. Gibson's A Dowry of Blood that I'd been trying to get my hands on for months now, and I immediately fell in love with it. Whenever I had managed to stem the flood of student emails enough so that I could get a break (it was also registration week), I buried myself in that book. It was like S. T. Gibson reached into my head and drew out all my inspiration for the Dracula paper and it was freaking amazing!! I'm not ashamed. I read it in two whole days.
And I specifically latched onto Constanta and THAT opening. Picture this: your narrator and protagonist is dying on the battlefield, is resurrected by Dracula, and immediately sets upon her attackers and tears them to shreds...and we LIKE this character. Constanta is someone whose head you want to be in, whose motivations are clear and sympathetic. Constanta is everything I'd ever hoped to make Ais, but was too afraid of doing too dark.
When I reread that opening, over and over and over, I immediately knew why the first 10 pages I'd been querying with would never attract an agent, and why I still--after 5 whole first chapter revisions--kept feeling the subconscious need to apologize for them.
Because starting off with Ais in the market, witnessing Emrys and Maeve's espionage and feeling betrayed, before she gets attacked by a hellhound on the way home, is a much stronger opening than the infamous "cliffside gymnastics and weirdly phallic cairn" thing that had inexplicably survived several drafts. But it's not strong. And, despite my attempts to connect it to the rest of the book, it just doesn't match up.
Why does it matter that Ais doesn't want to be a god? What actually caused this rune that she's so afraid of? Why is Macha a villain and what villainous things does she do?? I can't really tell you from that first chapter. And for a query and pitch that's been honed to emphasize the villainous legacy of Ais -- for a book with it literally in the title -- those are questions that should definitely come across in the first chapter.
I knew that if I was starting with anything, I should be starting with the morning that Ais's magic awakened -- a murder. I knew it had to be that way. I had to stop being skittish and only describing it 200 full pages later, in chapter 17, because the murder of that young man gives our story its stakes and gives Ais's backstory and motive the proper dimension. But I'm not good at writing battle scenes, and I'm squeamish about blood and gore, and I wasn't sure how well I'd be able to provide enough backstory if it's just Ais bending over a dying guy and feeling sorry for herself.
The realization came to me while I was watching Wakanda Forever (yes, super late to the game. Listen, I had covid, severe anemia, and a conference all in two months and I was on the struggle bus). Within the first ten minutes, we hear Queen Ramunda standing before the UN and warning them that the danger to the world is not vibranium, but the people who lust for its power...and it intercuts to the Dora Milaje taking down said people in a brilliant attack scene. It was tense. It was badass. It was a perfect balance of exposition and action, and I knew if I could pull off a similar thing, I'd be golden.
So, I tried. But it was tough, and I gave up to continuity-edit mentions of the hellhound attack (which now would not happen) out of the rest of the manuscript instead, and then I started chipping away at Chapter 2, which would now have to be cut by half in order to accommodate the Maeve/Emrys scene, the only thing I was salvaging from Chapter 1. I managed to fit everything into Chapter 2 and actually shave off a few words, but now I had another problem.
Some of the dialogue in Chapter 2 had been retained from the start, and it was info-dumpy and messy and bad. I knew it was bad. My beta readers (probably) knew it was bad, but it was kinda like...how do I fix? But #MoodPitch was coming up (and still is -- April 6th), and my followers count was higher than it ever had been for a pitch contest, and I needed to have that manuscript REALLY ready this time just in case agents began requesting my stuff. Because imagine following a fan-freaking-tastic first chapter with my chapter 2. If I were an agent, I would not read it. It's terrible.
So I set about condensing that. I hopped back to Chapter 1 and tried to do the Wakanda Forever thing...and last night, something just clicked! I still have continuity edits to do. I've sent the chapter to a beta reader. I'm clearly not done yet.
But I feel this weight off my shoulders.
So, yeah. That's what I've been up to.
And now I feel bad for ever claiming to be an authority on first chapters a couple months ago, but to be fair, I learned all these lessons from my time with the Twitter writing community, and I've grown so much since I've joined it, and I will never apologize for that.
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