Jeffrey Ricker's Blog

Number of queries sent: 21

Well yay, I did it. I sent out over 20 queries to literary agents by April 30. 

Now what?

Other than wait for the last of the rejections to come in, I’m working on other things. I’m teaching a creative writing class that finishes up in a couple weeks—teaching that while getting loads of rejections is kicking the imposter syndrome up to eleven, let me tell you—and I’m reading submissions for a litmag, which is a lot more fun than I expected.

There’s also a contest where I’m going to submit one of the manuscripts I’ve been querying. Other than that, though, I’m going to let them be. It’s really time to focus on something different. I’m glad I did it, whether anything comes of them or not, but I’m also glad it’s done.

Number of queries sent: 17

I used to run a lot.

I started running when I was 15. I woke up one morning before school and started running around our neighborhood. I’m not sure why I started, but I kept up with it through college and my early to mid-20s. (When my parents were stationed in London, they lived near Regent’s Park and I’d go for runs from their apartment around the park. When I hit my thirties, I connected with the local Frontrunners club, and from there I started doing races, building up mileage, and eventually ran a marathon. I got sidelined for a while with back issues, but after a couple years I was back at it.

Fast forward to 2019. I was running in Forest Park in St. Louis and something in my knee went pop and my head went uh-oh. A few months later, I had surgery to repair a torn meniscus. The doctor said I should be able to go back to running, but I just… didn’t. I got back into it for a while during lockdown, since going outside to exercise was allowed—I made a habit of running in the morning when it was still dark outside and practically no one was around. We all got into the habit of giving one another a wide berth. After we moved out of St. Louis, I really fell out of the habit, to the point where I got winded fast every time I tried to get back into it. 

Endurance, it turns out, is something you can lose if you don’t practice it regularly.

For the last six weeks, I’ve been using an app called Couch to 5K to get back into a running routine. It’s been… humbling, at times. I can’t go anywhere near as long as I used to, but it’s gradually coming back. Not as fast as I’d like it to, but still.

I find a lot of parallels between my experience with running and my experience with writing. I’ve run short and long distances, and the short races didn’t really help prepare me for the full and half marathons. I needed to train specifically for those distances. Similarly, I don’t think that short stories prepared me for the complexity and endurance required for completing a novel. And with both pursuits, it’s been a case of “use it or lose it” for me. When I’ve stopped running for a period of time, or stopped writing for an extended time, it’s so hard to get back into the swing.

Querying agents has been kind of the same thing. Gearing up for this push was a challenge, but it hasn’t been as difficult to keep going. Objects in motion staying in motion, basically. 

Number of queries sent: 16

That number puts me a little bit ahead of the game. My weekly goal has been to send out five queries across both projects, and while I may only be one query ahead, I’ll take it. 

It feels good to make measurable progress on a goal, even if the goal doesn’t pan out in the end. Writing itself is like that in a lot of ways. Not every story or every book turns out the way you hope. Even when they do, you may not always find a home for that story or that book. After a certain point, that’s out of your control. The decision rests in other hands.

But you’re never completely out of control. Only you get to decide what you’ll write next, whether you’ll write next, and how you relate to the things that you can’t control. Given the choice between writing and not writing, I’ll probably almost always choose to write.

Number of queries sent: 12

Me, two weeks ago: I’ll make querying agents my project for April! That’ll get me to start sending them out in earnest instead of one or two here and there.

Me, two weeks later, as rejections roll in: WTF whose idea was this, this sucks.

I kid. Mostly. No, really, I kid. This is part of the process and it’s a useful reminder not to get overly invested in any one part of the process, or any one manuscript.

I did realize this morning, looking at my spreadsheet of queries I’m tracking, that I’m getting close to fifty queries sent for one of my manuscripts, the near future young adult novel. So far, I’ve received thirty-five passes. (“Pass” sounds gentler than “rejection,” doesn’t it? Not that it makes a difference, but still.) I’ve got eleven queries still waiting for responses. (A few of them, very likely, are already passes and the agents just never got back to me.)

Fifty sounds like a good, round number to call it quits on that project if no one expresses interest. Possibly the premise isn’t compelling enough, the writing doesn’t sufficiently grab anyone right away, or maybe it’s something else. Or a combination of these. But at that point I’m going to put it away and focus on something else.

I have a little farther to go with the other manuscript I’m querying, but once I get to fifty on that one, too, I’ll also file it away. 

It feels kind of good to come to those decisions. I don’t want to beat a dead horse.

Number of queries sent: 12

I don’t know if you could call me traditional, but getting an agent and working with them to place your manuscript at one of the big five publishing companies is considered the traditional way to get your book published. (Think that’s why they call it “trad publishing”? Yeah, me too.) But it’s not the only way.  

People send their work independently to any number of smaller publishers—independent publishing houses, niche publishers who focus on a specific genre or audience, university presses. There are lots of them.  As smaller players in the publishing business, they may not have the same reach/distribution or the same  marketing support backing up their titles. And there’s always self-publishing.

I’ve done both of those things. Have I been successful at them? Eh. I haven’t sold a lot of books. Granted, I haven’t published a lot of books, either: two novels and a novella with a small niche publisher, and one novella I put out myself just to see if I could. My royalties are not exactly keeping me in coffee.

I do often (like, daily) wonder if my previous track record is a liability when it comes to trying to reach a wider audience. And then I also wonder, does it matter? 

One thing this process has made me ask myself (not for the first time, obviously) is what’s important to me—or more to the point, what’s more important to me, publishing or writing?

Writing, obviously. I would keep writing even if there weren’t a chance I’d get published again. Writing is the one way I’ve always relied on to figure out how I see the world. At any level and through any process, assuming that anyone would want to read what I’ve written is, well, pretty arrogant. 

Number of queries sent: 10

Last night, after I made dinner, my husband asked me if I wanted to watch an episode of Schitt’s Creek or if I had stuff to do. (We’re doing a rewatch of the entire series because, well, why not?) 

I said, “Yes, I have stuff to do, but we can watch one episode first. I have a student story I need to read and then do some more research on agents.” 

He looked at me a bit curiously. “Literary agents,” I added, in case he was thinking I meant, I don’t know, secret agents.

“Oh,” he said, “is it time to look for a new one?”

Now it was my turn to look at him curiously. Reader, I’ve never had a literary agent. My husband, whom I’ve lived with for the last (checks notes) twenty-two years, thought I had one already.

If I needed a well-timed reminder to keep all of this in perspective,  that was it. I may not find an agent at the end of all this, but there’ll still be dinners to make, student stories to read, and TV shows to watch while sitting on the couch next to my husband. And that’s pretty good, if you ask me.

Number of queries sent: 10

Day 9 and I’m falling behind, but Tuesday was the night I teach class, so Wednesday I was a bit brain dead. This was kind of expected. I think I said at the outset of this project that I would miss the goal sometimes, and that I would try not to beat myself up about that. So, here we are.

So far this year, I’ve read 18 books. A lot of people manage to get in more reading during a year than I do, but it’s not a contest. (And if it were, I’d only be competing against myself.) I have been really lucky in that I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve read this year, and some of them have been truly stellar. And I have high hopes for the books I have queued up on my TBR list.

I’ve never been a fast reader. I can’t keep up with my friends who regularly read 100 books or more every year. Yes, I would like to be able to read more books, read faster, get to more of the books on my bookshelves that I just really want to read. But I’m also mindful of my own powers of recall, and I think that if I tried reading faster, I wouldn’t retain any more recall of what I’ve read than I do now. 

And while there is likely a worse feeling than knowing you’ve read something but can’t recall the details of it, that feeling hits home with me. It’s not a race.

There’s a reason I’m mentioning this, obviously. I’m also trying not to compare myself to other writers I know or admire who have published more widely or frequently, or who have agents that I would love to be represented by, although in many cases those agents are closed to new clients because they already have a full roster. 

Comparison is the thief of joy, according to Theodore Roosevelt (at least, popular culture would have us attribute that saying to him). I’m trying to remind myself of that often during this process. This is not a contest, and it’s not a zero-sum game. 

Number of queries sent: 9

Sometimes, a query goes stale.

Sometimes, an agent will state in their submission guidelines that if they haven’t responded within a certain window of time, then they’ve rejected your submission. Others will give a general guideline on how long it’s taking them to respond to queries lately.

And then there are the ones that just seem to vanish.

I’ll be honest, I never know what to do about these. When I have followed up—and that’s rarely—I’ve not heard a peep. Most of the time, I figure I should just mark them as rejected/no response and move on. In a handful of instances, though, I’ve received a follow-up email a year later. Granted, none of those have been favorable, but it’s odd, you know?

I recently received an auto-response that said, basically, because of the number of submissions they receive, they can’t respond to all of them. But they’ll be in contact if they want to pursue anything. In other words, don’t call us, we’ll call you. No indication of how long to hold out hope, but… yeah.

At times like this, I try to focus on the aspects of the task that are under my control: researching the agents, writing the letters, sending the queries. And work on the next thing.

Number of queries sent: 8

As I mentioned earlier, I’m pitching not one, but two manuscripts at the moment. One is a near-future queer speculative young adult romance. (Say that three times fast.) The other is a near-future dystopian climate novel. I’m working on the second draft of a queer holiday romcom, and I have ideas for two other novels, one young adult and one science fiction. I’ve also got a handful of short stories (a couple of which are not so short) that I’d like to finish up  and try to publish.

I’ll be honest, when I look at that list, I’m kind of exhausted. I have a day job as well as a teaching gig at a local university, and there are some times when writing ends up last on the to-do list. But I can’t imagine not doing it.

The other thing I think when I look at that list is, why can’t you pick one genre and focus on that, Jeff? But I’ve never been good at focusing on just one thing. (An argument could be made that I know a little about a lot of things and am not particularly good at any of them, but that’s an argument someone else will have to make, not me.) The same way I don’t read books in just one genre, I don’t want to write books in just one genre.

Likewise, I could focus on querying just one project at a time instead of two. But I believe in both these books, and I don’t want to put one on the back burner.

I can’t say this is part of some strategy of mine. I’m not that clever. I just like doing a lot of different things. On the bright side, I guess it spreads out my chances. 

Number of queries sent: 6

Something I try to always bear in mind as I go through the process of researching literary agents, polishing my pitch, and sending out query letters is that all of this could amount to nothing.

I could spend the next year querying every agent who is even remotely a potential fit for my work, and it’s possible that it will resonate with exactly none of them. 

So then what, right? Will I look back and consider all of this effort a waste of time? Will I think that I might as well not have bothered in the first place?

I don’t think so. Sure, my efforts won’t have resulted in a success for either of the two manuscripts I’m pitching now. But I’ll hopefully feel more confident about the process of pitching a manuscript, which will be valuable when it comes time to pitch whatever manuscript I write next.

What, did you think I wasn’t working on anything else while I’m pitching these novels? Oh, you.

I have more ideas than time. Currently, I’m revising a queer romantic comedy, and waiting in the wings is another young adult fantasy (also queer—big surprise there, right?) in the very early stages of drafting. It involves Demeter, Hades, Persephone (except Persephone’s a boy in this version), and a complete rethink of their relationships. Keyword? Child of divorce.

In other words, there will always be other ideas, other books to write.