Writing news

So, two things are going on in my writing life.

1. I'm participating in National Novel Writing Month which has been really good. I'm only up to 8000 right now, and the big goal is 50,000 words, but I'm writing Young Adult, which is usually shorter. Also, keep in mind that my last book took three and a half years to write. When you look at it that way, I'm doing really well! This is my author's profile page if you want to take a peek at an excerpt, my other writing friends, etc.

2. Since hearing "no thank you" from the last promising agent, I revised my query letter and sent out a batch of ten cold queries. This time I targeted agents who specialize in YA. (The last batch was mainly the agents I met at the writers' conference last summer.) So far, I've heard back from five. Three said, "Not for us." One wanted the first 30 pages. And one wanted the entire ms, which is super-flattering, although at this point, it doesn't guarantee anything. I revised the whole thing (yet again) and dropped it in the mail today.

So far, my total record for ms requests is 4 for 15. Not too shabby.