Lara Zielin

Start spreading the news, people. I’m leaving November 2 to head to the Big Apple for the Backspace author-agent conference. That’s right! A whole day devoted to nothing but listening to and meeting agents in New York, all of whom will LOOVE my book and want to represent me. Right? Well, I’ll be happy if one of them signs me up. That will be one more than agent than I have right now.

Dan Lazar, who already has the first 50 pages of TD in-hand, will be there. As will Jennifer DeChiara to whom I sent a query (hard copy) but haven’t heard back. Jennifer’s lead time is 3 to 6 months to hear back on a query. Yikes! Six months? Please — in six months you can not only read a query, you can get to Mount Doom, throw the One Ring in some lava, and save Middle Earth. If you’re Frodo. If you’re me, you can rent the entire first and second seasons of Veronica Mars and watch them religiously.

Wish me luck! At the conference, that is, not watching VM.

So. Happy Tuesday. Here’s the status of THE DISAPPEARED: Another rejection ensues. I got a letter over the weekend from the Evan Marshall Agency. I had just queried them – I hadn’t sent them pages or anything – so it’s cool. I still think the agency rules. In fact, all the agencies on my query list rule. If they’re not stellar, I won’t send my work to them.

Still no word from Dan Lazar. I sent him the first 50 pages 2 weeks ago. No news is good news, right? So, um, remember the part where I hate waiting? It’s still true.

Also no news from Susannah Einstein and LJK Literary Management. She told me her response time was 6 to 8 weeks. I sent her an updated manuscript on September 3, which means 4 of the “6 to 8 weeks” has passed. It seems like a lifetime.

While I wait, I am busying myself with reading THE PLOT THICKENS and writing as much as I can on DONUT DAYS. I have just over 10,000 words on paper, which rules. If the manuscript is 60,000 words, that means I’m 1/6th of the way done.

My good friend Ellen, the one who landed the kick-ass deal with Random House, is trying to find authors to blurb her book. What a cool project. She and I are going to South Carolina on a writers retreat in about a week. I REALLY can’t wait for that. Maybe I’ll be able to pound out another 10,000 words while putting my feet up and staring at the ocean.

Suh-weet.

I’m totally psyched! Dan Lazar asked to see the first 50 pages of THE DISAPPEARED. His agency, Writers House, is seriously kick ass. I mean, they represent Erica Jong, Ken Follett, and on the teen fiction side, Christopher Paolini. Word! Okay, and they did CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE. Suh-weet. Is it ironic that I referenced that series in my letter to Kristin Nelson, a different agent?

Dude, Kristin wrote back! She’s willing to reconsider THE DISAPPEARED. I am psyched. Totally. Psyched.

Even if she rejects it again, I’ll chalk this up as a huuuge learning experience. Why? Because I made a big mistake the first time around when I queried her.

Back when I sent her the book in August, I thought it was awesome, ready to roll, a finished product, and it wasn’t. There was some heavy lifting left to do with it, and I shirked it off, thinking my book was fa-bu-lous and any agent was a fool not to see it.

That wasn’t the case. And it was a tough lesson to learn. I’ve made a pact with myself, and my bestest writing friend Ellen Baker (author of the forthcoming book KEEPING THE HOUSE published by, you guessed it, Random House) that I will never send out a book again until it’s gone through three (count ‘em, three) major rewrites. That’s a lot, but it’s so worth it.

It’s definitely humbling to sit here and blog about such submission blunders. Or to admit that I thought my book was totally fab when it wasn’t. I guess that’s all part of the learning process. Open mouth. Insert crow.

Ellen recommended a book – and I second her recommendation! – that helped take TD to the next level. It’s called THE PLOT THICKENS: 8 WAYS TO BRING FICTION TO LIFE and the author is Noah Lukeman. Here’s a link.

Oh, and for anyone who’s interested, here’s my second email to Kristin, asking her to reconsider TD:

Dear Kristin,

Thank you for your response to THE DISAPPEARED. I appreciate your willingness to consider the work and, even though it was rejected, I very much respect your opinion and your choice.

There was a note on your blog a few weeks back about receiving manuscripts with great plots, but flat characters and cliché dialogue. You bet that got me thinking about TD. I also realized that after receiving your rejection, I had two paths I could follow, like in the Choose Your Own Adventure series, where one choice leads to deadly scorpions and the other leads out of the dark cave. I chose the latter and considered why TD wasn’t working. I also set out to improve it.

I’m writing you again because I realized I had a great book concept but a main character who wasn’t accessible to readers; I had a kick-butt plot, but little character growth to keep people reading. I had a lot that was right, but a lot that was wrong, too. I have been working on these issues and I’d like to showcase just how much the book has changed for the better, and to ask if you would be willing to read the improved prologue and first chapter, pasted below, as evidence of this. If these words don’t grab you and make you want to read more, fair enough. But I had to ask again. It’s a long, long, long shot but then again so was the notion that Nick and Jessica would stay together, Paris’s album would rock, and the Duff sisters would make blockbuster summer movie. Oh wait … um, well, at least Frodo make it to the top of the mountain, right? Here’s the text, and thank you for the continued consideration.

Kristin Nelson is an agent I really would like to work with. I’ve linked to her agency, The Nelson Literary Agency, in case you want to check her out. What’s more, her blog rules. Every YA author should read it. Daily. I queried her about THE DISAPPEARED and she asked for the first 30 pages.

I then got a rejection.

That made me think, what’s going wrong in the first 30 pages of THE DISAPPEARED? What are other teen book succeeding at, in the very beginning of their texts, that I’m not?

I figured out it was three things: character development, character development, and character development.

So I went back to the text and made my heroine, Paige, much more accessible. Perhaps in a different post I’ll detail all the changes I spent hours upon hours on, but for right now I’ll get to the meat of this post:

I emailed Kristin again, told her about the changes, and asked her if she’d consider re-reading my first 30 pages.

Holy *gulp*, Batman.

I don’t know if it was a smart move or a stupid one, but it was at least a move. I think she’d be an ideal rep for this book and I had to try. But nowhere can I find information on re-querying agents about material. Maybe that’s because it’s a big faux pax and I’ve just committed the equivalent of YA-writer suicide. Or maybe it’s because a rejection seems so very final and writers are scared to try. Or smart to not try. For better or worse, I’m trying.

Stay tuned to hear the results.