The Incredible Race

[rmorris]

A little confidence in your writing is a good thing. Sure, not everyone is going to get their work published, but if you're trying to get people to read it but including a negative disclaimer, it's not going to get anyone too excited about it.
I haven't searched the forums to see if you've posted a query for The Incredible Race, but why not post one here? Try and sell me on it. Sell it with utter confidence; that's the best advice I can give you.

[Username]

rmorris, negative disclaimer?

I'm not sure what you mean?

[J. T. SHEA]

You're not the first writer to try to trick agents that way, Username! And two can play that game.

Turning pages upside-down, sticking them together, dog-earing them, it’s all been tried before. Agents have been known to read the pages, then turn them upside-down again, or re-dog-ear them, or whatever, to confirm the writer’s suspicions. Some or all of the ten agents you queried may have read your submission in correct order and then swapped the pages back to the wrong order to trick you back.

I second R Morris regarding posting your query in these Forums' QUERIES section.

[Username]

I don't actually have much of a query letter.

The novel's not actually 'about' anything at all. I was just having fun with this (I was kind of hoping that it would show in the writing). The novel's just about a race around the world. That's it. LOL!

Also, the last agent I sent this work to was a local agent, and she actually took the time to write a personal comment. Are you ready for it: "I did not find this to be compelling," is what she wrote. She actually marked up her own cover letter in ink to write that. She actually took the time out of her day to tell me that my writing was boring.

And ya know... that stopped me from writing for nearly four months. I was devastated by that letter. Why would an agent go out of her way to discourage me like that? I must've read that sentence about five hundred times.

[J. T. SHEA]

Your having fun did show in the writing, Username, and that’s a good thing. Sometimes well-intended advisors give the impression writing should be a kind of penitential exercise, using more blood than ink, as it were. But if you sent 47 agents ‘(not) much of a query letter’ you made it all too easy for them to reject your novel.

Note ‘reject your novel’ not reject you. I know it can feel much the same. I too identify closely with my work, too closely at times. Likewise, the local agent spoke for herself when she wrote that SHE did not find the novel compelling. Yes, she is a professional, but no, she does not speak for all humanity.

Stopping writing for nearly four months? Rereading the sentence five hundred times? Sounds like you devastated yourself.

And a race around the world is something rather than nothing. Just ask Jules Verne. You can’t, of course, since he’s dead. But you’re not. Put your ‘(not) much of a query letter’ up in the QUERIES section and let’s see if we can suggest improvements.

[Username]

Okay, I'll do it then - thanks!

[rmorris]

rmorris, negative disclaimer?

I'm not sure what you mean?

I'm sorry. All I meant was that you were all to happy to post your work up for us to read, but the disclaimer was that you felt it had run its course and were ready to give up on it. That doesn't make me jump and down to read it! But I did of course, and like everyone else, found it to be amusing and quirky. It's good, but you need to sell it that way too.

[Username]

Oh thanks for clarifying that - yes, I see what you mean now.

But to be honest - I did give up on this work. Maybe in posting the above excerpt here I'm working my way back towards giving it another go. But as mostly everyone else here has done with their own work, I invested a lot of emotion in this. I don't claim to be different than anybody else - far from it... actually, I hope that I'm just like everyone else - but I spent twelve months, day and night, working on this story, and this was at the end of a good long fifteen year apprenticeship in which I was writing the entire time (have you heard the story of Johann the churchmouse? - that's me, except that for me, writing is the music). Each rejection letter was crushing since I had such high hopes for this story. Honestly, I felt that this was the first professional story I had ever written. I felt that my apprenticeship was finally starting to pay off. I look back on some of the stuff that I've written, and I'm just appalled at how unimaginably bad it is... but this story has lasted... it's the only story I've written that I still care about when I pick it up again.

But after 47 rejections, for right or for wrong, I had to move on, and try something else.

Meanwhile, I'm working on a query letter for this story. Selling is not my strong point - I mean, obviously - but I'll post a query for this in the query section.

Again, thanks for the help, guys.

I'll try my best to help other people if I can. Thanks.

[JustineDell]

But after 47 rejections, for right or for wrong, I had to move on, and try something else.

47 rejections is actually not that many. In a previous post you mentioned you "queried all agents in the US and have 47 rejection letters in your drawer." There are A LOT more agents you can query. On top of that, what did you query with before? In another post you mentioned you didn't have much of a query, so I'm wondering when you queried, if you did so with an actual query letter? I apoligize if you mentioned it somewhere in this thread, I didn't read through every post.

It's too bad you got all those rejections, but there are more agents you could query. Check out querytracker.net, or join a writers club (for your genre) that offers names of agents/publishers who rep your genre. I've sent 35 queries out...and I still have TON to go. Don't give up on it!

Sorry I didn't have time to read your pages!

~JD

[Username]

Sorry I didn't have time to read your pages!

You're going to regret this when I become bigger than Dickens, Hemingway, and Christie combined.

[J. T. SHEA]

'You're going to regret this when I become bigger than Dickens, Hemingway, and Christie combined.'

Is that the limit of your ambitions, Username? Agatha Christie sold only two billion copies! Think BIGGER!

And, who are Dickens and Hemingway again?

[Username]

What's that? You don't know who Hemingway is?

Joe Hemingway! One of the most famous novelists of the previous century!

Hemingway's most famous novel "The Old Man And The Bee", about a man who attempts to kill a bee with a rolled up newspaper, misses, and then spends the rest of the day being pursued by the now quite frankly hostile bee (which won't let go of its anger - and quite frankly I don't blame it... if somebody had tried to whack me with a newspaper I think I'd probably hold onto my anger too... especially if the newspaper had been The Times), won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction - so not exactly an unknown novelist, eh?

I remember my English Literature 100 professor saying on the very first day of class: "My dear students... every work of fiction must fall under one of the following three categories: Man vs. Man, Man vs. Nature, or Man vs Himself." I immediately stood from my seat and screamed: "But what about women!"

The point I'm trying to make is that clearly "The Old Man And The Bee" falls under the Man vs. Himself category, as the old man is really battling himself, not the bee. The bee, of course, is just a metaphor (a literary device, if you will) for the way our past mistakes (or failures) will haunt us, and pursue us through life.

And, seriously, you don't know who Mack Dickens is? Author of "Great Expectorations"?

Yeah whatever - I can't even be bothered...

[Username]

And by the way, I've made some preconceived conceptions about some of the individuals posting at this forum - would you guys say, based on what I've written so far, that I'm a male or a female? It's amazing how many people get this wrong.

[J. T. SHEA]

Sounds like THE OLD MAN AND THE BEER, which won the Pilsner Prize for Literature. The committee are now in rehab. And MOBY TICK, also about a guy with an insect problem, this time a huge white slug he couldn't shake off. Lotions and sprays all failed, so he tried a harpoon, which killed the man but not the tick.

GREAT EXPECTORATIONS? Wasn't the British TV satire SPITTING IMAGE based on that book?

Your gender? I guessed male, but I'm not certain and I try to avoid such assumptions. I'm a man, by the way, John T. Shea.

[JustineDell]

What's that? You don't know who Hemingway is?

Joe Hemingway! One of the most famous novelists of the previous century!

Hemingway's most famous novel "The Old Man And The Bee", about a man who attempts to kill a bee with a rolled up newspaper, misses, and then spends the rest of the day being pursued by the now quite frankly hostile bee (which won't let go of its anger - and quite frankly I don't blame it... if somebody had tried to whack me with a newspaper I think I'd probably hold onto my anger too... especially if the newspaper had been The Times), won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction - so not exactly an unknown novelist, eh?

I remember my English Literature 100 professor saying on the very first day of class: "My dear students... every work of fiction must fall under one of the following three categories: Man vs. Man, Man vs. Nature, or Man vs Himself." I immediately stood from my seat and screamed: "But what about women!"

The point I'm trying to make is that clearly "The Old Man And The Bee" falls under the Man vs. Himself category, as the old man is really battling himself, not the bee. The bee, of course, is just a metaphor (a literary device, if you will) for the way our past mistakes (or failures) will haunt us, and pursue us through life.

And, seriously, you don't know who Mack Dickens is? Author of "Great Expectorations"?

Yeah whatever - I can't even be bothered...

I hope, username, that you knew J.T. was joking. Right?