Hello, dreamers. Last week I finally did it: I am now officially a querying writer.

There will be plenty of waiting, but with the first hurdle cleared I’ve finally been able to breathe a sigh of relief. I’ll admit that, amid the mix of emotions after sending out my queries, I did something out of character: I took my foot off the gas for the remainder of the week. Mind you, I kept working, mostly on my platform. And I did write, but not as much per day as I normally do. For the first time this year, I didn’t hold myself to my customary 1,000 words per day. And I think I’d earned that.

But, I’m back at it now. It’s novel writing season, and though I currently have no clear plans on when to begin work on Aquarius 1, I can finally see it coming. However, I have a lot of other things going on right now. It’s going to be another busy week in what will surely be a busy month, so without further ado, here’s what I’ll be up to this week:

Querying Seven Days on Samarkand

As I said, I did it. On Wednesday morning, my first round of queries went out as planned.

Of course, everything didn’t go off entirely without a hitch. I may not have a ton of experience querying thus far, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned through test queries and various contests, it’s that something will always go slightly wrong. This time, I ended up only sending out nine queries, as opposed to the planned ten; one of my target agents is only looking for literary speculative. While I do think Seven Days on Samarkand has some upmarket appeal, it’s far too commercial to qualify. Rather than looking as though I had ignored his requirements, I decided to let it go. I’m still on the fence about whether or not to select another agent to round up to ten.

However, there’s more to this than waiting this time. Among the many things I’ve learned over the past year is that being a publicly-declared “querying writer” is a little different than just being a writer who’s sent out queries. Already my platform has exploded. I’ve attracted hundreds of new followers on Twitter in just the past few weeks, and have now begun attracting readers, not just fellow writers. Building a platform takes work. Maintaining it takes work, too.

I’m also planning to start working on graphic materials, including mood boards and an “agent’s guide” to Seven Days on Samarkand. With any luck, I’ll begin attracting attention from literary agents. If they’re agents I haven’t queried yet, I can fire off a query and possibly start out with my foot in the door. If I’ve already queried them, my efforts may persuade them to give my query a closer look.

Either way, I’m increasingly aware that querying in this manner is more than just “send email, then wait a really long time”. To be fair, this was partly why I’d never actually identified myself publicly as a querying writer on Twitter before. I knew, deep down, that I wasn’t truly ready. And there was little value in putting this kind of effort into a query I knew wasn’t good enough.

Well, now, at last, I do believe it’s good enough. It can be better. It can always be better. But for now, I’m confident that I’ve put my best foot forward. This is who I am now. I am a querying writer. Time to own it.

Aquarius 1 and Short Fiction

While my Formicapunk story The Spaces In Between was a fun idea, last week I ultimately abandoned it for the new story I’d started. I spent the rest of the week working on Bright Lights over Junction, and it’s going a lot better. I find sometimes when I’m in a slump it’s helpful to try something I’ve never done before. It nudges me outside of my comfort zone, and helps to get things flowing again. This story took some time to find its footing. It’s around 5k and only now approaching the climax, and already I’m sure I’ll end up cutting out large amounts of the early pages and reworking things. But I really like this story, and I can see precisely where it’s going to go.

For the time being, given how this is going, I plan to give myself potentially another week or two with short fic. I’ve been using this partly to distract me from waiting on queries, as well as to pry myself out of a state I’d begun calling “query brain”. It helps that the time is right again for subbing short fiction. As we speak, I currently have six stories out on sub; the most I’ve ever had out at one time. What’s more, as of this morning I have now sent out my second query regarding submission in the past month…and ever.

For those unfamiliar with the process of submitting short fiction, a query in short fic is not the same as a query for a novel. In this instance, a query is a brief email meant to inquire regarding the status of a submission. Nearly all short fiction markets provide an estimated response time as well as a query time (usually listed as “feel free to query after…” or “do not query before…”).

To a submitting writer, a query date passing represents a major milestone. As with queries, for a time after submitting a short story no news is good news; if you’re beyond the average rejection time, more than likely your work has made it deep into the editorial process, and is under consideration for publication. The query is the last major hurdle; essentially, you’re making sure your submission wasn’t accidentally misplaced or ignored (which is possible).

At present, two of my short fiction pieces have now passed the query date, and I have duly sent out query emails. Though I’m trying not to get my hopes up, at this point there’s a good chance at least one of these publications will buy my work.

So I’m waiting with baited breath, but as I do, I haven’t forgotten about my upcoming work-in-progress, Aquarius 1. I’m already getting a feel for the story; I’ve been composing dialogue and plotting out scenes on my daily walks. My hope is that focusing on short fiction for another month or two will get me back into the right frame of mind to devote myself to a major project. With any luck, I’ll resume work on Aquarius 1 within the next few weeks.

Website and Platform

This has been another long post, so thank you for bearing with me. I’ll try to wrap things up quickly. For those who may be unaware, I finally launched my Substack on Saturday. You can read my first post and subscribe here.

My intent is to use this as a mailing list for the time being. It’s totally free, and subscribers will not only receive new Substack posts in their inbox, but will also be the first to receive exciting news regarding upcoming projects, as well as exclusive pieces of free short fiction. I’ll be posting every Tuesday and Saturday, beginning tomorrow with “Evil, Inc.”: an ode to the sci-fi evil corporation.

Also, more changes are coming to this website. This week, I’ll be sunsetting all of my existing short fiction, in preparation for its removal. In its place, I’ll be shifting focus to my ongoing novel projects, specifically Seven Days on Samarkand and Aquarius 1. Please note that some of my existing short fiction may eventually be re-published through Substack. So there’s another reason to follow the link above and sign up.

New Content

This week in my “WIP Wednesday” post, I’ll be getting back to Aquarius 1, and discussing my decision to start over from scratch (again). On Friday I’ll finally be releasing my next “Science in Fiction” post, and I’ll be closing the week out on Sunday with a new “Dear Sir or Madam”. In this week’s installment, I’ll be filling readers in on what life is like as a querying writer. Until then, dare to dream. – MK