Queries: Round Four

Got a rejection from Mr. Christopher Schelling this week. In my query I'd congratulated him and Augusten Burroughs on their recent marriage, briefly mentioning mine saying I'd hope they were enjoying married life as much as I am. I mentioned how I'd hope he'd seen some similarities to Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell (one of his authors). This was before Richard Florest had compared the manuscript, after having read it, to that book. So hopefully I'm on to something here.

Here's Mr. Schelling's kind response:  

"Thanks so much for sending your novel - and for your kind words on my marriage. (Congratulations on yours. We're ridiculously happy too.) There's a lot to like here, especially how you capture the emotions so clearly. I see why Eleanor & Park would be a comparison, but..." and it goes on from there.

And instead of talking about that but, I'd much rather talk about this one (I love talking about buts): I was bummed to receive Mr. Schelling's rejection this week, BUT was thrilled to receive a SASE back in the mail yesterday from none other than John Green's agent, Ms. Jodi Reamer at Writer's House. I was teaching a 20th Century American Drama night class, and by teaching I mean watching the Dustin Hoffman/John Malkovich Death of a Salesman  holding back tears in front of my students, when my wife messaged me on Facebook. Previously I'd been very ceremonious about query responses: Don't open the email until after you're home and have had dinner; Don't let your wife open the SASE if you're not home; Finish x number of student registrations before opening it at work. I decided I was probably jinxing myself. So I told Jessa to open the envelope and message me whatever it said right then and there. If I was going to cry in front of my students anyway, I might as well have a better reason than it being a real darn shame Biff had to burn those sneakers after he flunked math.

Ms. Reamer, who had received the first 10 pages with my initial query requested the first 50ish. So a once over of those 50 pages, selecting a good breaking point, and emailing the requested file on was how I spent my lunch break. And then I even had time left over to query Tom Perrotta's agent, mostly because Jessa and I realized that both my book and his Little Children feature disturbing masturbation scenes. And what else could an agent possibly be looking for than that?

Maybe one day my book can be turned into a movie with sexy, sexy people in it too. 

On an unrelated note, Jessa and I discovered we'd "made it" this week when our Google alerts pointed us to this article on citations: "How to Cite Large Sections of a Poem."

Despite our book, The Way We Sleep  having no poetry in it, the author, Adam Jefferys chose to use us, of all multiple editors of all volumes of anything ever published, as the example for how to cite a volume with multiple editors: "For a poem from an anthology, include the editor's name or names after the book's title, preceded by "Ed." For example: Ed. C. James Bye and Jessa Bye."

So yeah, it's been a good week. 

Update: I completely forgot until Jessa mentioned it that Ms. Reamer is also Bruce "Ash" Campbell's agent!