Hey there, fine folks! 

Here’s a quick update on my querying with my YA novel:

Well, I’ve heard back from three agents who had fulls and one who had the first ten pages (partial req). One passed on full. Although, I don’t believe she actually read it since it was so fast and form-ish. She didn’t have pages to begin with so I bet she only started it. The partial req also passed.

HOWEVER, I did get a revise & resubmit from one agent who said she didn’t believe my MC to be sympathetic and that at some instances, her characterization was a bit repetitive. This actually surprised me since that was not a comment from my beta readers and I was not expecting to hear it. As for the other full, it was a pass but he left me with some great comments (different from my R&R, of course!) and told me he thinks I’m a couple drafts away. But he did say his opinion is very subjective and that another agent might love what he had reservations about. He did really compliment me on the “energy” of the story, which makes me feel great since I wasn’t sure of that since I’ve read it myself so much it starts to run together.

So although I’ve had some passes, I’ve also had some very positive feedback. I also still have one partial and five fulls out so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I’ll get a positive response from someone! I’ve only been querying people who I think are *right* for me in terms of sales/genre/personality so hopefully they will think I’m a good fit as well. It is a very nerve-racking process! Waiting is the worst.

In other writing news, I’m working hard for Camp NaNoWriMo working on my NA novel. I was having a little trouble deciding on POV though. I wrote over 25,000 words all from one MC first person POV before deciding it wasn’t right (this is actually after I wrote 25,000 and then cut 6,000 because I realized I’d strayed too far away from the intended plot- YIKES). So instead of being strictly from the female MC POV, I’ve decided to alternate between three MC’s first person POV. This means that it is told from one female and two male POVs. I’m pretty excited about this because we will have some insight into certain events that if I told only from the female POV may have been confusing as to motivation. This way, we get a rounded story and not just a straight line.

I will admit, though… it is HARD to write like this. I normally write from the hip but with this one, I’ve had to outline the entire book and figure out who is going to tell which chapter. I just finished that two days ago and now I’m going back through what is already written and rewriting chapters from the male POVs and adding essential storytelling. I can’t wait to be finished rewriting and start writing the new chapters. I’m trying, for the sake of Camp NaNoWriMo, to write the whole story in order and not edit at all. Of course, the changing POV thing and the going off on a tangent thing set me back in word count progression, but I’ll be back on track soon. NO MORE EDITING for Katie until this first draft is complete. (I say this, but I don’t believe this)

That’s all for now! This post ended up being a lot longer than expected.

ONWARD!

Word count: 23,961