life as an aspiring author

I had a few crazy ideas recently and I figured blogging about them is the best thing to do...

Idea #1: Try to publish a book...

Wait, scratch that.

Idea #1: Write a book;

Idea #2: Try to publish said book;

Idea #3 (and most relevant to this post): Blog about the process.

So, here I go (for anyone interested).

I wrote a book. The working title is Broken Silence and it's about a girl who finds out her step-brother is a crime lord... Weird, I know. I have no idea why this was the story just waiting to flow from my mind to paper, but it was. Anywho, the book is finally finished (a friend of mine is still editing it, but I actually finished writing it, so that's what I mean when I say finished) and now the less fun times come: trying to get it published.

I'm a little worried about bringing people along for the ride only because I'm not sure how long it'll last. Who knows? Maybe no one will want to publish it and then where would I be? ...But I haven't gotten to that part of the process yet, so I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Tomorrow, instead of doing homework, I will be mailing out my query letter to ten different literary agents in the Toronto area. A query letter (for anyone who doesn't know - much like me only a month ago) is sort of like the back cover of your book plus a little bit about yourself as an author and/or person. It's supposed to get the agent interested enough in your book to ask for the first three chapters. It has to be a page tops. I think it's safe to say my query letter was the hardest thing I've ever written. I had to condense 256 pages (107,000 words) into three very short paragraphs. Somehow I managed. And tomorrow I'll mail it out.

And then I'll wait.

Super exciting, right?

If, by some miracle, my query letter peeks an agent's interest, they will then ask me for the first few chapters of the book. If the agent likes these first few chapters, they will then ask for my entire manuscript. Finally, if they like my book as a whole, they will agree to represent me to publishers. And then the process begins all over again, but this time around I'll have help.

Apparently Stephanie Meyer (author of Twilight - don't ask me why I know so much about that book) went from first draft to books on shelves within six months - the bad writing is proof. Still, her process was crazy short, but there's no telling how long mine will be.

But it all begins with the mailing of the query letters. So my publishing journey begins tomorrow morning. I'll keep you posted and let you know how mine turns out.

Keep it real!