Oh, hey, it's September

Unintentionally, August got away from me, so I’m just going to say that I’m treating this newsletter like it’s European and putting it on annual vacation every August. Because I can.

I have some pretty cool news to share, which is that I was accepted into Stanford’s Novel Writing Certificate Program. It’s a two year online program with one course each semester through Stanford’s Continuing Studies program and is kind of like a mini-MFA. I think I’ll find it really helpful with getting a bit more structured in my writing since I don’t have the full formal education in writing that a lot of my peers have. It’ll be a lot to juggle — work, class, critique group, RWR, and finishing up my novel revisions. But I’m really excited for it.

Reading

The random order things coming up from my Libby holds has dictated my last two months of reading for the most part and lots of traveling means lots of audiobooks.

• One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig 🎧️ 

• Hot To Go by Kristen Bailey

• Scythe & Sparrow by Brynne Weaver 🎧️ 

• ✨ Well, Actually by Mazey Eddings 🎧️ 

• Seven Year Itch by Amy Daws 🎧️ 

• Leather & Lark by Brynne Weaver 🎧️ 

• ✨ Left of Forever by Tarah DeWitt 🎧️ 

• Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney 🎧️ 

• The Romance Rivalry by Susan Lee 🎧️ 

• Beg, Borrow, or Steal by Sarah Adams 🎧️ 

• Problematic Summer Romance by Ali Hazelwood 📖 

• 🏎️ Coming in Hot by Josie Juniper 🎧️ 

• ✨ Not in Love by Ali Hazelwood

• ✨ Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid 🎧️ 

Writing

So, Crystal, how’s the querying going?

Really well!

OMG, Does that mean you have an agent?

LOLOLOLOL, nope still very far from it.

Querying is going very well - I’ve gotten four Revise and Resubmit requests. And a bunch of rejections, but that’s just par for the course. Last time, I wrote a little bit about the querying process in general and having gotten requests for my manuscript. This month, let’s look at what happens after the agent read the full manuscript.

When an agent has read your manuscript, there are three main possibilities:

1. Rejection. Usually, these are pretty nice at this stage. “I liked your concept and your writing, but didn’t fall in love with the characters,” is the kind of feedback you’ll get.

2. On the other end of the spectrum is the Offer. This is where they love everything about it and you and they want to have a call and offer you a contract. These are the holy grail and I have yet to get one of those.

3. In the middle is the Revise and Resubmit. This is where the agent really likes a lot of what the manuscript it doing, but there’s enough that gave them pause that they’re not ready to fully commit to it. But they’re invested enough that they give feedback (which ranges from general themes, to a targeted list, to an annotated manuscript) and they offer that, if you want to make the edits to address that feedback, they’d like to read again.

So Revise and Resubmit is where I’m at with 4 agents. Overall, the feedback is pretty consistent (which is great), and I agree with the majority of it. I’m deep into the edits with ~20% of the book revised and a target of getting the rest done before my Stanford classes start on September 24th. Wish me luck!

… and Randomness

• Part of why August got away from me was that I was organizing three separate multi-author events for Romance Writers of the Rockies (where I’m VP of Membership). We have some great authors, so if you want to get a taste of their writing, you can actually download free short books from many of them here.

• Do you have a minute to hear about our Lord and Savior KPOP Demon Hunters? If you’re late to this bandwagon, pack your bag and get on it because it definitely has my vote for best movie of the year.

• Aw, man, but Superman also came out this summer, and that is also A++ top tier cinema. It’s out on home video now, so watch it and debate with me in the comments to help me decide which is better. (The answer is neither - they are both perfect and tied for best)

• I am 43 damn years old with a fully developed frontal lobe. Why does a love triangle between a girl and two brothers have such a chokehold on me? Because Jenny Han healed a generation of millennial girls by (SPOILER) having Belly go to Paris. Anyway, catch up on The Summer I Turned Pretty if you haven’t already so you can enjoy the memes.

• I left this so late that it makes sense to schedule it for September 21st. Man, I still miss looking forward to Demi’s annual videos.

See you in October with some character art and hopefully more news to share!