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Okay, a few people have said they& #39;d be interested in reading, and far be it from me to ever keep my big mouth shut when I have Thoughts, so here it is: a thread about #QueryingWhileND
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(not really worried about this hurting my chances w agents, as if me being Loud is a problem, we& #39;re probably not a good fit anyway)
Additional disclaimer that YES, querying sucks for everyone, but this is about how it& #39;s specifically difficult for autistic/ADHD people
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Additional disclaimer that YES, querying sucks for everyone, but this is about how it& #39;s specifically difficult for autistic/ADHD people
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So let& #39;s put it like this:
Your brain thrives on consistency + knowing what to expect. Every single agent& #39;s querying guidelines are different. You read each of their guidelines at least 10x before sending, and you& #39;re still not sure if you& #39;re doing it right
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Your brain thrives on consistency + knowing what to expect. Every single agent& #39;s querying guidelines are different. You read each of their guidelines at least 10x before sending, and you& #39;re still not sure if you& #39;re doing it right
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Organization is hard for you, so you put all this info into a spreadsheet so that you have any hope of tracking queries sent + responses. And then you wait.
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But every agent& #39;s response times are different. So you read all the guidelines 10x over again. Some guarantee a response in 8 wks, some will only respond if interested within 4, some will only respond if interested within ???, some say 4 but then get back to you 6 wks later
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You struggle w Executive Dysfunction.
This means if you have an appointment at 2 PM one day, you can& #39;t do anything else until 2 PM, bc your brain is only focused on preparing for that.
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This means if you have an appointment at 2 PM one day, you can& #39;t do anything else until 2 PM, bc your brain is only focused on preparing for that.
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It also means that if you& #39;re expecting query responses sometime between tomorrow, 8 weeks, and never, you can& #39;t think about anything else. You try to start a new project to distract yourself. Maybe you can focus on it for a few weeks.
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But then that 8 week deadline smacks you in the face, and every shiny new WIP thought you had scatters like a jumbo box of glitter dumped in the backseat of your car. You can& #39;t get anything done. You start having stress dreams every night bc your brain can& #39;t turn off
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You get maybe 1 or 2 rejections. You& #39;re still waiting to hear back from 8 more. Some of these agents specifically requested to be queried or have ND rep on their MSWL that you personalized your query to them to reflect. Surely they& #39;re going to at least send a rejection!
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It& #39;s past when they said they would reach out, but you get it. There& #39;s a pandemic. It& #39;s summer. Everything is chaos. They tweeted that they& #39;re behind on queries. Maybe they& #39;re still going to respond. You make your deadline flexible.
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You make everything flexible, even though you& #39;re the least flexible person you know, bc you HAVE to be flexible, bc you have NO POWER HERE. You thrive on consistency + knowing what to expect, but in this industry, literally nothing is guaranteed.
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You get it. You don& #39;t want to be a jerk. You don& #39;t want to be whiny. You& #39;re still trying to get the hang of this whole Publishing Etiquette thing, since it& #39;s a whole new set of social rules from the standard ones you& #39;ve slowly & painfully taught yourself. You wait.
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12 weeks pass. Agents who seemed genuinely interested in your work/OwnVoices ND rep never respond. You slowly force yourself to accept that they& #39;ve rejected you. You secretly still hope they might send a response as you cross them off your spreadsheet.
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You start sending nudges to agents whose lack of response may not mean a rejection. You thrive on consistency. There is no consistent way to get in touch with them. One of your nudges bounces back with an auto-response that they& #39;re closed to queries.
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You don& #39;t know if they received the email, but you don& #39;t want to be the jerk who double emails an already overwhelmed agent. You don& #39;t understand the etiquette, you just hope that they still read your nudge. You wait.
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Finally, you accept that it& #39;s time to send out the next round of queries. You& #39;ve gained absolutely nothing from the first round. This is just going to start the whole nightmare over again.
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Even if an agent requests your work, even if an agent is actively seeking the kind of book you write, they might not even respond. You don& #39;t know if the problem is your writing, your concept, bad timing, or that they don& #39;t actually want ND rep that isn& #39;t what they expected
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You want to give people the benefit of the doubt that they aren& #39;t harboring biases against brains like yours, but how can you do that if they don& #39;t even give you the feedback you need to move forward?
(Also, you& #39;re still secretly hoping they& #39;ll respond)
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(Also, you& #39;re still secretly hoping they& #39;ll respond)
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You break down. You cry. Your story is your whole heart, and you have to have faith that someday it& #39;ll find its home. Someone will click with it, and someday it& #39;ll be out in the world, in the hands of the reader who needs it most.
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