Happy Thanksgiving Dragon by Kenny Durkin
My dear book dragons,
How is November almost gone?
The last month has blurred by in a pumpkin, sickness, candy coma, costume, leaf tornado. I spent much of it querying literary agents and stuffing my face with sweets. I received a few rejections and one full manuscript request. I was hopeful for that request but it ended in a no. However, it was not just any no. It was a very kind letter that had several pages of critique attached!
This almost made me happier than a yes. You see, book dragons, literary agents are very busy people. They get thousands of queries in just a matter of days. They do not have time to write critiques for every manuscript that comes across their desk. This agent took his time to give me some great feedback. He told me what he loved about my story and the things he felt could use some polishing. He saw a lot of potential!
I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. So I will be taking these critiques and applying many of them to my manuscript over the next several months. I know what your thinking.
'But won't you miss out on querying other agents?'
The answer is yes and no.
November starts the slow season for agents. They want to spend the holidays with their families and processing all the great books they did acquire. Simply put the query season for the fall is at a stand still. I could still query but probably would not hear anything back until the spring.
This is not bad news. The critiques I received came early enough that I had not queried tons of agents yet. This time gives me the opportunity to polish my manuscript and prepare it fully for the query trenches in January.
I will be enjoying Thanksgiving with my own young book dragons and my husband. I'm looking forward to spending some time snuggling up with them and some good books.
In the words of Bing Crosby, "I have plenty to be thankful for" this Thanksgiving season and I hope you do too.
Happy Thanksgiving Book Dragons!
Love,
L.P.
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