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First off — this feels surreal to be typing right now. I am still wrapping my head around the events of December 2023. Though I’ve read quite a few posts like this, it never really sunk in that I might be writing one someday. It still hasn’t, really.
My querying journey was short, though I swear I was hit with all the highs and lows of the trenches at superspeed. December, therefore, was a blur — and, frankly, not the most important part of my writing journey. (So if you’re just here for stats, scroll down.)
Like so many writers, I toiled over my craft for years before that coveted offer lit up my inbox. Only… where many authors write multiple books before an agent offers, leveling up their craft as they go, I chose to work myself to the bone on just one.
If you’re going to take a lesson out of this, let it be this: Revisions are everything.
My journey with SONG OF THE SOUNDLESS began in August 2021. I’d had a few novel ideas in the months before, spanning from multi-POV YA fantasies to adult fairytale combo-retellings, but none stuck.
In August, the day before my birthday, one did. Some combination of nostalgia and grief gave way to the mist-shrouded forest that became the Dwelling (partially inspired by the forests of British Columbia, pictured!). My feelings from the preceding tumultuous year crystallized into my FMC, Aspen’s, first iteration. I outlined the whole book in one frenzied week, then began drafting a week after that. SOUNDLESS consumed me, day in and day out — and I finished its first draft in two and a half very intense months.
Back then, I had no clue it would be the first of four.
I knew SOUNDLESS needed revisions. I’d learned a lot about craft while drafting, and I’d committed to reading agents’ advice posts and watching agents’ YouTube videos for querying authors. One piece of advice stuck out to me, appearing over and over again: edit until you cannot possibly edit anymore, and only query then.
I printed out my first draft, bought seven mildliners to mark it with, and learned how to use Notion to make myself a reverse outline. I knew Soundless needed restructuring, I knew its romance needed more depth, and I knew I needed to focus harder on saying what I meant to with its themes.
I re-outlined it. I rewrote its first 70k from scratch, in first person POV this time, thinking it would fit.
It didn’t.
I rewrote its first 70k AGAIN, entirely from scratch AGAIN, to go back to third person POV. I followed this rewrite through to the end (136k in total!) and… it was good. It was written poetically, the plot was solid, and it maybe needed a few tweaks — and a significant trim for length, if I was going to aim for 120k.
I could have revised that already-completed draft, and it would have been fine. By this point, it was early 2023. I was tired, quite ill, and it had been eighteen months since I started drafting with only maybe three weeks off in total through all that time.
But sending it off as fine, I thought, might not give SOUNDLESS its best chance at success. That one piece of advice continued to echo in my mind: edit until you cannot possibly edit anymore, and only query then.
I won’t lie: I cried. I railed against the idea of going for another rewrite. I was exhausted.
But I knew I could. I could learn to write shorter, more concise sentences. I could polish up my final battle scenes. I could deepen the romance and add more layers to the nonbinary and chronic pain rep. This book could show off everything I had learned, not just most of it.
So in May of 2023, I opened up another blank document, just as I had the previous two times. I began with fresh Notion pages. I poured my heart and soul into SONG OF THE SOUNDLESS for the fourth time (yes, from scratch, again). It wasn’t easy. There were plenty of days I wanted nothing more than to be done. Sometimes, I’d outline whole other projects just to remind myself I could.
But by November, I was left with something that not only satisfied me, but impressed me. I reduced my word count by 13k, down to 123k. I deepened the romances. I added layers to the rep. I added an entire new chapter of smut. I’d written something better than I could have imagined in 2021, thanks to the invaluable feedback of beta readers and critique partners (Sarah and Virginia, a special thank you for being my pillars this whole time), and thanks to all the people who kept me above water long enough to get to THE END.
When I reached it, I wasn’t just a better writer. I was a different person with an entirely new approach to my process, a style of prose that had changed three times in two years, who’d been through four different methods of rewriting the same novel. I’d broken and remade myself every time, learning more about craft until I could not possibly edit anymore.
In one final weekend rush, I chopped off the last 4,000 words one by one, picking through sentences and squeezing all the value I could out of the ‘Find’ function in Word. My glasses broke maybe an hour into the process, and I did it anyway.
There was literally nothing else I could do. Now, we get to the part you’re here for.
The Querying Process.
I sent off query letters that I drafted months beforehand. I consulted a spreadsheet I’d been building since SOUNDLESS’ first draft in 2021.
Starting on November 26, 2023, I sent 20 queries for SONG OF THE SOUNDLESS. It took days to sift through my list of 80 agents to find the 20 who I wanted to query most, who were still open. I expected the process to be slow, with so many agents closed for the holidays by December 1. Immediately, I was wrong.
I received a full request the NEXT MORNING, early November 27. I sent off another on December 1. I sent off a partial on December 5. At the same time, rejections came back in equal measure, all of them form responses except one.
Honestly, I resigned myself to spend the holidays not thinking about it to the best of my ability, dipping into video games and making up for two years of constant rewriting. And… less than a week after I proudly announced this commitment to all my friends, I received a very positive response to a full.
My brain short circuited. I had committed to shutting my brain off for the holidays, getting out of Writer Mode.
In the email asking to set up a call, this agent sang the praises of SOUNDLESS in ways that I did not let myself imagine for two long years. From the first line of that email, I could tell that SOUNDLESS resonated in every way I intended. Every sentence thereafter highlighted the parallels I’d spent hours polishing, the themes I took endless time to weave in, and the rep that I committed myself to doing justice to.
I couldn’t believe it. I actually could not believe it. For two years, I’d been committed to revising — so much so that I refused to acknowledge the possibility of anything happening afterward. I cared only for doing the work, never bothering to wonder if it would pay off. I told myself I’d save my woes for the trenches.
John was even more enthusiastic in our call. In fact, I’m fairly certain that if my broken internet modem hadn’t kept me in a constant battle with my mobile hotspot, I would’ve utterly disintegrated at how well he connected with SOUNDLESS, how his every word spoke directly to many hours-long plotting sessions I agonized over in the years previous.
(And if you’re reading this, John, know that my every scathing word about my internet provider holds true, and also that it’s fixed now, lmao.)
A lot of people are vague about how you just know in the agent call. Truthfully, two and a half hours went by in a total blur, cut short by the agency physically closing after its last full day before the winter break. I was still an anxious mess, having to record all of my pre-arranged questions by hand with my mess of an internet connection in constant flux. I knew only a few things: that John connected with the book better than I dreamed anyone ever would, that the possibility of being a published author still didn’t feel real, and that every one of those scattered thoughts felt 100% supported and welcomed throughout the whole call.
Chaotically, I just knew an hour after the call.
But once I did know, I chose to forego the standard two-week nudge period. I emailed John, chaotically, and asked, chaotically, if it would be alright to accept his offer that very afternoon. I could not see another agent fitting this book better than he had, nor planning for it with as much intention and ambition as he’d already done. Nor — and this is important — could I imagine anyone offering more chronic-illness-friendly accommodations or better allyship to me as a nonbinary person.
One yes was all it took for me. I couldn’t imagine a better offer than his, and I didn’t want to spend three weeks (due to the holiday) deliberating it.
I signed a contract with John Baker of Bell Lomax Moreton the day after our call. Already, I’m buzzing with excitement about all that’s in store for 2024.
My querying process, therefore, was dizzyingly fast — but I hope what you take from this post is that it was the last step the very, very long journey of drafting SONG OF THE SOUNDLESS. My highest hope for the book has been realized. Everything past this point is icing on the cake.
That said…
What Were My Stats?
Well, I feel it’s only fair to include everything relevant to this book’s journey. Let’s break that down.
WORDS DRAFTED: 442,000 words overall
108,000 for the first draft
71,000 for the second
136,000 for the third
127,000 for the fourth (before cuts)
NOTION PAGES TOTAL WORD COUNT: 107,349
8.5x11” NOTEBOOKS FILLED: 6.5 (… plus one 2” binder full of mind maps on looseleaf paper.)
CHAI LATTES: Innumerable. My wallet is on fire.
IMAGES PINNED TO SOUNDLESS’ BOARD: 971. Yes. Nine hundred seventy-one.
HOURS SPENT LISTENING TO AN AMBIENT MIX OF A STREAM AND A LOT OF ELK BUGLING: … literally over 1,000. I don’t want to count. (if you want to listen to it, here you go.)
MONTHS SPENT FROM CONCEPT TO QUERY: 27
QUERIES SENT: 20
FULL REQUESTS: 2 (1 offer, 1 withdrawn)
PARTIAL REQUESTS: 1 (a rejection)
REJECTIONS: 8 (including the aforementioned partial)
PERCENTAGES: 30% request rate (2 fulls, 1 partial), 70% rejections
If you’re still reading, thank you. I hope that if you take anything away from this, it’s that no book’s journey is quick. There are ups and downs at every stage of the process, some faster and some slower than others. Writing is a brutal undertaking for anyone — but revising makes it smoother at every step after drafting. I promise.
Keep going. It’s worth it.
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