Well it seems (at least among the commenting readers of my last post) that I have a slightly skewed perspective from the rest of you. I read the agent’s suggestion as ‘Needs work, but could possibly have potential.’ Am I weird to not find that all that exciting? I mean there’s something to be said for it not being an outright rejection…then again, it means more work with no guarantee.

I don’t want to sound whiny here–I’m just trying to keep things in perspective. I have queries out to a few other agents, and I’m anxious to see what they say. Could be they don’t like the manuscript at all, could be it’s not right for their lists, or it could be that they want to see other sorts of changes. Impossible to say.

That said, I’m going to begin the tightening process today. See where it gets me.

I’d been planning to blog about the fact that I’m always hearing (on loops, blogs, and in RWA meetings) about writers who submit to agents and then get critiques or suggestions on how to improve their work. I’d been planning to query the readers of this blog for the situations that had spurred such feedback, but with everything else going on (I swear, this time of year is as busy as Christmas), I haven’t really been blogging at all. And in the interim–you guessed it–I got some feedback of my own.

Basically it was suggested that I tighten things up. Having only read the first five chapters, the agent postulated that I could cut 40-50 pages of filler and have a tighter, stronger manuscript. Then she offered, if I took her advice and revised, to look again. As usual with me, I’m a little torn. I could probably tighten. No, I’m pretty sure I could definitely tighten. But I’m not sure I could tighten 40-50 pages worth. And I know that’s just a guess–an estimate–but in a 300 page book, it seems like an awful lot. Not to mention a considerable amount of effort.

Even so, I’m taking this response as somewhat good news. She likes the story, and I assume is reasonably satisfied with my writing, she just wants less of it. But it wasn’t a rejection.

Any words of wisdom?

My sister has finally, finally gotten around to getting her blog going. (If you can call linking to my blog getting going… Just kidding–I do appreciate the link). She has a shop on Etsy selling felted animal cameos and other crafty things, and I just noticed today that she’d made and sold a giraffe, which I think is very cute. Mostly she does bears and bunnies, but I think she should branch out into the strange and wonderful.
Any suggestions? Done right, I think a couple of insects could be pretty cute. But maybe that’s just me.