On Querying

Querying a novel is my worst nightmare.

It’s basically all of the things I hate at once:

• Self promotion — I barely even like myself. If I was trying to find somebody to hype me up to others, the last person I would pick is me!

• Reaching out to other people — I prefer to let people come to me. I’ll set up my shingle, I’ll announce that I’m here, and then people can come to me if they’re interested. With this book in particular, I feel like a used vacuum salesman going door to door, bothering people, hawking a product that certainly almost nobody wants.

• Making myself vulnerable — I put up a lot of walls. I learned a long time ago that the best way to keep myself safe is to keep everybody a distance. Querying is basically emailing perfect strangers a piece of my heart and asking if they think it’s worthy.

But I’m going to do it anyway.

Because I love this book that I’ve written. Writing is quite possibly thing that I’m good at, and I have to believe that I’m good enough at it. Good enough to get it into bookstores and school libraries, and into the hands of teens who need it. Good enough to channel some of the sadness I’ve lived with for a very long time, and maybe transform it into hope for some Queer kid who needs it.

(My brain is a weird place, simultaneously full of self-criticism and pride in this one thing that I know I’m good at, damn it! Sometimes it feels like I’m trying to divide by zero when I put this into words.)

Anyway, starting fairly soon, I’m going to send out my first queries.

I only have a handful of agents on my list this time, since I queried this book so widely back in 2021 (cf. me not wanting to be the used vacuum salesman knocking again on somebody’s door).

I’m anxious about it.

I’m scared.

This feels like my book’s last chance.

This book has come a long way since I started writing it in 2011. It’s a far cry from the disaster that mentor Heather Petty read as a part of the SCBWI Nevada mentor program in 2015. It’s grown into something more subtle and beautiful since then, as I’ve refined it and edited it into something I can truly be proud of.

When looking back at my life, I’m fairly certain that this book will be the only good thing to come out of my 20s and 30s. The only redeeming element out of a lot of pain, a lot of illness, and a lot of grief.

No pressure, though, right?

Wish me luck.