Saturday 23 January 2010

Twenty Four Hours at Midnight

My email service has upgraded and is throwing actual spam into the spam folder and also something rather unexpected... A reply to a novel query that I sent out in August 2007 with apologies and reasons for the late response. Despite the time inbetween, I'm a little impressed with the company. It would have been easy for them to delete old messages and just invite new submissions, but no, they're taking the time to see if the manuscripts are still available and if so they'll read the synopsis and first three chapters - assuming the synopsis doesn't suck of course. :) And why would my synopsis suck. Ahem!

Cue panic attack. First reaction was to say I've trunked the novel, which I had, but then I forced myself to open the file and remembered how much I loved the story and thought what the hell, I can take another no thanks to my super rejection busting powers (ie chocolate for brains). So I cobbled together a synopsis*, reworked the first three chapters and pressed the magic button. Now, I'm making my way through a 95,000 word manuscript (which has slimmed down to 93,672) and giving The Midnight Motel a little shine. If nothing else, it's waking up my writing genes.

*note to would-be-agented writers, never cobble together a synopsis, leave the cobbling to elves.

And here's the song that inspired the story...



15 comments:

John Pender said...

I can't even write a synopsis for any of my short stories.

Cate Gardner said...

I hate synopses.

Andrea Allison said...

Synopses are so evil.

Fox Lee said...

But don't feed the elves, or they'll never come back!

K.C. Shaw said...

August of 2007, yikes! Let's hope they get back to you a little quicker this time.

I hate synopses, ugh.

Katey said...

Yeah, let me at my voice to the "synopses suck" chorus.

That is pretty cool of the company. I mean, subs can be out for a year easy, so what's two or three, right? Plus, anything that gives us a chance to revisit and rework something old and beloved is worth a million bucks any day. Awesome, and good luck!

Cate Gardner said...

Andrea, I doubt you'll find a writer who disagrees... Well, I do know one, but she's insane. :D

Natalie, noted.

Kate, I should hear back in 14 days on the partial and of course then it could be back to the cupboard with the poor book.

Katey, I'm so glad they didn't just delete.

Laura Eno said...

Synopses stink. Best of luck!

Aaron Polson said...

Synopsis...oh yeah. I should be writing one of those...

Danielle Birch said...

Synopses are evil little cretins designed to make us feel like we are indeed going insane.

Good luck, fingers crossed.

Rich said...

Good luck with it.

And where the frig did you find the time to write 95,000 words!!

Rich

Barry Napier said...

I, too, hate synopses. (synopsi?)

Congrats on the request!

Cate Gardner said...

We should start a campaign to ban them.

Rich, the year 2000. :D

Jamie Eyberg said...

Wow, that is a long time. I will agree with everyone else about the synopsis thing, but about the elves- I didn't think you were supposed to feed them after midnight, they turn into something hideous.

Carrie Harris said...

I like synopses. Feel free to throw things at me.