As August draws to a close in the waning days of summer, I’m watching four kittens frolic in my yard, clawing their way up tree trunks for the first time and treating my pool loungers like a jungle gym. And I myself am preparing for a new challenge come September in my fiction writing endeavor that has evolved into my Other Worldly series, now seven books and counting since I first began drafting Alienable Rights in 2017.
Why September? Although the season of spring is deemed a time of new life—as opposed to autumn that will officially arrive in three weeks—and January 1 is considered the official calendar new year, I spent my early life viewing September as the actual time of new beginnings. Primarily because from grade school through college I always returned to a new school year the day after Labor Day.
And while I’m definitely not starting school again this September (perish the thought), I will be embarking on a renewed attempt at clawing my way up the querying-of-literary-agents tree-ladder to reach the precipice known as the traditional publishing industry via a revamped Alienable Rights, which will finally come back from my editor on September 15.
This September timing due to an unexpected delay has turned out to be excellent for several purposes. First, the September/October issue of Writer’s Digest contains its annual list of 20+ literary agents seeking submissions now. I’ve had time to painstakingly pursue the list since the magazine arrived in August, and it includes excellent and needed details about what these agents are looking for—and what they aren’t. Hence, I now have my own list of twelve female agents to query.
Additionally, September is oftentimes when agents who are currently not open to submissions will reopen at summer’s end. I have two such hopeful possibilities, one of whom I blogged about earlier this year, Victoria Marini, founder of Highline Literary Collective. Another was a seminar speaker at the Las Vegas Writers Conference back on in 2019 when I was first attempting to pitch Alienable Rights, Amy Collins, who has since become a literary agent with Talcott Notch.
What’s promising with both the latter two and the dozen WD agents I’m aiming to query is their focus on genre blends that include fantasy, not to mention speculative fiction which they do mention (oh happy day and boy howdy). It feels like times might be changing, wherein agents are thinking outside the genre in ways that I myself have done in my Other Worldly series.
Wouldn’t that be a beneficial boon? Maybe after years of writing contemporary speculative feminist fiction that isn’t dystopian sci-fi simply because it features aliens, my timing is such that I’m barking up the right publishing tree.
Consequently, I’ve begun drafting my ideal query letter that will include the dreaded comparable titles (required by many agents as previously lamented over in this blog), because I’ve decided to try to have some fun with that as well, thinking outside typical boundaries. Something along the lines of, if you can’t fight ‘em, join ‘em. And perhaps feed them more than they realized they were asking for. We shall see.
Meanwhile, it’s about time to return to drafting book eight, Alien Origins, which I suspect will happen after the hot weather—and therefore pool season—peters out at roughly the end of September. Because this morning I read an online WD interview from late July that reminded me of why I began this fiction-writing journey to begin with.
Amy Chozick, bestselling author, screenwriter, and award-winning journalist covering politics for the New York Times (especially love that last bit), whose psychological thriller about female friendship, With Friends Like You, launched this summer, said:
“I mostly write for TV and film, and writing this novel felt like a vacation for my mind…I could just let my imagination run wild…and it did…I’d put on my headphones, drink my cold brew, and go to a magical place where writer’s live.”
I need to get back to that magical place and let my imagination continue to run wild across the genre landscape, not necessarily for a vacation as autumn approaches, but because my mind needs a break from the ills of the world—and will need a distraction from fretting about potential replies from literary agents. But, not to worry, I’ll keep feeding Mama Zia and her kittens three times a day. Should I name them after the four seasons or the four elements? I haven’t decided yet. Time will tell.