Thanks to Nicola @ Thoughts on Fantasy for nominating me for the Versatile Blogger Award back in August! I’m a little behind on tags, clearly, so let’s jump straight in.
Rules:
Thank the bloggers who nominated you and share their links.
Nominate at least 10 bloggers for the award and provide links to their blogs.
Also inform them about their nomination.
Reveal 7 facts about yourself that your readers may not know.
7 Facts About Me:
My favourite animal is the dolphin and I actually got to swim with them in Mexico a few years ago, which was one of my big bucket list dreams!
I just started journalling this New Year, and I’m finding it so useful for downloading my thoughts and easing my anxiety and stress. I’m no artist so it’s not a beautiful bullet journal like some, but it’s mine and I love it.
I’m originally from High Green in Sheffield, which is where the Arctic Monkeys are from, but I’ve never met any of them. My childhood babysitter’s son served them in the local pub once though…
My dad named me Lyndsey after Lindsey Buckingham from Fleetwood Man, who is obviously a man, but whatever, Rumours is the greatest album ever written.
I’ve recently become completely obsessed with true crime, especially the podcast My Favorite Murder by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. I’m going to their live show in Manchester with my friend who introduced me to the podcast in May and I cannot wait!
My eyes are kind of hazel, they’re basically green with a ring of brown around the pupil, so when the sun shines on them they look super green, but in dim light they just look brown.
I can’t dance or sing, plus I’m terrible at sport. I haven’t got a competitive bone in my body so I just don’t care about winning enough to try when I’m not naturally talented. I believe there’s room for everyone at the top!
I’m not going to nominate anyone as I’ve been a bit disconnected from the blogging community recently (being pregnant is more all-consuming than I expected!) so if you fancy sharing 7 little-known facts about yourself, feel free to pinch this award!
I read One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus on my holiday in Singapore in September and I literally flew through it, it was such a fun read.
TL;DR Five kids go into detention, but only four come out alive. They’ve all got secrets, but do any of them have a motive for murder? Simon’s plan to expose all their deepest, darkest truths on his popular gossip app could be the key…
A jock, a geek, a prom queen, a bad boy, and Simon the outcast are all thrown into detention for having phones in their bags. The weird thing is, they’re not their phones. That doesn’t seem to matter to the overzealous teacher though. When a crash in the school car park draws the teacher away from the room, leaving the kids alone, it’s not long before Simon is dead, the cause a suspected allergic reaction.
One by one, the kids are questioned by the police and their darkest secrets start to come out, secrets so big they might push anyone to kill to keep them hidden. Any one of the four could be responsible, or could they just be the scapegoats for a killer who’s hiding in plain sight?
By the end of the book, no one is who they seemed at first glance, and they’ll never be the same again. Isolated and feared by their schoolmates, and demonised by the local media, Bronwyn, Addy, Nate and Cooper gradually form a tight-knit circle, but is it a case of keep your friends close and your enemies closer? Or are the four witnesses to Simon’s death the only ones who can solve the mystery before the crime is pinned on the wrong person?
This book is a fun, fast and gripping read with so many twists and turns it’ll keep you up at night turning page after page. Billed as a cross between The Breakfast Club and Pretty Little Liars, it brings together a band of misfits from every well-known high school clique and throws them into a compelling murder mystery plot for the modern age.
I had my suspicions about the climax from somewhere in the middle, but I certainly didn’t predict the whole reveal and was pleasantly surprised by some of the twists. The only reason this wasn’t a five star read is because a few of the secrets were pretty predictable and some of the drama was very high school, which is not a criticism as such, but knowing that I’m not exactly the target demographic for YA, despite it being my favourite, from a personal point of view some of the issues could have been easily resolved with a little communication. I’m sure that wouldn’t be a problem for younger readers, so that’s a very personal feeling on the novel and definitely wouldn’t make me recommend this book any less, I still think it’s a brilliant read.
I gave One of Us is Lying four stars, it’s a great contemporary thriller with well-written, flawed and interesting characters and an explosive plot twist. Have you read it yet? If not, what are you waiting for? If yes, tell me in the comments what you thought! Who was your favourite character? Did you see the twist coming? (No spoilers please!).
Hello lovely folks! As you’ve probably come to expect, I’m going to focus my post today on the stage of the writing/publishing process that I am currently at, which this time around is querying.
My querying journey began back in October, after a little over a year of plotting, drafting, editing and polishing (read: procrastinating) my first novel. After entering Pitch Wars and not getting chosen, I didn’t have any more excuses to put off querying, so I decided to bite the bullet and jump into the trenches.
Crafting your query
As part of the Pitch Wars submission requirements, I had to have a query letter prepared, so I already had mine ready to go. If you’re just starting to think about writing your query letter, one of the best explanations I found for how to write a killer query came from bestselling author of Truthwitch, Susan Dennard’s blog:
Fortunately, as part of the PW community, I had the opportunity to share my query with hundreds of fellow writers and get a few opinions and suggestions (also known as critiques). It’s just as crucial to have a polished query as it is to have your manuscript at its absolute best, so once you’ve drafted your letter ask a few writer friends to give it a once over, or post in one of the many amazing Facebook groups for writers and see if anyone would be willing to take a look. A few of the writing groups I’m in that have been invaluable for support and advice are:
Your Write Dream (Kristen Kieffer)
Edit & Repeat (Zoe Ashwood)
#PITCHWARRIORS (Morgan Hazelwood)
PW Query Team! (Morgan Hazelwood)
Writing a synopsis
Most agents request a synopsis along with your query letter and sample chapters, and the usual format is one page, single spaced. The key difference between a synopsis and a query letter is whilst the query doesn’t give away the ending of your story, the synopsis does. Again, the best explanation for how to write an amazing synopsis that I found was from Susan Dennard, this time on the Publishing Crawl website:
Now your submission materials are ready to go, the next step is to make a list of the agents you want to query, their submission guidelines and contact information. As I’m in the UK, I use Lit Rejections list of UK literary agents to find out who accepts my genre (Young Adult), and where I can find them online. Websites and Twitter accounts are really handy resources for learning more about an agent, their tastes and what they’re looking for. Don’t just rely on the list sites as you never know how up to date a particular site may be, always check the agency website in case an agent has moved, or their preferences or submission guidelines aren’t correct.
I keep a spreadsheet of all the agents I want to query, with columns for the agency name, the agent’s name, email address or submission website, submission guidelines, when I sent the query and whether/when they responded. I highlight the agents green when I send a query, and red when I receive a rejection, as well as putting the dates in, so I can see at a glance how many queries are still out.
Sending your query
A few tips to make sure you’re not rejected immediately, before the agent even reads your sample chapters:
Don’t paste the email address into the recipient box until you’re ready to send, that way you can never accidentally send a half-typed email.
Use the agent’s name and make sure you spell it correctly! (Simple, but effective.)
Triple check you’ve met the submission guidelines before clicking send – you can’t take it back once it’s winging its way through cyberspace.
Make sure you’ve formatted your pages and synopsis correctly – single-spaced, one-page synopsis, double spaced pages with indentations at every new paragraph, except the first of a chapter/scene.
Give everything one last read through before sending, I’ve seen agents say a misspelling or two in a query won’t put them off but it’s better to not give them any excuse, especially when the slush pile is huge. You want them to want to keep reading!
Expect rejection
We’ve all read stories of authors who bagged an agent within a week of starting to send queries, but the truth is that most agented authors sent over a hundred queries before they finally found their match. Rejection is a necessary part of the publishing journey, unfortunately, so get comfortable with the word no and don’t take it personally when your carefully crafted query receives a less than enthusiastic response.
One of my very first queries received an almost immediate rejection at 11pm because the agent didn’t accept YA. I’d been reading the bios of a couple of agents from the same agency and gotten muddled – well it was late and I’d probably been researching for hours. So that was a pretty embarrassing faux pas, but we all make mistakes and you’re unlikely to come out of this query trench without a few teensy snaffoos of your own!
This week, I received my first real rejections (I don’t count my little error as a real query) after starting to send queries back in October, and I couldn’t be happier! As my Dad said when I told him, despite some mild confusion as to why I was so excited to receive a rejection email, “You’ve got to kiss a few frogs before you find your prince”. The first was a form rejection, but the second was personal and stated that my submission had stood out amongst the many they received. Unfortunately, they just weren’t enthusiastic enough to represent my novel, but they wished me luck with it. It doesn’t get much more positive than that as a rejection!
And that’s where I am on my query journey, one step closer to finding the right agent who will fall in love with my book and want to represent me and it on the long road towards getting published. Fingers crossed 2018 is my year!
Where are you on the query journey, just starting out or deep in the trenches like me? Let me know how it’s going and what your most positive rejection email has been so far. Here’s hoping we all find our agents this year – next step, publishing deals!
Lyndsey Hall | Author 