Episode 12 - #AMQUERYING!

Surprise! I’m back! In this episode, I talk about my still-ongoing querying journey, how hard it is, but also the lessons I’ve learned during the worst months of my life, health-wise, that are helping me get through querying with more peace. I had a major realization while recording the episode that I think will also help you tremendously on your querying journey, so this episode is definitely not one to miss!

Mentioned in this episode:

• Martha Lane’s Instagram
• Kathryn Harris’s Instagram
• Stephanie Ellis
• Horror Writers Association’s Mentoring Program
• Print Run Podcast
• The Shit No One Tells You About Writing Podcast
• Manuscript Academy Podcast
• Swati Hegde
• Manuscript Wish List Website
• Query Tracker

Recorded on Feburary 6th, 2024

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Intro music credit: “Cinematic Cello Arpeggio Trailer” by Gregor Quendel, found on Free Sound https://freesound.org/s/555995/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Lifty Yobase Writing Podcast where I share with vulnerability and positivity my journey towards making all of my writing dreams come true. I hope you learn with me as I go from the things that go well and what doesn't go so well. But mainly I wish it inspires you to pursue your own writing dreams. Now let's begin. Hello, I'm back. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy that you are here after all this time. I cannot believe it's been a year. So first of all, I'm going to start by saying that I will never again promise that another episode is going to come, like at any period of time. I will never know when those episodes are recorded until I become a full-time writer. So from now on, from this moment on, every episode that drops will just be like this little surprise in your feed. At least I hope this is how it will feel to you. Some of my favorite podcasts have like this sort of eclectic uh scheduling, and I just love it. It's like a little gift in my podcast feed. So I hope that it feels this way for you. Um, so tonight I just felt like like recording. I just I just needed to record. I just wanted to record. So I haven't planned anything, and I'm just I'm just going with it. And and I'm so excited to be here today with you to say that I'm querying. I am querying. So that means I finished my book, so I will I will go back, of course. It won't really be like an update on my life and then like a topic episode. I will like mash both of those together, updating you on where I am and giving you some lesson that I've learned along the way. It has been quite a year. A beautiful, difficult, exciting, all of the things. Uh, it's been a beautiful year, and I'm will try to give you the best of it uh without this episode going too long, but you know, maybe it will go long. Who knows? We'll see. So before we really get into it, I just wanted to say that I've closed my Patreon and my Ko-Fi account for this podcast. The reason being that I did an episode on that, on embodying the writer you want to be. And I just took a moment to see, you know, my ideal career as a writer. Where does my money come from? Where do I spend my time and my energy? And it was really on my books, on my writing, on marketing those books, on talking about those books, talking about writing, of course, doing this podcast, but it was not like building a business around this podcast. It just didn't feel aligned. And while I didn't start it this way, like I thought for sure on the back of my mind that it could be a revenue stream for me, a way to allow me to work less and to allow me to to write more. Um, but you know, if the goal is to write more, then I can spend less time doing all the podcasting thing and trying to make money from the podcasting and just spend this time writing. That that was just my conclusion after sitting with myself. And it just felt like like the right thing to do because my money will come from my words. And this podcast, it's just for fun, it's just for sharing, it's just for making sure that you all know that you're not alone in this journey so that you can learn some things quicker and not the hard way like I did. It's it's for all those things, it's for sharing back and to talk about writing because I like it. But that's the main goal of this podcast, and it's not to make money with it. It just didn't feel aligned anymore. So I have closed those. I will still have my PayPal link added to every episode. So if you really want to send money my way, like I will not say no. Of course, I will be super happy and excited about it. But it's just like if if you really want to, like I want to make this way uh accessible to you. But yeah, so I've taken down those. So if you have a question, like don't hesitate to write me. You can DM me on Instagram, you can send me an email. And I switched my podcast host. I'm now with Spotify, and they have this option to record a message and send it my way. So if you go in the show notes, you will see this. So if you have a question, and if you'd like for me to play it on the episode and then answer you live on the episode, uh not really live, but you know what, just send me a question this way with the the um little option that you will find in the show notes. If you don't want me to play it, just just tell me. Just start by saying, hey, I have a question, but I don't want you to hear it on the podcast. That's okay. And I would love to do like an entire episode based on the question that you have. So go ahead, no more like paywall to ask me some questions. Um, yeah, I just really want this to be like a conversation and and sharing my things because that that's what I love to do. And I have to say the biggest, biggest thank you to the people who supported the podcast through Ko-Fi during that time. And there was my father who supported from the very beginning. So thank you, Daddy, for supporting me all this time. I really appreciate it. There was also Marta Lane, who was a supporter for the podcast for a big time. Well, I wasn't releasing episodes, so Marta, I really appreciate it. Marta as a newsletter for writers where she shares her journeys and interviews with other dreamers. So I will put uh the link in the show notes. You can go and check her out on Instagram. And then there's also Mel. Mel has been supporting the podcast for like a freaking year. She's amazing. So thank you, thank you, thank you, Mel, for keep on supporting the podcast, even though I wasn't releasing anything every month that I saw that you were still supporting what I was doing. It was like just a little reminder that what I did with this podcast had an impact on you, particularly. And I said to my best friend when I started this podcast that if I helped just one person with this podcast, just one writer, that like it would have been worth it. And you were this person to me, like the person that I knew for sure was there and benefiting from this. So I really want to say a big, big, big thank you for you for staying all that time. And yeah, it was hard for me to close it, especially because of you, because I was like, if there had been no one supporting it, it would have been like easy to say, okay, I'm not making any money from this anyway. So, you know, it doesn't matter if I close it or not. But with you, you weren't there supporting it. But anyway, I know that money will come. Money is on its way to me from my actual words, so it's okay to let go. But thank you really for being here all that time. So now that this is taken care of, I'll just start from the beginning. So in the last episode, I recorded it just before my surgery. I had ill serativcolysis, which is an IBD disease. I don't have it anymore because my colon was removed. I'm super, super lucky to be cured and healed from this chronic illness. Like I was not supp it was chronic, so I was not supposed to heal from it. And it's not really considered like cured because removing an organ is not considered a way to cure something, but but still I feel cured and on the process of being completely healed from this uh disease. There was the process of creating a G pouch, which means like now I don't have like a stoma anymore. So I had to add a surgery for this, and it was like a big surgery, and I really believed because the the previous surgery I had bounced back like pretty quickly, considering like I had a whole organ removed from my body. So I really believed that this surgery would be the same way, that I will be like a week or two down, but then I would be able to start living again. And I thought for the longest time, if you go back to the episode before, I thought for the longest time that this would be my opportunity to finally finish my book because I knew that I would have like something like eight weeks of um sick leave. So I was like, I will be able to use this time to write more in between like the getting better from this surgery. And I thought it would be the way for me to finish my book. So just before the surgery, I realized that I needed to let go of the timeline, that I would finish my book when I finished it, and that it I did not need more time to finish it. It was just like putting time every day that will help me to one day finish it. So that was a luck because when I had the surgery, I had a minor complication. And it took three weeks of me going worst and worst and worst and worst to realize that I had this complication. Looking back, like I knew in the hospital before leaving the hospital just after the surgery, I knew already that something was off. But you know, you tell the doctors and they tell you it's normal that you're having those symptoms, so you just disregard it. Yeah, so that's the lesson learned from this. If you feel something in your body that doesn't feel right, even though the doctor tells you it's not right, like push. Push if you feel internally that it's wrong. Anyway, all that to say that I had a minor complication who made things go worse, and I was hospitalized again, and then I was out of the hospital and then scheduled for uh uh a surgery which was delayed, and I ended up again going to the ER. I had an obstruction, like I just couldn't pass anything anymore, and then that's where I had my third surgery, like an emergency surgery, and that put an end to my misery, or so I thought. Um, so at this point, like I didn't have a stone eye anymore, and the minor complication was going away with this, with the last surgery, and then it was like healing and also like adjusting to having a g pouch. So if you don't know what this is, just go and Google it. I will not go into detail, but I thought I was prepared. Like the doctor, I said that it would be a couple of rough weeks that I just had to go through, and that then after that, like my life would be better. And I had read about people with G Pouch, and they all said it's a rough couple of weeks, but then like it's totally worth it, and I've had my life back and everything. So I knew I was prepared for it. I was prepared to like go to the toilet a hundred times a day again. I was prepared to not be able to hold it in. Like I was prepared for those things because I have lifted before. But what I was not prepared for was the pain, and it was incredibly painful. Again, I'm not going to go into detail, but it was it was super painful, and I was not prepared for it, and it wasn't going away, and I was waking up in pain in the middle of the night. So it was and that was after my surgery. So we're now like in January 2023, and then February, I was still like this, and I was supposed to go back to work, but I couldn't because like I wasn't I wasn't getting better, but I knew that eventually I would. I just had to make it through. And that whole period of my life, so from the surgery that happened at the end of November, the second surgery, until like the time where I got really better, which was probably around March, if my memory is right. I started working full-time again in March. So I'm thinking that I I was I was like good by this time. Not perfect, but really better. Though those months, those like three months were really the the most rough of my life. Yeah, total. Like it was worse than than the period where I got my colon removed. It was it was like a year and a half before, which was really, really hard too, but this one was harder. And I learned from this period amazing lessons. And looking back, I'm so grateful that everything arrives exactly the way that it did, because if it hadn't, I wouldn't have learned the lesson that I needed to learn. And what am I talking about of this in a writing podcast? It's because all of the lessons that I learned during this period applied to querying. It absolutely applied to querying. And I think that as I really understood it, as I really integrated that, oh my god, it's like the same lesson. And I just need to relearn them on a more deeper level to really be able to make it through that other difficult period of my life. Like nothing compares, you know, querying is not as rough as having so much health difficulties. It it doesn't, but it's rough too, and so that's why I wanted to start there. I thought I would go back and tell you everything that happened from this moment to how I finished my book, and and maybe I will, I don't know, but I really want to talk to you about the lesson that I learned there and what I'm learning about querying right now. So I started querying in October. And when I finished my book, I was so happy. Like it was such an accomplishment. I I cried like the moment I finished, like not finished, finish, but finished. And you know, writers, your writers, you know what I mean. My partner could not wrap his head around this. He was like, You said you finished like a week ago, why are you still working on it? And I'm like, I finished, but I've not finished, finished. So I had finished like my big rounds of like editing, but then I had to go back and integrate the comment from my dear amazing friend Katrian Harris, who helped me so, so, so, so much with my book. By the way, if you're looking for an editor to help you edit your book, I will put the link in the show notes for Katherine's Instagram. You can go check her out, you can hire her to edit your book. She just has the best comment. She helped me so much, and she could help you so much too. So go check her out if you were looking for an editor for your book. Thank you, Catherine, for all your help. But uh, so yeah, I finished my line editing, but I had to still go back and reintegrate like all the comments that Catherine had made because every time we finished a chapter, I would finish line editing a chapter, I would send it to Stephanie Hellis, my mentor from the Yora Writers Association, who was with me until the end of that process. And then I would send the chapter to Catherine, who would do her comments, and then when I was done, I needed to go back and address the comments that she made, which made my book so much better. But anyway, so when I finished, not finished, finished, finished, I was at my day job. I took a long break to finish it, and in it just so happens that my two best friends at my day job were I work in a library and they were both at the front of the library. And I just went to them and I said, I'm finished, and I started crying, and I was like, it was such a beautiful moment. It was such so beautiful that it happened there, like at my day job, that I had someone to share this moment with, and not just someone like my two furvy people there. It was just like an amazing moment, and I just felt like okay, you did it, and now you can do it again as many times as as you want. So why I'm sharing that now is just to say that if you're at this point in your writing journey where you haven't finished a first draft, you haven't finished a whole book until a point that you feel like you can submit it in to agents or in the press or self-publish it. If you're at this point and you feel like you're never going to get there because you've never got there, just keep on going. Just keep on showing up to your project every single day that you can. Like not necessarily every single day with a week, but every day that you can show up, sit down, put some time on it, and eventually you will be done. It's a promise. I promise you that if you keep on showing up for your project, eventually it will be done. So keep going, trust yourself, trust your story, keep going, and you will get there. And believe me, trust me, it's so much worth the feeling of having finished something, like really, really finished such a big project as a novel. This feeling is the word all the pain going in, all the pain throughout this process. So I finished it and then I started querying when I was when it was finished, finished, and ready to query. So previous to sending my first query, for the past seven years, I have been researching querying, listening to podcasts like the Print Run podcast, the Manuscript Academy podcast, the shit no one tells you about writing podcasts, the lit match podcast. I had been reading many articles online. I had been reading lots of copies of the Writer's Digest magazine. I had learned a lot about querying. And I also invested in many manuscript academy consultations. I submitted my query and first page to the shit no one tells you about writing podcast. I submitted my first pages and query to the print run podcast. I also hired SWATI. I will put a link also in my show notes if you want to somebody to look at your query and first pages, the help SWATI provides in making my first pages, but most importantly, my query. The reason I have the request that I have right now is like 75%. No, maybe 50% due to the edits that SWATI did on my query. So if you're looking for a good editor to check your query, go check out SWATI. I invested into making sure that my query package was ready and shining before I jumped in. Because there is this way of querying that you go into batches and you adjust according to the answer that you have. And if you don't get enough requests, then you adjust your query and then you send another batch. But I think that this way of doing it, I'm not saying it's wrong, like maybe it's right for you. But I think it doesn't work as well right now as it used to, just because first there is some agents who took like a very long time before the answer, just because of backlog and the work that they're putting into the client that they sign, which is like where they should be putting their energy. So there is some agents who will take a very long time before they respond to you, and it's not because they're not interested. So if you send like 10 queries and you judge the result of those 10 queries as a way to judge if your package is working, like I don't think you're going to get like the right feedback. And in between like the moment I sent my first query and the moment I send my last, I reworked my first pages like a lot based on the comment that I got from Agent, but I still got a request from a query that I sent with the previous pages, so they weren't that bad. And I also got like amazing comments from Agent who received the first version of my first pages in the query trenches. There was an agent who said that it was among the strongest pages she's read the previous months. Like, you you cannot judge because you never know until you get the answer from this one agent. So that's why I advise you before you go into the query trenches, invest in at least one manuscript academy consultation on your query and first pages when you can actually talk to an agent and know what they think about your query. That's what I did. I invested in four consultations on my query. The first one she said she would request, but there was something confusing to her. So I reworked what she said, then I submitted to another agent who said she wouldn't request based on my letter because of a sentence that was confusing to her. And she said, At the minute, I'm confused. At the minute, I have a doubt in my head, it's a no, because it needs to be a Yes. And that's how competitive it is out there. So you just can leave up a detail like that in the review in the query trenches. So I reworked with the help of Swati. He reworked my query and I said, you know, this sentence, she told me it was confusing. And SWATI came up with a beautiful way, just a beautiful way of rewording it, repurposing it completely. And then I had another consultation just on my query with another agent who said, I have nothing to say. She was like, it works. Everything works. And that's what I wanted to hear. And she was like, query this widely. And I'm, I would not be surprised if someone stabbed this. That was her answer, but it wasn't a fit for realist, so she didn't herself. Um, I I'm saying that. I don't know. I I'm assuming she didn't request herself, but she just said, like, I have no comment to give you on your query because it works. So then I took another consultation with the agent who had said, like, I would not request based on this. But after talking to me about the concept of my book, she was like, Yeah, I'm looking for that sort of stuff. So I wanted to know if my edited query would work better for her now with the edits that I had done. So I reschedule a meeting with her, but this time I send her my query and my first 10 pages, which is the norm. Like some people would request less, others will request more, but the 10 first pages is the most important for query. So I had this consultation and she said basically the thing that bugged her the last time was now the strength of my query. She was like, it's your hook, it's the thing that makes us want to read it. And she liked my first pages and everything, and she requested my partial. So that was my signal to say, okay, I'm ready to be in the query trenches. My material works and is strong enough to be there. So now I can submit it. And I'm glad I used this approach and I glad I had like two agents tell me that my query worked because when the rejection started to get in, I always had to go back to no agents told you that your query works. It's not the fault of your query that you're getting rejection. Because it was exactly the same with my surgery than with querying. I expected it to go better. I'd expected it to be easier and to affect me less than it did. And this is the part where I'm raw and honest and vulnerable with you. Querying is harder than I thought it would be emotionally. It's harder. It's harder. I really thought I'm gonna be super honest with you. Just like with my surgery, I really thought that this would go just well. Like I thought that before, like I started querying at the beginning of October 2023, and I thought for sure that before the beginning of 2024 I would have an offer. Call me delusional, over optimistic. I don't know, but I really thought that it would be just a braze, that it would just be easy. But right now, I'm recording this on the 8th of February 2024, and I still haven't got an offer. I've submitted a total of 168 query. Yes, I'm intense. But I'm doing something, I'm doing it like I'm going all in, and I submitted a lot of queries in that period of time, and I'm in no means saying that you should send as much query as fast. It's not for the fade art. And the only reason I was able to do that was because I had so much feedback on my novel as a whole that I knew my novel worked. I had lots of feedback on it, so I was confident that it worked, and I had feedback about my query and first pages, and I knew that it worked. And that's why I felt confident to send that much. Because I was like, at this point, I know that it's all about finding the right person, finding the person who will get it. And the only way I can know who will fit is by querying them. If I don't query them, I will not know. But just remember, for the previous seven years, I had been researching, querying, and researching agent too. Every time I came across an agent looking for horror during that period of time, I had this folder on my bookmarks, and I would always bookmark the page of the website of this agent, the manuscript wishlist pages. I would bookmark them to remember. And so when I started querying, I did this huge Notion spreadsheet where I would keep track of all the agents I wanted query. And I would really take the time to look at which type of book they were looking for, being sure that it were they were looking for commercial horror. Sometimes when they mention a book that I was like, uh, for me, like it's sort of on the line of upmarket, and I feel like my book isn't that far away, like I would submit to them anyway. But most of the time I really wanted to be sure that they said that they were open to commercial horror or speculative, because sometimes they don't use the word horror, but you you go and check the sort of books that they said they liked or they represent, and you're like, okay, no, that's horror, but they just call it speculative. So, so I really choose, even though this number is big, I did not just query anyone, like just throwing it out there. Like I really did a research on every single agent that I queried. And every time that I could add like a line of personalization, I would do it too. But then the rejection started coming in. And there was this cycle, like every 12 rejection that would come, I would really hit a low point. And that took me by surprise, just like with my surgery. It took me by surprise because I did not expect it. Like, because of all the submission I did for my short stories along the years, I really thought I was like rejection-proof. I did an episode about how to deal with rejection. I was like, okay, I've got this. I have the method and the way. And like for the query, like the rejection one to the 11th in a cycle of rejection, I was like, it was coming up. I was just like posting it in my close friend circle. Hey, I've got another rejection. And then out of sight of mine, I was updating my query tracker and my notion spreadsheet. And then if there was another agent at the agency looking for horror and they allowed to submit to more than one agent, then I would just go and submit. But like, it was really like I was able to deal with it. But every 12 rejection, why 12? I had no idea. Every 12 rejection, it would just hit me, and I would feel discouraged, disheartened, and like, why? Why don't I have a yes? And seeing like when you're querying, like Twitter, I started going back on Twitter just because that's where the agents say, I'm opening, I'm closing, I'll be open for a day. I'm now looking for horror, and horror would not be anywhere else on their pages. So you gotta sort of be on Twitter when you're querying. So it was on Twitter. But what you also see on Twitter is all the people getting requests and offers and being vague, and you're like, why am I not vague? Why am I not getting requests? But now I'm just like focusing on the rejection, but I've got some requests along the way. So as of today, I've I've received 96 rejections. I still have 65 outstanding queries at the moment, and I've received a total of seven requests, which give me uh 4.2% of uh request rate, which is good. Anything upper than like 2 or 3% of request weight is good because it's harder there, because the agents are extremely picky. There is a lot of agents who say they are extremely picky, and so this percentage of uh request rate is really good. And so, but of those sevens, I have two still outstanding. So I received five partial or full rejection. And the first one really, really hit hard because I thought it was it would not end up being a rejection. I really thought that like the agent was excited. She had read my synopsis and she said my synopsis was super good. So it was like, she likes my book. Like the synopsis is the book, so she likes my book. Like, but it is it was about the writing. So when I received this rejection, it was really like it really hurt. But I I I'm lucky that I have a day job that allows me to take some time off. So I took some time off. I took an afternoon off and I re-watched Whiplush, eat a popcorn. And at the end, like this movie, so good. And at the end, I was like, I'm gonna do better. I'm just gonna go back and I'm gonna make it better. And and I can do that. And so I did. I went back and I did uh a whole entire rewriting on a line level of the novel at this point, and so that was about in November that it happened. Yes, November 2023. So then like the rejection kept on coming and it was okay, and I've got other requests, and like seriously, the feeling of getting a request, like it's just it's just so amazing. It's uh it's it's a little too cool. Like you get addicted to this spike in this high of excitement when somebody wants to read your book. And when you go on Twitter and agents talk about the way that they work and what they say they need to feel in order to request, and you're like, oh my god, they felt that reading my stuff. Like, we can all know deep down that we need to find validation like within our own self that we need not to look for external validation, but it just feels nice to have external validation. Like there, this is something I'm trying to just get comfortable with and okay with. Like, it's normal to be happy when you get external validation from a professional of this industry. Like, it's just normal. So, anyway, like their requests really, really feel good. The the biggest wall I've hit was at the beginning of 2024. So I was really like excited about January because this is the month where so many agents open. Like so many agents that I've been following for a long time and thought they were a good fit. They were opening back in January. And I was like, okay, and this is the signing months. Like I know that February is too a big signing month. And you can sign an agent any time of the year, but these are bigger signing months. So I was like, okay, let's go, let's do it. January is gonna be my month of getting my offer. And at the beginning of the year, I was too much on Twitter, too much seeing all the requests, too much seeing all the people getting offers, and I hit a multiple of 12 rejection. I hit 72. And when I hit 72 rejection, like I hit the wall hard. And I just I was crying and I was like, I'm exhausted. This is exhausting. Always searching for new agents to query, always looking back. Like, is there an agency that I haven't looked? Is there a tweet that could come? Like, I was just obsessing over it and thinking about it all the time and spending all of my breaks from my day job instead of reading. I would be on Twitter and looking if there was another agent that I could query and doing another round of line editing on my book. And I was like, I'm just exhausted and I'm just tired, and I'm tired of my mood being influenced by my inbox. And I was like, this is just this is too much. Like, I'm tired. I cannot do this anymore. So I hit the big wall. Let's just say. And this is where again I can compare it to when I hit my big wall with my help. And actually, with my help, I hit that wall two times. The first time before my third surgery. Uh, whereas when I finally went like back to the ER because I was doing too bad. And I was seeing a therapist at the time, and she was really helping me deal with this. Like, that was not the reason I went to see her. It was to help me deal with my self-worth. But it sort of happened in the moment of my life where I was struggling with my health. So it was like a big portion of the thing we we talked about. And she was always trying to get me to accept. And like, I was like, how the hell can I accept that I'm in pain? Like, you cannot accept being in pain. And so the first time that I hit a wall, and she was also saying you need to be vulnerable. And I thought I could easily be vulnerable. That's what's what I thought. But I understood that being vulnerable is just being honest with yourself about how you're feeling. And when during the month of December, when I was really sick, I was always saying, No, but it will turn around. Like I will get better. It's yeah, I was trying to see every hint of getting better that I could find. And because I was so focused on what could possibly go better because I wanted to be better, I was not acknowledging everything that was going wrong. And this is something that I had to confront with querying too, of just being vulnerable and accepting that I was finding it hard. And the rejection would were hitting me and they were hurting me. Like I just, I just had to be honest with this. And I think for for a long time, like maybe like the best of December, I would say, I was trying to just stay positive and just say, okay, it doesn't bother me, it doesn't mean anything about me, which is all true. Like it doesn't mean anything about me that I'm getting rejection. And I was like, it's just not the right agent, that there's not the right time, and my agent is out there, and my agent will request and will make an offer. But I was so consciously focusing on that that I was ignoring the pain that I was feeling and the disheartenment and the discouragement that I was feeling and the tired I was getting, like I was ignoring all of this. So I needed to be vulnerable with myself in with the people around me and just saying, this hurts and this is hard. It's harder than I thought it would be. So I think, like, I'm a super positive person, and I really believe that it's important to be positive because otherwise, like, why bother trying anything in this world, you know? But I like understood for the first time where this positivity can become toxic, and it's when you're not acknowledging how you're feeling just for the sake of being positive. So, so yeah, so this reaching this wall in my querying journey allowed me to just say, okay, I'm gonna be vulnerable with myself and just acknowledging that it's hard and that I'm having a hard time. And just just doing that and just letting myself cry and letting myself say it, and letting my admit to myself that I thought it would be easier than it and it was, like it was such a relief that came with that, just like it did with my help. So that that's the first part of it. And the second part was radical acceptance. So my therapist was telling me about being vulnerable, but also about accepting and with the pain, like I was not able to accept. It was after my surgery when I told you like I didn't expect it to be this hard and that I didn't expect to be in so much pain. And I just reached a point where it was like I was crying because I was in so much pain. And I I just I was alone, so I just screamed like I cannot take this anymore. And I just heard myself and I was like, what good does it do to just say you cannot take it anymore? Like it's not going to take your pain away that you're screaming to the universe that you cannot take this pain anymore. It's not going away, and it's not searching online for this miracle cure to your pain that will make it happen. You just need to let to give it sometimes. And I'm saying that like it's exactly the same freaking thing with querying. So what I did in this moment of pain when I was just screaming and crying, saying I couldn't take it this pain anymore. I just said, so I'm going to try to accept it. Radical acceptance. And and I just, I don't know, melted into this acceptance. And I understood at that moment, and that was what I think. I don't know if my therapist said it, but I could not understand it, or she didn't say it in those words. But that was the moment that I understood what accepting means. Accepting doesn't mean you're okay with the situation. That's what I thought it meant. And I was like, I could not be okay with being in pain. But that's not what it means. Accepting means to stop mentally wishing, thinking, praying for it to be different. Accepting is just saying, I am in a situation that I don't like, and it's just what it is. And it's letting go of the mental rearting, repeating of I wish things were different. It's stopping that and separating you from, if only it was different, I would be okay. But it's not. Right now, you are in a difficult position. And there is nothing you can do about it. And the moment that you start to just accept things as they are, it's so freeing that in this moment of pain, I can tell you the pain subsided by maybe just 5%. Just a tiny little bit when I just let go and unclench-probably that's what happened. I unclenched my body in this moment of acceptance, which, you know, when you clench something that is in pain, it's in even more pain. So that's what I'm thinking happened. But my perception of pain diminished just a little, just enough that I could notice it and say, huh. If I accept it, it hurts less. When I'm screaming and crying, it hurts more. And just right now, right now, as I'm saying this, and that's why I think I wanted to record this episode tonight. Right now, I am understanding that I need to do the exact same thing with querying. Gosh, I'm getting emotional. I'm really living this right now with you. I did the um being verlable part, but I hadn't done the acceptance part. And I just need to accept where I am. I am 168 query sand. I am 96 rejection in, including five portion or four requests in, and I don't have an offer. I am four months in querying, and I still don't have an offer. And that's okay. I'm not okay with it, but I'm accepting it. And it's not worth saying I wish it was different. It it it doesn't help. It doesn't help at all to say I wish it was different. It's just what it is. And just like with my help, like I knew that eventually I would get better. It was a certainty because like I had no more in the situation that I was, I knew for sure that I would get better. But I did not knew when. I had no idea when. whatever, it wasn't working because the thing that I needed was time. It was what I needed, time. And it's the exact same thing with querying. There is nothing else I can do right now. When I reached this point of being just exhausted, I said I'm going to stop sending queries. I didn't. I was at 155 at the time. And I said I would stop there. Obviously, I sent 13 more queries since then. But it was agents who opened, mainly in when there was like I received a rejection in in an agency, I submitted to another agent at the same agency. That that's where those 13 come from. But I've basically stopped querying. And so I was at this point, like just with my health, where I could not do anything more. I had done everything that I could do. And now it was just, and now it is just about giving it some time. And even though, like at the time I was not clinging to my positivity like I did before, I still knew that I would get better at some point. And today I can say, like a year later, I'm doing 10 times better than I thought I would. Like in my biggest dream, I never thought I would do so good physically as I am right now. Like I'm not taking any medication anymore. I'm sleeping through the night. I don't have any pain anymore. I'm not going to the toilet like 10 times a day. I'm never bothered by it. Like I'm doing better than I did in the best months of my chronic illness. Like in the months that I thought I was on remission. I'm doing so much better right now than I ever did. Since I got my since ever. I have much more energy, much more drive. I'm just doing so well. I'm so much stronger. I didn't thought I would do that good just a year in. And I know from reading many, too many blog posts about people who have G Pouch. I know that I'm not even at the top of what I will be. Like I know that three years in, five years in, it's even better yet. And I'm like, I cannot even understand how I could be doing better than I'm doing right now. And so I gave it some time. And and it worked. And I'm healed and I'm cured and I'm thriving. So it's going to be the same way with querying. It's going to be the same way with querying. I just need to give it some time. And maybe it won't be with this book. I don't know. I have no way to know if it's going to be with this book. But it doesn't matter. I know that I will keep on writing because duh, I cannot stop writing. I have too many ideas inside of me, and I just love it freaking so much. I cannot stop. So I'm going to keep on going and keep on submitting. And at some point I will find my agent and then we will go on submission and I will have a book deal. And at some point I will be a full-time writer. But I just need to give it some time and accept fully where I am right now. And another thing that I learned with this crazy time of my life, Ltwise, crazy difficult period of my time that I'm still re-learning today is that life is too short and precious to be waiting for something to happen to me to be happy. Like you cannot wait. You need to be fully there, fully present, fully experiencing your life in the moment. Just like I could not wait on my surgery before being able to be happy, even though the present was uncomfortable because before my two surgery, like I had some symptoms that were lingering. And I had my stoma, which, you know, was a thousand times better than being sick. But because I have like a very sensitive skin, it came with this challenge. But I could not wait for my surgery, which kept on not happening before I was happy. And and I was telling myself, like, oh, I will be have harmony in my life and like move my body and take time to read and to enjoy life when I'm a full-time writer. And I'm like, no, I cannot do that. I cannot do that. So if this period of my life taught me something, it's how much it's important to take care of my health. Because if I'm not healthy, I cannot write. During that period of my life, I was too sick to write, and that was horrible for me. And I've been really sick and still writing. Like when I got my colon removed, I was at the hospital writing like five hours a day. And it was the way that I could keep my head above right water during this time. But last year in the month of December, I could not write. I just couldn't. I couldn't not even read. Like it was too much for me. The only thing I could do was re-watch Friends. Like it was the only thing that I was capable of doing. So it's like, if I do not take care of my health, then there is just no way I'm going to be able to write. So I cannot wait before I'm a full-time writer before I take care of my health. And right now, what it's telling me is I cannot wait until I have an agent or a book deal or I'm a full-time writer before I'm happy and have harmony in my life. Because even right now, it's very less uncomfortable than it has been. Like I'm I'm thriving in so many areas of my life. I cannot let a rejection coming into my inbox ruin my day. So yeah, who's surprised this episode is long? I'm not. I'm not surprised. I knew it would end this week. So I'm going to end this episode by giving you my tips for surviving querying. Because it's harder than I thought it would be. But again, but also it doesn't have to be, even though it is. And it's one of the paradox of life. So first and foremost, be vulnerable and be true and listen really to yourself and acknowledge what you're feeling as you're going through it. If you're in pain, let yourself be in pain. If it hurts, let it let it hurt. If you're angry, let yourself be angry. Go for a run. Scream. Let yourself be angry in an healthy way. If you're disheartened, be disheartened. You know, the more we fight the emotions in our body what resist, persist. So you need to stop resisting it. So first. But second, keep trusting yourself. Keep trusting your journey. It doesn't mean that you don't keep on growing. It doesn't mean that you don't ask yourself, oh, maybe I could have like more feedback. Maybe like listen at the same time to the universe or the feedback from agent or anything that they might tell you. Trusting yourself doesn't mean having like being blind to the things you can make better. But trusting yourself just means that you know you can do it and you know that what you did has value, and because what you did has value, and because this is something that you truly desire, you will keep on going. And you will not be discouraged or stopped by the rejection that will come. There is absolutely 100% you will get rejected. So but you can still, but it's still important to trust in yourself and your story and know that at the right time, with the right project, with the right agent, it's going to work out. So you keep on going and you trust in yourself. And stay the Lulu. Keep on trusting and knowing that at the end you will end up with an agent if it's really aligned with your career and what you want. It's possible that along the way you discover that, you know, traditional publishing is not for you, and you really feel called to win the publishing, and that's perfectly okay. And if it's that, go for it. But if traditional publishing is really the route for you and you really feel deeply that getting an agent is the path for you for publication, then stay the Lulu. Keep on saying, you know, I will find an agent. I don't know when, I don't know how, I don't know with which book, I don't know which agent, but I know that I will. And having this delusion that no matter what happens, it will turn out okay will allow you to keep on going. Because if you don't have this blind belief that it will work, like I get where people stop. I get while people stop writing, stop querying, stop and get super disardened and discouraged because it's hard. Especially if you think that you're doing all of this for nothing. So that that's where the the Lulu helps. Because if you know that everything is happening exactly as it should, radical acceptance of where you are, and if you completely do Lulu that it's going to work out in the end, then it's just a tiny bit easier to keep on going. So keep on the Lulu, but also know when to stop. And it's okay to stop. You can just stop for a few months. If you have sent just like, I don't know, you've sent 20 queries and you've gotten five rejection and it's too much and you feel completely disheartened, it's okay to stop for a few months for a year. Doesn't matter. You know, a book is never dead until we say it's dead. So you can keep on querying again in three months, in six months, in a year. Like you can. You just absolutely can. So if it's too much and you cannot just, you know, work on your mindset to get yourself out of the bad feelings that you're feeling, then just take a break. Just stop. And and maybe by stopping, you will get this detachment and you will be just able to ease into it again while trusting yourself again and while keep on being the Lulu. So if you cannot trust in yourself and your project, and if you cannot stay the Lulu, maybe it's a signal to just maybe take a break or stop. And then when you feel like you have those two things together, you will be able to keep on going. And like if you're still at the beginning of your journey and you feel like your craft isn't on spot, there will be a point. Like I feel that with my short story, I kept on writing. And there was this short story that I just understood, okay, it would just wasn't there on a craft level. And that's why I was getting rejected. But I was at peace with it. I was okay with it because I had this other thing that I was creating. So that takes me to my final tip for how to survive querying. And it's difficult, I get it, because I'm in dance. And when I'm doing something, I want to do it completely. But start writing the next thing because first you you're writing because you like writing. So write. Yes, we want to get published, yes, we want to get read. Yes, we want to share our heart with the world. That's okay. But it starts by creating the art. So start working on the next thing, find joy in the next thing, have fun with the next thing, and it will help you so much to not completely, but it will help you to detach from the querying process. But all that being said, even if you do all of this perfectly, it's hard to completely let go. I think it's it's almost impossible to completely let go of querying, especially when rejection keeps on coming, you know, and you're still waiting to hear from a fool from a nation who said I responds to all my fall. So you know it's coming, you know, it it's hard to let go. It's hard to be detached. It's hard to stop obsessing with it. It's hard to stay off of Query Triker or stay away from your inbox. And I get it. Like I'm right in the middle of it. And for that, all I can say is acceptance and distraction are your best friend. So you accept where you are, you accept that right now the inbox is empty. That's just what it is. It is what it is. I'm not okay with it, but it's just the way that it is, and I'm going to stop wishing it was different. So accepting and distraction. If you're obsessing over it and always thinking about querying and always going back to your email and always going on query tracker, looking at the timeline, trying to predict when the next answer is going to come, doing chart and how much time it takes for an answer to come and everything. Distract yourself. Distract yourself with your favorite TV shows. Like right now, I'm re-watching Big Bang Theories. And it makes me feel so good. It makes me laugh. And when I'm watching Big Bang Theories, I'm then thinking about querying. Read the book that you really like. I'm rereading one of my favorite books right now because I just, it's a way to distract myself. So I'm distracting myself with that. I've distracted myself with can be crush. Okay. Yeah, I deleted it because, you know, that was a short-term distraction, but it did the trick. I needed something to occupy my brain, so I did not think about querying. Find something that you like to do other than writing. Writing is a good way to distract yourself, but sometimes it can be hard because there is the own challenges of writing. But distract yourself with something that you really like. Be present with the people that you're with. Go outside, do a physical activity. Like this weekend, I did so much skiing with my daughter. And during the afternoon, where we were just skiing, just her and me. It was so fun. And I was so in the moment. It was so beautiful outside that I didn't think about querying. And go out, be with the people that you love and live your life and distract yourself. And you know, your inbox will remind you that you're querying at some point. Don't be afraid. But at least it will allow you to detach a little emotionally and just to get through it until the moment where you have this rush and this happiness when our wakers come. And this, I'm sure, will be an extra amazing rush of when you get the offer and then the call. Oh my god, I cannot wait for the call with an agent. It was just so excited about your book and it will all come. But right now, all you gotta do is accept and give it some time. So thank you so much for being here for this big episode about querying and my help thing and everything. I'm so happy that you're still here after a year listening to me talk about writing. So I have absolutely no idea when the next episode will be out. And I'm not going to promise anything. It could be like in a month, it could be in a year, it could be I have no idea. So it's going to be a surprise for you when another episode pop up. But if you have any comments, if you want to share how your journey is doing, if you have any question, if you like to talk about your querying experience, because you're like, yay, I'm not alone. If you find this process super hard, you can find me on Instagram. Just go in the show notes. I will put a link to my Instagram. This is the place where it's easiest to find me. I'm also on Twitter. You can go there. You can send me an email. You can send me a voice message. I'm will be so happy to connect with you. So please, please, please reach out if if you feel like it. Yeah, this podcast is really to connect with you and to let you know that you're not alone. So so please, please, please don't hesitate to reach ever. So yeah, I will see you again. I don't know when. I don't know what I will talk about. If there is a topic you'd like me to cover too, you can send me a message. But I will see you later. And as always, happy writing. Welcome to LeftyO Bay's writing podcast, where I share with vulnerability and positivity my journey towards making all of my writing dreams come true. I hope you learn with me as I go from the things that go well and what doesn't go so well. But mainly, I wish it inspires you to pursue your own writing dreams. Now let's begin.