A Week in Writing #84

Received the new Writer's Digest this week: 101 Best Websites for Writers. Still digesting it, so to speak, but really only a few are relevant for me. I'm more interested in websites about agents and queries.

I'm already a user of QueryTracker; I'm also interested in Agentquery.com, which covers much of the same ground. What I like about QueryTracker is that you can develop a list and export it to Excel. This list was the basis for the spreadsheet I keep on agents and queries. Agentquery has some of the same information, but the format is less user friendly for me. You can get a list of agents who handle mysteries, for example, but then you have to page through the listings which can be very time consuming.

I try to identify potential agents and then research them in small groups, since information can change quickly over time. Sometimes an agent who was closed to queries or would only take them on recommendation is now open and vice versa. I'm in the process of trying to put together agents to query for Public and Private.

While I think I've nailed down a good query letter, I'm still working on the long synopsis. I did get through it once and have done a round of editing. Now I'm updating the revised synopsis again. It's about 12 pages long, so next I want to make a 5 page version. Different agents ask for different lengths, so it's good to be prepared before starting.

I know it sounds like I'm procrastinating, but I'm not really. I just want to be ready before I throw myself out there.

Some progress made this week on the comic book. Our letterer is getting started, our artist has made some layouts and the colorist should deliver some pages later this week. This is sort of a wild card, as I'm never sure when something will come in that we need to look at. It's a little it like a jack-in-the-box, no action for days and then suddenly several things at once. It keeps me on my toes, but it does get in the way from a concentrated effort on other things.

As for blogging, we celebrated our 666th review on Trophy Unlocked with Satan Met a Lady (1936). It's actually  a remake of The Maltese Falcon (1931). The Humphrey Bogart version, which we all know, came out in 1941 and was the third film version of the Dashiell Hammett novel. No new review this week. We re-watched The Iron Giant this week, as a follow up to seeing The Giant's Dream last week at WonderCon.

My goal for this week is to make progress on as much as I can, regarding Public and Private, the comic book and maybe squeeze in a review as well.