How I got my literary agent

I feel like a lot of these posts start with people saying they wanted to write novels since they were a child. If you asked whether that was true for me, my answer would be HAHAHAHAHA. My friends, allow me to tell you the tale of a stubborn bitch who woke up and said, “I think I’ll be a writer today.”

Growing up, I barely read. I picked up the popular books like Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia, but I didn’t gorge myself on reading until I was in college and the movie trailer for The Hunger Games popped up. I couldn’t wait to see it, so I snagged a copy from my local grocery store, read it in a day, and promptly raced to Barnes & Noble so I could finish the series within the next 48 hours. Clearly, I was an addict. It was pure chance that I plucked The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken off the shelf in hopes of finding my next fix.

That book HURT ME. My first thought? I wanna learn how to hurt people, too! Healthy stuff.

I enrolled in a short story writing class at my university, which changed EVERYTHING. At this point, I was 22 or so. I didn’t have any ideas for novels, but I learned how to write small. Short stories helped me nail scene-level tension early on. When my professor suggested I pursue publication, my type-A brain was feeling smug as hell. But my friends, my dudes, my dearest compadres, trust me when I say this: a novel is a whole different monster.

My first book took me nearly six years to draft, from 2013 to 2018. It was a YA dystopian with a fantasy twist (see that TDM influence?). It was hot garbage, not because the descriptions were bad. Oh, no. On a line level, it was fantastic. The scope was simply too ambitious for my skill level. It was all plot, all reactionary. My protagonist had zero personality and zero agency. Worse, I’d overcomplicated the world building terminology to the point of incomprehensibility. I was so fixated on creating a unique world and magic system that I’d neglected learning the tools to execute a novel efficiently. Even with all the compliments on a line level, I could never seem to get away from reader confusion. Out of frustration, I shelved the book. Not permanently—never permanently. I swore I would execute the crap out of that book someday. I just needed to improve my craft. I sought out ways to deepen my education.

I submitted the manuscript to Pitch Wars in 2018 (no requests) and began writing a new book. With tons of research into character action vs. agency under my belt, I drafted a YA fantasy about a wily con artist who dupes a disgraced dragon slayer into pursuing a cure for her dragon shifter curse. Critique partner responses were wildly better this time. Beta readers would finish it in a day. With a simpler world and active characters with big personalities, I queried with confidence.

Rejections abound, my friends. That is, until my pitch wizard critique partner gave me the perfect opening line for my query letter, which garnered my first request. I even won a pitch contest in 2019, which earned more requests. I had a 20% request rate, which was pretty solid at the time. No way I wouldn’t get rep.

I did not get rep.

All full requests became rejections, most of them personalized, but I didn’t know what to do with the feedback. I submitted the manuscript to Pitch Wars 2019 and got one request, but that mentor kindly said I didn’t need her. Turns out, I did need help. Something was fundamentally flawed with the concept, and for the life of me, I couldn’t pinpoint what it was.

That said, since I’m the queen of backup plans, I’d done two things while I queried that YA fantasy: First, I attended writing workshops with professional editors and literary agents. I learned so much craft in so little time, you guys. To be clear: YOU DO NOT NEED TO SPEND MONEY TO LEARN CRAFT. But for academic types like me, rigid structures with industry experts work wonders. Which brings me to the second thing I did while querying: I spent most of 2020 revising that YA dystopian project painstakingly until it evolved gloriously beyond recognition. Eventually, I shelved the YA fantasy and began querying the YA dystopian.

Welcome to 2021: The year of NOPE to dystopian.

Out of 50+ queries, I received one partial request and one full sent to my dream agent via industry referral. The partial got rejected. Go figure. I tried different query letters and a new opening chapter. No improvement. The referral is a different story—keep that in your back pocket. 

Feeling dejected, I let the last queries fizzle while I drafted my third book: another YA fantasy, which basically combined Fullmetal Alchemist (wassup, fellow weebs) with a scorned Cinderella who makes a deal with the fairy godmother from hell to seek revenge on Prince Charming for dumping her. One of my genius critique partners pointed out that the best thing about it was when I let it get twisted. I realized I needed to age it up to Adult fantasy and go batshit crazy with the moral compass, so I did.

My friends, that book became a shit show in the best way. People argued over it in workshops. For context: I revised it with the Twitter response to the MONTERO music video in mind. Like Lil Nas X before me, I would offend the pearl clutchers and foster an army of rabid defenders. I would NOT be ignored.

While CPs critiqued that one, I FINALLY figured out what was wrong with that YA fantasy. I gutted it, rewrote it, and sent it back to the trenches in late 2021. Some agents who requested it the first time requested it again. Others passed. Others I didn’t re-query because their personalized feedback made me realize they weren’t the best match. In December, I utilized my Dream Agent referral on that YA dystopian to nudge with the YA fantasy manuscript attached. At this point, it had been about ten months since I first contacted Dream Agent, so I’d gotten comfortable with the idea that that ship had sailed. But in January 2022, I received a reply that he was reading it with interest. Awesome! He was still on the hook.

While I waited for responses, I revised and readied the Adult fantasy, which now had a solid record of sending beta readers to therapy. I sent out a handful of test queries. All rejections. I was gobsmacked. How was my best work tanking so hard? That manuscript was my failsafe. My coup de tat on the publishing industry. Was that manuscript fundamentally flawed, too? I stopped to reassess. Meanwhile, my friends were getting agents and book deals. LORD, did they deserve it. Brilliant, all of them. But seeing the stage of their manuscripts as they hit certain milestones completely changed how I viewed the “readiness” of a manuscript. When they say your book will change after signing with an agent and publisher, they mean it. Which taught me a very hard truth: Market timing is king.

As 2022 drifted into May, more rejections and full requests for that YA fantasy revision trickled in, but responses were slow. I started drafting my fourth book, another Adult fantasy about a weather witch who must battle a curse witch for control of a sentient rainstorm. I saw discourse on Twitter about appropriate nudge times and decided it was a good idea to nudge Dream Agent. It had been a whopping 15 months since I first contacted him with the YA dystopian and five months since I nudged with the YA fantasy. At this point, I was resigned to a rejection. He replied an hour later apologizing for the delay and said he was still interested.

Twenty-four hours after that, I woke up to an email asking to schedule the call.

Yeah so full manuscript wait times mean N O T H I N G. LOLOLOL 

We immediately scheduled the call for the following Monday, but just a couple hours later, I received another email from him. He’d just read the pitches for my other projects on my website and wanted me to send that brazen Adult fantasy. SUPREME VALIDATION!!! The extra emails told me he was thorough, invested, and responsive. Winning combination already. I couldn’t wait to talk to him.

The call lasted over an hour. His vision for my manuscript was well considered and aligned with mine, but what blew me away was how detailed he was when I asked about how we’d strategize beyond our first submission attempt. He laid out several scenarios, including some where we might revisit that YA dystopian project or the Adult fantasy. Basically, this agent had longevity in mind. He had faith in me as an author.

People say not to put dream agents on a pedestal—and since I’m a “just in case” kind of person, I kept my cool and notified other agents considering my work. The two-week wait was awful because honestly? The longer I waited, the more certain I was about my answer. I desperately wanted to make it official—and now I can.

I am proud to announce that I am now represented by Josh Adams of Adams Literary.

I’d read all the agent blogs, craft books, request statistics, standard wait times, and nudge advice to increase my chances. But all the information in the world couldn’t change the fact that publishing is all about timing—that perfect storm of well-rounded craft, agent availability, and marketability. I had plenty of reasons to believe my perfect storm was nowhere on the horizon, but here I am, nine years since I wrote my first short story, four years since my first query, and four manuscripts deep—but it was my second manuscript that snagged my dream agent after a wait time most people would consider hopeless.

My advice: Keep learning. Keep writing. Keep critiquing. Most importantly, keep the faith. Let publishing catch up to you.