Query Quest
Before my mother died, when we spoke of my querying agents someday, she would reassure me: “We’ll be okay. All we need is one.” She spoke of the two of us up against this massive and frightening wall of having the courage to get one’s book out in the world. But it was always the two of us, never Van alone, but Van and the woman who introduced her to literature, who bought her baby Shakespeare, who was with her the first time Van ever saw music.
I don’t know if that is what I miss the most.
Querying can be a very lonely process. I’ve been up and down about this book for so long — sometimes, I think it is marvelous; other moments it grates on my soul and leaves me bloody and raw — that I believe in it and I think that it is worthy of someone reading it. I think that is really all that a writer could want: I don’t care about six figure book deals or movie options (I intend to make my living as a cognitive scientist). What I want is to know that I did right by the story.
The loneliness of querying has been like chafing, but I am fortunate to say that my beloved Fable and Bijou have been acting as my kitty soulmates, my great loves, the lights of my life. I tend to do with them what my mother did with me: Use the first person plural. Yeah, I know that cats don’t read or care, but Bijou is as soft as a cloud and Fable knows how to turn the automatic light on in the bathroom. Fable sleeps curled by my head. Bijou grooms my eyebrows.
When I first looked for affordable housing after my mom had passed, so many places did not accept pets, and my heart whimpered. Who would I ask to hold the cats until I could afford a pet-friendly place? Would I be able to visit them? What would I do without them? Without Bijou’s curiously rasping meow? By the grace of God and (I hope and believe) my mother’s heavenly intervention, I could keep the cats with me. Fable can go on using my wrist as a pillow at night.
In the querying process, we are up to 45 submissions. I cannot recall what I have said about the highs and lows of this process, only that, even though I have not had any requests for the full manuscript, I feel great. Truly. I have Project Guernica to distract me, brainstorming for Project Trains and other books. I have lately had the distinct sensation that if it gets turned down by everyone, big deal. Writing is the one thing that makes me feel as though I live. And I breathe. As a child, I imagined myself plunked into a plain white box. No windows, no doors, no entertainment. Just a box that I would have to live my life in. I realized that I could do that and be content as long as I had a pen and paper.
And now my cats.
Like everyone who is querying, I put my soul into every page of this project. I have heard voices saying that I cannot give up on it. I don’t think that shelving it and working on a different novel is giving up, though. Life is unexpected — things don’t go according to plan. I have been ten months in this process, and I will be frank that sometimes it has been heartbreaking. Maybe the book is dead in the water, maybe I simply must try, try, try again. Never, never, never quit. That is all anyone can do.
A few weeks ago, both Fable and Bijou got gravely ill. I’m not certain what the two of them ate, but it was frightening. Bijou yowled like she was in pain. Though they are fine now, sometimes it does hit me that they are getting older. They have been so youthful, as though in defiance of their ages, that I can allow that thought to slide away, unnoticed. I love them so very much. They have been by me as I write Project Guernica and sketch out my poetry collection.
Sometimes, when I am sad, I use their warm bellies as a pillow. It is like holding hands with someone you love.
I miss my mother saying, “We’re in this together.” I can say it to my cats, though. If they have to see me through more than one querying attempt, then I hope they do. They are my both favorite color: Gray. I didn’t choose them at the pound because of their color, but I think it was meant to be. They are the pools of wisdom, the stars in the evening ocean. Someday, if I do sell a novel in the future, I will put them on the dust jacket.
Right where they belong.
