Okay, guys. So...it's been a bit.
Let me start off by apologizing about the delay! I recently started my sophomore year of college, and that combined with other personal shenanagins in my life prevented me from posting this sooner.
Ah, excuses, excuses! I've said I wanted to stay on top of this blog when I first revamped it, and hopefully I can do just that. And hopefully the latter part of my story will have been worth the wait for you all. Because, apart from the stories I've created from my own imagination, I feel that this is one of the most important stories I have to tell.
If any of you need a refresher on where we left off, here's a mini-recap: After completing my first manuscript at 14, I sent queries off to agents, not really knowing a thing about agents or what to expect. I received a positive response from an associate agent who kindly helped me edit my manuscript. Though I thought this would lead to an offer of representation and all my dreams would come true just like that, the agent ultimately couldn't do so. I was disappointed, but eventually came to accept that this was the best possible thing to happen to me. I was able to grow, to go on to write stories that would further change me as both a writer and person.
And now, we have finally reached the "Part 2" of this post! Hold on tight....
I was in the midst of completing the second installment of my five-book fantasy series when I received that fateful email from Associate Agent. Like I said before, I was crushed, but continued working on the sequel while simultaneously editing the first manuscript. Then my sophomore year came, and that's when The Idea came.
No, I did not accidently capitalize The Idea; it was definitely for dramatic effect. Because this Idea was the one that changed everything for me. A writing assignment for my 10th grade Honors English class that would start as a trickle and quickly pool over into an idea that would become the piece of work I'm most proud of, the piece of work I love the most and sincerely hope I can share with you all one day.
This is the part of my journey where I introduce you to LOVECHILD.
I won't say much about the plot of LOVECHILD here (look for that in a future post!); I'll reserve talk of it here to how I was inspired to write and my crazy, whirlwind journey with it the past 3 years and counting. As mentioned above, LOVECHILD was born out of a writing assignment in my sophomore Honors English class. My teacher, Mrs. Lynn Butler, had my class of 10 rifle through various copies of PostSecret confession books. For those of you unfamiliar with what PostSecret is, I recommend checking it out --it's quite the fascinating site that some of you may have posted on already.
I went into the assignment with the intent to have finished and turn it in. Don't get me wrong, the assignment did excite me to a degree, especially when I settled on the secret I would write my short story over--a secret that simply read "I'm the product of adultery"--but this was when I was still heavily invested in my fantasy series. It wasn't until after I'd turned the assignment in that the idea came roaring back to life into my head and transforming into The Idea. I soon made the decision to put aside my fantasy series to work full-time on LOVECHILD, a decision that wasn't as agonizing as one would think. Without diving much into the story of my shelved fantasy series, it was basically Charmed with fraternal twins instead of three sisters. Plus, once the thought of turning my school assignment into a novel came to fruition, I couldn't think of writing anything else. The idea of LOVECHILD excited me more than any of my previous writing efforts, and I soon began a feverish writing-spree that reached its climax in mid-June 2010, when I completed the first draft of LOVECHILD.
Of course I wanted to submit right away (this was when I was still naiive about a little thing called Editing), but I believed the manuscript was good enough to catch the eye of one agent in particular--that's right, Associate Agent. Only now Associate Agent was an Agent herself, and I felt that since she already knew my work, perhaps she would like LOVECHILD enough to give it a read. I whipped up a fashionable query letter and sent it her way, anxiously awaiting a response.
I didn't have to wait long: The next day, Agent asked to read the first 50 pages, which I promptly sent. Then, two days later, she seemed to be impressed enough to want to read the remainder of the manuscript. I was ecstatic over her zealous response, and in my glee sent the rest of my little passion project. This was it, I told myself and no one else. I was convinced this would be the last query letter I'd ever have to send; Agent would take me on as a client, help me revise my manuscript, and we would be submitting to editors before I started my junior year of high school.
Obviously, this did not happen. Sometime later, Agent got back to me, informing me that she'd shared LOVECHILD with her assistant, and that Assistant wanted to send me some notes on the manuscript. It was an unexpected response--clearly not the one I'd manically devised in my head--but I was excited nonetheless. LOVECHILD had to have struck their attention in a positive way if they wanted to give me notes on it. So I took the nice, detailed notes I got from Assistant and set to work on incorporating them into the manuscripte, hoping that when I returned my new-and-impoved book their way, it would finally be good enough to warrant the "Yes" that had evaded me for so long.
I returned the improved manuscript, and though Assistant told me she loved the changes and that her and Agent agreed that I was very talented, my work wasn't ready to represented just yet. She introduced me to the lovely thing known as line-editing, and encouraged me to submit to other agents.
Initially, I was crushed. I'd been so convinced that this time was it. I'd yearned to have someone on my team, to make it known that someone important in the literary world respected my work enough to become its advocate. The fact that I was back to square one once more was devastating.
But you know what? Once I dove back into revising, began to mingle with the characters and story I'd created that summer, I developed a further appreciation for the opportunities I'd been given. Though I would've loved for Agent to have taken me on as a client, I can't help but feel that she was right not to. I needed more time. Time to grow as a writer and person with a story that would, over time, become so much more meaningful to me.
And I did. My junior year I took AP Language as my English class, taught by the always awesome Katie Pearson. Her class, with its compelling readings that spurred interesting discussions and creatively fulfilling writing assignments, delivered a new sense of clarity to me and how I look at writing. Taking that class changed me into the type of writer I now aspire to be, a writer I never thought I could be. As I continued to revise LOVECHILD and submit query letters to numerous agents, I began writing another project, JESSE McQUEEN, that I felt was one of my most ambitious works yet. It took me nearly 2 years to complete a first draft, and it wasn't an easy manuscript to write, but I'm fully convinced I couldn't have written it the way I did if it weren't for my experiences not only in AP Lang, but my brief brush with the publishing world months before. Like LOVECHILD, it's another project I sincerely hope to share with the world one day.
To this day I continue to work on LOVECHILD, and Agent isn't the only agent I've received a positive response from. In the 3-plus years I've been submitting and the steady flow of rejections I've received, five other agents have requested to read LOVECHILD in its entireity, mostly at different stages of its evolution. I even had 2 agents reading it at the same time once, about a year or so back! Unfortunately, none of those stories ended in an offer of representation; with some I didn't even get a clear reason as to why they didn't wish to pursue LOVECHILD further. But with each disappointment, I've learned. I've grown more resilient, and I've grown to love this manuscript so much more than I ever thought possible. I like to refer to LOVECHILD as my "Little Book That Could"; it started out as a simple idea that has branched out into an Idea that I believe can be. Through the numerous drafts and occasional nitpicking I still do to the manuscript, I never grow tired or reentering this world I've created. I've come close way too many times to abandon it; call me Corny McCornster, but I feel in my heart that one day the right agent will read LOVECHILD. And one day, LOVECHILD will be published.
Of course, my journey still continues; I'm still submitting LOVECHILD to agents, but I'm also working on other projects. This past summer I spontaneously set to work on a manuscript for a story that had been dormant in my head for years. And that, my readers, my friends, whatever you fancy yourself to be called, is the beauty of this thing called Writing: Like the characters us writers create on the page, we ourselves have the opportunity to grow and evolve. Our personal stories can move in unexpected twists, just as we sometimes move our own characters in their destined paths. We develop and flesh out (hopefully in a positive way), and we find ourselves a different person than we were at the beginning, just as we hope we've achieved with our own imaginary characters. Unlike these characters, though, our story doesn't have to end. We can keep going, moving forward toward our ultimate goal no matter what seemingly impossible obstacles lay ahead. If you're anything like me, that sounds like a story I'd not only like to live--ups and downs and everything in between--but live as well.
I hope you all enjoyed the rest of my Story So Far. Feel free to comment/share your story with me too, if you have one. And if I haven't bored you to tears yet, you can follow me on Twitter (@DustinVann) if you'd prefer to chat there!
Until next time,
Dustin
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