#I’m working on my MFA manuscript and need someone to tell me it’s not total shit LMAO

[jeongguks-s]

Would someone be willing to read a fiction writing sample of mine and offer feedback 🧍‍♀️

[bettsfic]

how i got an agent, or: my writing timeline

when i started writing, i had no idea how publishing worked and i had a lot of misconceptions about it. but i just signed my first literary agent so i thought i’d share what my experience has been getting to this point, in case it helps anyone else with their own publication goals. i’m also including financial details, like submission fees and income, because “i could never afford to pursue writing as a career” is something that kept me from taking the idea seriously.

for context, i write mostly literary fiction and i’m on the academic/scholarly writing path. this process looks a lot different for other genres. 

i didn’t write this in my pretty nonfiction narrative voice; it’s really just the bare-bones facts of how it went down, how long it took, how many words i wrote (both fanfiction and original fiction), and how much it all cost. 

background

2002 - 2005: read a fuckton of books, wrote some fiction, wanted to be a writer but knew it would never happen, journaled every moment of my life in intimate detail

2006: started working full-time (at a chinese restaurant) while still in high school, also started taking courses for college credit; no time to write, and forgot i had ever wanted to be a writer

2007: graduated high school, started college (psych major), still worked at the restaurant, moved out of my parents’ house into an apartment with my boyfriend; my dad got diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer

2008: continued college full-time, quit the restaurant and started part-time as a bank teller, broke up with bf and moved in with a friend at an apartment where the rent was obscenely high; had to pick up a second job altering bridal gowns

2009: continued college full-time, started dating someone else, moved in with him, had to support him, took a third job as an admin assistant 

2010: continued college full-time, still had 3 jobs; my dad’s cancer became terminal

2011: my dad passed away; i graduated college with a 3.9 and $31k of debt; quit 2 of 3 jobs; got promoted at the bank; my bf cheated on me and we broke up; moved back in with my mom

2012: a very dark time; also, bought a house (because where i’m from, it’s cheaper to buy than rent)

2013: discovered fandom

2014, age 24

this is the year i started writing and posting fanfic. prior to that i was a compulsive journaler but had no drive or desire to become a writer, despite how much i had written when i was a teenager. it seemed like a very childish dream. at this point i assumed writing was just a phase like all my other hobbies i’d picked up and set down. 

but fandom proved to be really healthy for me, and i made some good friends who encouraged my writing and made me want to be better at it. i was really not very good at writing. i don’t think i had any natural creative talent whatsoever, or even a particularly vivid imagination. the only thing i had going for me was the ability to put thoughts into words after a decade of obsessive journaling.

i started writing in spring, and by the end of the year my total word count was 311k. i was making a decent income at the bank, insofar as my bills were covered and i had health insurance. i still had a significant amount of credit card debt from college that i was trying to pay down, and which was eating up all my extra income. 

2015, age 25

i continued writing through 2015 and went to visit @aeriallon, whom i’d met in fandom and who told me i should consider applying to MFAs. i was miserable at the bank and knew i wanted to go back to school, but i didn’t think there was a chance in hell a grad program would accept me, since my writing wasn’t very good and i hadn’t so much as taken a single english class in undergrad. she told me to just look around and do a few google searches to see what i found. 

when i started searching, i assumed i would probably be more compelled toward an MEd or MSW programs and go the therapy route, which is what the plan had been in undergrad before my dad died and my life got derailed. i never wanted to be a banker, but i’d got a promotion into commercial finance that paid decently, so i took it and told myself i’d work for a year before going back to school. but then i kept getting promoted and one year became many.

i ended up being more drawn to creative writing MFA programs because they seemed to want people with weird backgrounds like mine. also the classes sounded fun and the programs were funded. i didn’t know how i would be able to afford my mortgage payment or sell my house on a fraction of the income i was making at the bank, but i figured i’d apply and see what happened.

it took 6 months to get a writing sample ready to apply to MFAs. it was the only ofic story i’d written as an adult, and in retrospect i had no idea what i was doing because at that point i didn’t read literary short fiction. but i got the sample as good as i could get it and completed my applications. i applied to 6 schools and got accepted into 1. 

in 2015 i wrote 250k. i can’t find my application spreadsheet from that year, but i probably spent between $300 and $400 on application fees. early in the year, i had finally managed to pay off my credit card debt and save a little bit of money.

2016, age 26

the school i got into was within driving distance of my house, so i didn’t bother moving. i tried to quit the bank but my boss convinced me to stay on 2 days a week working from home. i agreed to it, because my grad stipend wasn’t enough to cover my bills, and i was counting on what little savings i had accrued to get me through the program. i still had no drive or interest to publish. i mostly just wanted to go back to school so i could learn how to be better at this thing i really enjoyed doing.

in the MFA, as you might imagine, i had to read a lot of stuff and write a lot of stuff, and was encouraged to begin submitting some of the short stories i wrote for workshop. i was not particularly into the idea, considering it seemed like a lot of work for little reward, and also i didn’t think my stories were very good.

i also started teaching english comp. i hated it and decided that after the MFA, i never wanted to do it again. haha. hahahahahaha

in 2016 i wrote 343k. i didn’t apply/submit in 2016 so i didn’t pay any fees, but my grad stipend was $14k for the academic year, plus the income i was making at the bank.

2017, age 27

i did a complete 180 and decided i loved teaching more than anything else in the entire world, and i was willing to do whatever it took to become a teacher. i realized that to become a teacher, i needed to publish. begrudgingly i started submitting to literary journals. i also applied to summer workshops and got into tin house, which i highly recommend if that’s something you’re interested in. at tin house i met my dream agent, who seemed really interested in my work and encouraged me to query her as soon as i had a book done. 

a lot of personal drama happened that year. i was still working at the bank in addition to teaching a 2/2 and taking a full course load. in summer i had a long overdue mental breakdown. 

2017 was a rough year. i wrote 149k. this is the year i started keeping a dedicated expenses spreadsheet. i spent $174 in submission fees. tin house tuition with room and board was a little over $1500 + travel. i thought it was worth it because i met the agent i thought i would later sign, but that didn’t pan out. (i made some great friends though!!) tin house was definitely an unwise financial decision; i paid for it out of what little i managed to save in 2015.

2018, age 28

early in 2018, i went from teaching comp/rhet to creative writing, which only cemented my desire to teach writing as a career. i realized i was far better at teaching writing than writing, but i knew i had to keep writing to keep teaching (shocked pikachu.jpg), so i kept submitting to journals. i got my first story accepted. i didn’t receive any payment for that publication. i quit the bank early in the year (finally! after 10 years!) and was terrified about money, in part because my student loan payments were coming out of deferment and i was still paying off my hospital bills from my breakdown. 

in spring semester, i won a few departmental awards (totaling $500ish) and got a second story accepted (again, no payment). i also got accepted to another workshop which i will not name because i hated it. i graduated in may and defended my thesis in july. the thesis would later become my short story collection, zucchini.

in fall, i stayed on at my school as an adjunct, and started writing training wheels which would later become an original novel called baby. 

i wrote 450k in 2018. i paid $373 in submission fees. i was also nominated for an award for one of my publications but didn’t win. the workshop i went to was like $4000 with room and board (it was a month-long workshop). i got 75% of it covered with scholarships and i paid for the rest of it out of my savings, and even though i’d intended to drive there, my mom ended up buying me a plane ticket. again, i met a lot of big-wig writers i thought for sure would help me get an agent. i told myself i was networking, and that publication was all about Who You Knew. but that turned out not to be true for me.

as an adjunct i made $3200 per course, and i taught 3 classes in fall. in winter, i got my shit together and started applying for creative writing PhDs, mostly to convince my family i was doing something with my life, with no expectation that i would get in. in winter i applied to 2 schools. with application fees and the GRE, i ended up paying well over $500.

2019, age 29

in spring semester, i taught 2 classes while i revised training wheels into baby. when i had a completed manuscript, i finally pulled the plug and used all my networking contacts to get my dream agent i’d met at tin house. i queried her, and a very popular and well-regarded author i’d met at the other workshop emailed her on my behalf to tell her good things about me. i thought for sure i had it in the bag. this author also touched base with a few other agents whom he thought would like my work.

i didn’t hear back from any of them. not even a “no thanks.” i set down querying for a while. 

i got a third story picked up and published around this time, and i was paid $25 for it. they also nominated me for an award, and i don’t think i won? but i can’t find out who did win so idk.

my grandpa passed away and i decided to sell my house and move in with my grandma so she wouldn’t be alone. i got rejected from both PhD programs i applied to and decided to get a “real job” instead, and began applying for random positions that offered health insurance, because i knew i was drastically undermedicated and it was becoming a Problem.

near the end of spring semester, i moved out of my house, put it on the market, and was interviewing for a community development manager position for a nonprofit. at the same time, i found out about another university that was taking late-season applications, and i applied. five days later, i got accepted. one day after that, i got a job offer for the nonprofit. since i had no idea how long it would take for my house to sell, and being unable to afford both rent in a new city and my mortgage payment, i deferred my PhD acceptance for a year and decided to work at the nonprofit for a while. the risk was that i could only defer my admission, not my funding, so there was a chance that the following year i wouldn’t get the same funding package.

i lasted one month at the “real job” before i had another breakdown and ended up quitting. 

my house sold for well under the asking price and i received only $4000 in equity once it was all said and done. that’s a lot of money to me, but considering that i’d been paying on the house for 7 years, i was expecting a lot more.

i had a year to kill until the PhD so i decided to take a break from teaching and apply to artist residencies instead. i applied to 8 residencies and got accepted into 4, but only ended up attending 3, because the 4th was outrageously priced and there was no indication of the cost when i had applied.

in winter i picked up querying agents again. i queried 10 agents every other week. i also got a ghostwriting gig writing children’s books that paid $800 a month.

in 2019 i wrote 417k. i spent $441 in submission fees (to residencies and contests, not agent queries. never pay money to query an agent!!). i ended up teaching 3 classes fall semester.

2020, age 30

i started out the year driving across the country going to residencies. the first cost $100 (no food), the second cost $250 (A LOT OF VERY GOOD FOOD), and the third paid me $500. i was at the third when the pandemic hit.

the query rejections started rolling in. i gave up in february after 60 queries. of those 60, i received 7 manuscript requests for baby, but the consensus was that it was too long and plotless (you got me there.jpg). at the second residency completed and revised zucchini and decided to begin querying with that instead. i could only find a few agents who accepted collections so i only queried 16. i got one request for the manuscript but then didn’t hear back. i gave up in april shortly after the pandemic hit. 

when i figured the collection, like the novel, just wasn’t publishable, i started submitting to contests which is the more standard route for the genre. i submitted to 12 in total and was a finalist in 1. i was rejected or withdrew from the rest.

the PhD program reached out to ask if i was still interested in starting in fall, and i said i was, so they put me in the running for funding again and i was accepted. the stipend was $17k per academic year.

like most of us, i got totally derailed in spring and stopped doing basically everything. the ghostwriting gig started paying $1500 a month and i also started my creative coaching business, which slowly but surely began to supplement my income. i also received the $1200 stimulus. 

when school started, i quit the ghostwriting gig. i had no intention to continue querying either book, but i saw a twitter pitch event called DVpit (diverse voices) and decided to participate. for those who don’t know, a twitter pitch event is where you tweet the pitch for your book and use the hashtag, and agents scroll through the tag and like tweets. if an agent likes your tweet, you query them. 

i got one like, so i followed up with the query. the agent asked for the full MS and a couple weeks later followed up with the offer for representation. we talked on the phone, she sent me the contract, i asked for a couple changes, and then signed! 

so far this year i’ve written 375k and paid $518 in submission fees. i’ll give more details when i do my end of year roundup next month. oh, and i finally paid off my student loans.

totals

word count: 2.3 million

agent queries: 77

agent MS requests: 9

agent rejections: 28

agent no responses: 44

short story submissions: 86

short story acceptances: 3

short story income: $25

total submission/application fees: $1472

my (final) query letter

honestly this query letter probably isn’t very good which is why i got such a minimal response, but it got the job done eventually.

Thank you for expressing interest in ZUCCHINI through this year's DVpit event.

ZUCCHINI is a collection that views sex through an asexual lens. It poses inquiries into constructs like gender, sexuality, and love to dissect the patriarchal/puritanical foundations from which our social perspectives often derive. Being a collection about asexuality, each story portrays a relationship that develops from forms of attraction other than physical.

In one story, a grieving widow purchases her first sex toy; in another, a woman uses sex to cope with the death of her abusive father, and later in the collection faces the long road to recovery; an administrative assistant seeks out a codependent relationship with her boss; a masochist hires a professional sadist to lead him toward self-actualization; a woman begins to recover from her sexual assault by staging a reenactment on her own terms; and lastly, two lifelong friends in a queerplatonic relationship decide to get married. Asexuality is an under-acknowledged identity within the LGBTQIA community and is often misunderstood. In seven stories, ZUCCHINI dissects the notion of attraction, explores the intersections of sexual identity and trauma recovery, and conveys the experience of intimacy without physical desire.

Three stories in the collection have been published in literary magazines. “Lien” appeared in volume 24 of Quarter After Eight and was nominated for the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. “An Informed Purchase” appeared in the summer 2018 issue of Midwestern Gothic and won the Jordan-Goodman Prize in Fiction. “The Ashtray” appeared in issue 16 of Rivet Journal and has been nominated for a 2020 Pushcart Prize.

Complete at 53,000 words, ZUCCHINI is a collection in conversation with Carmen Maria Machado’s HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES, Lauren Groff’s FLORIDA, and Samantha Hunt’s THE DARK DARK.

If ZUCCHINI is of interest to you, I would be happy to send you the manuscript. Per your guidelines, I've appended the first twenty pages below, which is the entirety of the first story.

what comes next

i’m going to spend january revising the collection per my agent’s feedback. when i send it back to her, she’ll shoot it out to the first round of publishers. my understanding is that the goal is to get multiple offers on it so that it has to go to auction. if there are no offers, she’ll do another round of submissions, and so on, until we’ve exhausted our options. if that happens, we’ll reassess, but by then hopefully i’ll have another novel finished.

meanwhile, i’ll be continuing the PhD which entails teaching a 2/2, workshop, and 2 lit seminars per semester. i’m also still doing my creative coaching, writing fanfic, and working on my original projects. in summer, i’ll finally be moving to hopefully start going to school in person next fall. 

the PhD is a 3 year program with an optional fourth year. i don’t see myself finishing in 3 years so i do plan to take the extra year unless something comes up. after the PhD, i’m not sure what i’ll do. a lot will probably change by then so i’m trying not to commit to one idea. i might apply to post-doc fellowships and tenure track positions, or i might leave the country and teach overseas, or i might move to LA and try to get in a writer’s room somewhere. i’ve got a lot of options.

overall thoughts/stuff i learned

first of all, you don’t have to go through all of this to publish a book. you could feasibly just write a book and query agents. the only reason it took me this long is because my PTSD brain was sabotaging me every step of the way and i didn’t start taking anything seriously until i found something i was willing to fight for (teaching). i went the MFA/literary route but other, faster routes are just as good. maybe better. probably better. actually if there’s any chance you can go a different route, you should take it.

reflecting on all of this, very little of it has anything to do with talent or being a good writer. nor does it have to do with being at the right place at the right time. i’ve only made it this far because i took very small steps over and over again, and during that walk met people who could help me -- the authors who have mentored me, the editors who accepted my stories, the agent who signed me. and as i got further along my path, i started being able to help other writers in the way i was helped. 

i don’t believe i’ll ever be a great writer. the best thing i can say about my writing is that it’s competent and accessible. everything i write sets out to do something and most of the time it gets the job done. i don’t imagine i’ll ever be able to financially support myself with publishing, and i’ll certainly never be famous or well-known, but i’m good enough to keep making progress. i’ll probably continue to find opportunities that are adjacent to writing and that will keep me afloat, pending my health and provided the country doesn’t devolve into civil war. 

probably the most important thing i learned in all this is that having a wide appeal isn’t the goal. you don’t write to be lauded or liked. you have to stay as true to yourself and your interests as you possibly can, so that the people who come across your path can see you and help you. you’ll need those people; no one gets anywhere alone. if you pander, if you’re too concerned with praise and success or being adored, you won’t make it very far. the rejection will eventually kill you. 

with all that said, my advice to you is this: never stop writing. the ability to share our stories is the single most precious thing we have. you can’t let anything stop you from telling your stories the way you need them to be told.

[carriejonesbooks]

This post about Friday Writing Life is basically about me almost dying thanks to the devil and an ankle brace.

I go through most of my life feeling pretty lucky. I have a place to live. I have food. I’m not under constant threat of violence. That’s all pretty sweet and it hasn’t always been that way for me.

And part of the way that it’s happened is that I just keep working and doing and going after things, but not in a despot way, but in an “Everyone let’s make this world better together!” kind of way.

Part of determining what you’re passionate about is asking yourself if you’d do what you’re doing even if you made no money at all. For me, being a writer, is just something I do. I can’t imagine not doing it. And I feel lucky and blessed that I get to do it for a living and also help other people do it, too.

I like that so freaking much.

I like it when I get to witness  other people shine.

And it impacts me way too much when they suffer, or make mistakes, and recently a scam call made such a horrible mistake that I thought I’d share it with you.

This week, I got this phone call from “headquarters” about how I had “four complaints against me” and the “local cops” would come get me unless I called a specific number back in 24 hours.

And here’s the thing – people in positions of power who are threatening you with jail time for ‘four complaints,’ don’t call the local authorities, ‘cops.’ They call them police. Or law enforcement. But not ‘cops.’ Word choice matters. That’s your writing lesson of the post.

But….

The call made me think of the other interesting and randomly threatening phone calls that have happened in my life.  I think my favorite ones are where I am threatened not by ‘local cops,’ but by the actual devil himself. Because honestly? If you’re going to get threatened why not by the ultimate in evil, am I right?

Or just a devil duck?

So, anyway, those of you who are my friends on Facebook heard how I got this crank call on another Monday night awhile ago.

That time, the caller said, “Prepare to die, Satan claims you, Carrie.”

And I was all, “Hm. Wait! Can you not hang up so quickly, creepy-voiced man, because I would like to try to discuss this and maybe argue Satan out of it!”

But he hung up.

Apparently, Satan does not like to argue with random children’s book writers? Who knew?

And I was all, “Man, that was so creepy it was kind of funny.”

This is pretty much my response to everything creepy. Floating apparition? I laugh. Possible UFO? I laugh. Weird man running away after ringing my doorbell? Hold on, while I giggle. It’s sort of my defense mechanism for all bad things; I fight them with humor. It’s either that or screaming and screaming hurts your throat if you do it for too long.

I have other defense mechanisms. These are called dogs.

So, for the whole night I was basically all,  “Dogs. Come Velcro yourselves to my sides.”

Gabby’s normal expression when she’s not barking

Gabby: Carrie, we are always Velcroed to your sides. Geesh. *shakes doggy head*

And then because I had no attention span I kind of forgot about the call from the devil because I was busy writing and living and writing more.

But two days later, I almost died.

Really.

I was driving to this cool conference of librarians in Maine and I was on the turnpike and wearing the ankle brace from hell. That point of origin is just like the devil I guess, although originally he was from heaven.

The brace, which was on my left foot, suddenly flopped onto the brake. Now, basically the ankle brace from hell was so heavy and thick I could stand on a puppy and not notice. So, when the car lurched and lost 40 mph (like I was going 70 and then was going 30)  JUST AS I WAS PASSING A LOGGING TRUCK (because – Maine), and the car’s tires made this weird noise AND the car behind me wiggled all around to avoid the collision (Nice Driving, Mr. Car Driving Guy, btw), I realized that something was going on.

Fortunately, the brace was not on a poor little puppy.

Unfortunately, it was on my brake.

This is a brace about 1/4 the size of my monster. 

And I yelled, “Get thee behind me, Satan,” because obviously all the Friday nights that the Albertsons brought me to Pioneer Girls at Calvary Baptist Church in New Hampshire had conditioned me more than I realized. They were trying so hard to save my first-grade self’s soul. Apparently, Satan thought they failed.

Anyways, I moved the brace and kept going and then got to Augusta (where the conference was) and totally cried. I mean, I sobbed.

Seriously. I was a total wuss because:

1. I did not want that crank caller to be right. 2. I did not want to die because of my stupid ankle brace from hell. 3. I almost got the people in the car behind me hurt, too, and that’s something I couldn’t have lived with.

So, yeah. If you feel like someone is about to crank you and tell you that you’re about to die and that the devil has claimed your soul: DO NOT PICK UP THE PHONE!

That’s my brilliant life lesson here. Don’t pick up the phone if the devil is calling, or even if you just think it’s a scam caller who is going to send the ‘local cops’ after you. Life is too short to have the evil beside you or in front of you or blabbering on into your ear. Put it behind you where it belongs.

WRITING NEWS AND APPEARANCES AND STUFF:

Okay. I hope you don’t mind me sharing this, but I earned out my picture book biography of Sara Emma Edmonds!!!!

This is such a huge thing for me that I can’t begin to tell you how cool it feels especially since it’s with this picture book. Sara was this cool woman who dressed like a man so she could fight in the U.S. Civil War, but then her superiors asked her to dress like a woman and spy on the other side. So, she was a woman dressed like a man dressed like a woman and taking names the entire time. So amazing. Thank you so much to everyone who bought it!

  THE CLASS AT THE WRITING BARN

The awesome 6-month-long Writing Barn class that they’ve let me be in charge of!? It’s happening again in July. Write! Submit! Support!is a pretty awesome class. It’s a bit like a mini MFA but way more supportive and way less money.

PRAISE FOR CARRIE JONES AND WRITE. SUBMIT. SUPPORT:

“Carrie has the fantastic gift as a mentor to give you honest feedback on what needs work in your manuscript without making you question your ability as a writer. She goes through the strengths and weaknesses of your submissions with thought, care and encouragement.”

I swear, I did not pay anyone to say that. I didn’t even ask them to say it. The Writing Barn just told me that the feedback had intensely kind things like that.

FLYING AND ENHANCED – THE YOUNG ADULT SCIENCE FICTION SERIES

These books are out there in the world thanks to Tor.

What books? Well, cross Buffy with Men in Black and you get… you get a friends-powered action adventure based in the real world, but with a science fiction twist. More about it is here. But these are fun, fast books that are about identity, being a hero, and saying to heck with being defined by other people’s expectations.

This quick, lighthearted romp is a perfect choice for readers who like their romance served with a side of alien butt-kicking action–School Library Journal

TIME STOPPERS THE MIDDLE GRADE SERIES OF AWESOME

Time Stoppers’s third book comes out this summer. It’s been called a cross between Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, but with heart. It takes place in Acadia National Park in Bar Harbor, Maine. I need to think of awesome ways to promote it because this little book series is the book series of my own middle grade heart. Plus, I wrote it for the Emster. Plus, it is fun.

  Dogs Are Smarter Than People – the podcast.

Shaun and I are total dorks in really different ways. You can tell when you listen to the podcasts, which come out every Tuesday.

We give writing tips, life tips, random thoughts. Occasionally, the dogs bark. Thank you so much to the thousands of people who have listened already. You guys are really amazing and our minds are basically blown by all of your support.

      Get Thee Behind Me, Satan This post about Friday Writing Life is basically about me almost dying thanks to the devil and an ankle brace.