It’s been a long time since I’ve written an article like this, but I thought it was about time I wrote something helpful in a practical sense, rather than another good-feeling post. At the moment, I’m looking at the possibility of getting a literary agent again, and I’ve done a lot of research (further to what I did a couple of years ago, when I got a two year contract with my first literary agent). There are many authors that do not know a lot about getting a literary agent, and this is for good reason. For a start, it’s not something that is always included in books on writing. They certainly don’t teach it in university, in your creative writing papers. Why, I have no idea. Hence, the little gems of knowledge that I am now fortunate enough to possess were earned by detailed research and persistent pitching. Let me share some of them with you.
 

1. Have a polished manuscript ready.

There’s no point even trying to pitch to a literary agent when your manuscript is not in a more or less publishable state. Of course, any publisher worth his salt will still hire an editor to go over the thing with you. But fundamentally, your manuscript needs to be good… as good as you can make it.
 
2. Figure out your genre. 

Research the kind of books whose content could be compared to yours. Figure out their target audiences and genres. Chances are that yours will be a close match. Literary agents want to know this, as well as your word count, your publishing background, and anything specific that qualifies you to write the books that you do (especially with nonfiction). Including your nationality can be helpful too, as well as a short sentence summing up your passions and possible literary aspirations. Don’t be too lyrical or over the top. Just state your case.
 
3. Write a few good summaries. 

Literary agents don’t like any cliff hangers in the summaries. They prefer to know the whole plot, for marketing purposes. But an attractive packaging is everything. Take some time to make it sound as hooking and uncomplicated as possible. It should come across as knife-like, piercing through the over-loaded inbox of your literary target. Once you’ve got a decent summary ready, incorporate it into your query letter.
 
4. Finish well.

Ask the literary agent to represent your work. Thank them for their time in advance. Be sure to tell them what rights they would be representing – primary (first publication rights of your book) or secondary (film, audio, foreign language rights, and so on).
 
5. Research your agent. 

Once you know your genre, look up agents who represent that genre. If they don’t represent books you like, they won’t be a good fit for you. They need to be as passionate as you, for you two to have a successful partnership. Research loads of agents, not just one. You will get mostly rejections, so it pays to submit to at least twenty. Let the agents know that you are undertaking multiple submissions, for the sake of politeness.
 
6. Don’t submit to the whole agency unless requested to. 

Check your agent’s/agency’s website. Which agent working for this company is the best fit for you? Submit to them, and them only, unless the submission guidelines (which almost all literary agency websites have under a subheading) specify otherwise. Always check the submission guidelines. Most agents are quite different. Some want five pages of your work right away. Some want none. Some ask for fifty. Some like your query letter arranged in a particular way. The majority hate attachments. Always check the submissions guidelines and follow them rigorously – otherwise the agent will not even look at your pitch. If you’ve seen something specific in the agent’s biography on the website that would make them a good fit for you, mention it. “I noticed that in your biography, you specify that you are seeking daring epic fantasy fiction. I too share this passion, etc”. Avoid being greasy though.
 
7. Use a name. 

In almost every case, it is important to use the agent’s name when submitting to them. Don’t just say (literally) “Dear Agent”. “Dear Name” is sometimes appropriate. Some agents hate the word “dear” altogether. Read their biography on their agency’s website. Read the submission guidelines. And always remember that if you use a name (spelt correctly!), you are far more likely to get a response.
 
8. Don’t limit yourself. 
​
When I first submitted to agencies, I submitted mainly to New Zealand ones. I’ve now come to realise that it’s far better to go international. Do what you can to find a good fit.
 
Happy querying!

"Do you want to buy my book? I have three more books like this one. People love them. I have a team of volunteers translating it into Spanish. They came to me. If you buy that pen, I'll sign the book for you with it..."

This was what I heard the other day, when I went to an authors' event at a store. I think we're all familiar with that type - the dead-eyed author who is just trying to make living, just trying to sell one more book. Every new person who walks by is fresh meat. Anyone successful merits a silent curse. There is nothing more to this writer than sales. 

Art was forgotten long ago.

Writing is a hard past-time, and there are more than enough obstacles to knock back those who attempt it. Getting your books published is even trickier... and even once you've got that contract, the question always is: will they sell? 

I underestimated the pull of that question. That question is a like a vortex that sucks an author deep down into the profound and anxious marketing hell that consumes so many of their colleagues. That question still bothers me. But I've come to a conclusion: there's only so much one person can do. And marketing was never my job. Publishers hate to hear an author say this, but I think it is undeniably true that the vast majority of us did not pen a novel because we are so good at selling things. We penned it for various reasons, some of which are highly personal... intimately spiritual.

We are artists, not salespersons. I do not recommend that an author just sits around without telling people that their book is published. I do not recommend that they do not contact schools and libraries and other places that might be interested in purchasing it. But neither do I think that selling books should rule their life. There are more important things. And writing your next book would have to be one of those.

Publishers are wonderful people. Yet they don't always understand. Publishers are the business people, and we authors are the artists. They're good at what they do, and we sure as heck better be good at what we do. 

If there's any advice I wish someone had given me in the weeks before my first book's publication, it would have been this: don't lose yourself. I have to remind myself of that over and over again. Remember the writer that you were before publication. That's the writer that needs to go on putting words on paper. 

And here we are, at the end of one journey - or at the beginning of the next. It all depends on perspective. A year and a half ago, two weeks before my twenty-first birthday, I signed a multi-book publishing contract with Permuted Press, an imprint of Simon and Schuster. At the time, I was thrilled, but could not for the life of me imagine what the last leg of the journey toward publication would feel like. Many people look at the author who has received a publishing contract as if he or she has arrived. Nay, my friends. You've been vindicated. I subscribe to the view that nobody arrives until they're dead.

Now, at the end of my first publishing journey, I look back at all that's past. Part of me feels unbelievably weary, and it's not physical weariness as such... more a kind of profound mental weariness, as if you've exercised your intellect enough for three years instead of one. It was, after all, four books released within the space of four months. I thought it wouldn't be too much trouble, because I had written each of the books. How wrong I was! I didn't take into account the author's greatest inspiration in times of creative stagnation: last minute panic. Realising that my books were releasing, I went into a tailspin. I was terrified... of what, I'm not quite sure. I met each of my deadlines... and called back three of my books after that, so that I could do vast edits on each of them again. I just couldn't stop. There were major things wrong with the books, to be honest. I look at them now and think that it's unlikely I would have as keen a readership if I hadn't greatly improved at least book two. And I'm certain anyone who made it through to book four would be feeling pretty mutinous by the end of the trip. The issue was, frankly, this: my main character was a turd. I hadn't done the hard yards of developing him. To add tension and excitement to scenes in which he appeared, I made him perpetually sullen and pathetic for no reason. Things happened to him while he himself failed to "happen". That is largely fixed now. Rafen has his moods for a reason. And that's it. And as you go through the series, he matures and changes. Thank God I had a chance to fix this.

But what an effort.

After my own frenzied revisions, I had revisions to go through with my editor. Each time she sent me a book, I actually added in more changes than she had. I went overboard. The books couldn't be any less than perfect.

I've worn that side of myself out. I know the books aren't perfect. But it was time for them to come out. God made that much clear to me. I hope that He'll use them even in their imperfect state.

Book four was the one that I thought would kill me. Rafen drove me nuts. He was the most stupid git a girl could have for a main character. It was trash, and I was lucky to have people close to me who weren't afraid to say so. I'm aware this isn't the best advertising. Suffice it to say, the book is no longer in that state. The revisions I did on it were so drastic, it almost reads as a different novel altogether. Rafen grew with the challenges he faced, rather than diminished. When the time for the final edit with my editor came, we were running three months late. Less than two months out from The Fourth Runi's release (today!), I simply could not get through the dang thing. I tried and tried. The end seemed further and further away. It was a long book and a very narrow time frame.

I prayed and prayed. And here we are. That's why today is a miracle. I thought I wouldn't survive The Fourth Runi. It's good for me that I'm having a break from deadlines after this. Even while I hanker for another potential writing deal, I will wait on the Lord. Clearly, He knows what's best for my mental health... and that of my family.

Ah, it is good to be published. It is good to be the author of multiple books. At last, some crazy, thirsty side of myself has been satisfied. I feel like I am where I was meant to be at long last. I look back at the six year old that wrote about Rafen first. I look ahead to now, where our names share the front cover of book one of The Fledgling Account. Besides my conversion, this has been the wildest and most rewarding journey of my life. And it's because of my conversion that it happened.

I'm going to leave you with a brief synopsis of The Fourth Runi, which is just as eye-wallopingly busy as its predecessors.

Rafen clasped the hem of his shirt, thinking desperately. He could get out of this if he got rid of the phoenix feather. If he lost it, burnt it, gave it away…

At last, Rafen learns what his phoenix feather means. Facing impossible tasks – and the growing power of  the demonic force Nazt – he gives into his desires for Etana and his own ambitions. Meanwhile, the Lashki plans to feed him to Nazt. Rafen's new vulnerability to the spirit world is getting the better of him. In the Ravine where the Lashki killed and resurrected himself, Rafen will be tested like he has never been tested before. Will he live up to his greatest title yet? Or will the responsibility destroy him?

The Fourth Runi - the fourth book in The Fledgling Account series. Available as an ebook through Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and Smashwords.

Paperback to come within a week. 

I was emailing a few schools this week to see if they would be interested in buying copies of my books for their libraries - some schools love the idea - and then I received an email in reply to one of my queries that told me I was encouraging the practising of witchcraft and sorcery. I try not to take these things personally, but the sour taste always remains. I'm a committed Christian, and I've studied the Bible too and seek to live my life by it. I'm seriously not a Satan worshipper. But this email just reminded me that there will be people out there who look at my book and reckon I am.

If fantasy is such a stumbling block to other people, perhaps I shouldn't be writing it. That was what went through my mind when I read that email. Then I thought about it again, and I remembered all the parables Jesus told to explain a truth. I remembered the book of Revelation in the Bible. I remembered the imagery that the Lord God used to explain to Job the wonders he could perform - the making of hail in storehouses and so on. I remembered the Psalm that speaks of God gathering the waters of the sea into jars... Many of these passages in the Bible contain things that are logically impossible - that would have to imply some kind of "magic" for them to work. Yet magic is not the point of these passages. It was never the point. The message that the dramatic illustration conveyed was the point.

This is why I write fantasy, because for me, the magic is not the point. However, by using a dramatic picture, image, or extended metaphor, I can make particular difficult facets of reality easier to understand - and this understanding includes both the intellect and the heart. I hope the reader can feel what I am talking about as well. I certainly can, because writing is a process of illumination for me too.

To demonstrate what I mean: in my first book, Rafen moves from slavery to service to the Phoenix. This might seem like he hasn't attained freedom at all. Yet the circumstances surrounding his commitment to the Phoenix make it perfectly clear that the ultimate freedom was gained in this action. Those three sentences above sound complicated. However, when readers have read the book and understood the story for themselves - including the supernatural elements that paint the full picture - they have been moved by the very message that I have just spoken of (which in fact was an allegory of my own salvation).

I wish people would get past the "magic" side of fantasy and look at the story for what it is before they judge it.
Such is life, I suppose.

Anyway, on the eve of The Fourth Runi's release, Melinda of the Tattered Copy website is helping me run an e-book giveaway for Rafen, book one of The Fledgling Account. So if you want to be unendurably corrupted, you can have a go entering.

I think I wrote The Fourth Runi (fondly christened the Fourth Runny, even though it is pronounced “ROO-NIGH”) for the first time when I was fifteen or sixteen. I remained very happy with that draft for a long time, and actual excerpts of the prose have made it into the final book that will be coming out just ten days from now.
 
I remember that I wrote this book largely with the intention of making it the most depressing book ever – but not so depressing that you want to stop reading. It’s got an intensity too – Rafen’s future and the futures of those around him are poised on the cutting edge of a sword. Anything could change the balance. Anything could result in a fate worse than death. And yet there's hope as well - determination, sacrifice, love, and even new life.
 
The final draft of this book was penned over 2013, during which time I also wrote the first draft of book five. I was twenty at the time. However, I did a major edit on all of the first four Fledgling Account books earlier this year when I read a book called: Harry Potter: An Unfulfilled Destiny. The book went into all the reasons why the urban fantasy epic Harry Potter did not reach its full potential – and the greatest of these reasons was Harry. Harry has things happen to him, but he does not define them, change them, or even carve out his own way to reaching his goals. Instead, he follows Dumbledore’s plans to the end. And when Dumbledore vanishes or doesn’t reply to Harry’s messages – or dies! – Harry is completely aimless, and the students on his side are heard to be saying: “What about Dumbledore?” “What does he want us to do?” “What will we do without him?” The formulaic layout of the Harry Potter series continues throughout all seven books. Harry begins the year at the Dursleys’. He leaves the Dursleys – is very often rescued, because he has no gumption to defy Dumbledore’s ruling and decide for himself where he wants to live (Hogwarts is said to be the safest place in the world, after all) – then a lot of things happen to Harry. There is normally some object/person that makes things very difficult for him throughout the course of the book. The Philosopher’s Stone… Chamber of Secrets… Prisoner of Azkaban… it’s sad to think that in some of these books you could take the words “Harry Potter” out of the title, and you wouldn’t have lost a great deal. Then at the end of the book Dumbledore shows up and explains the plot that Harry has failed to understand so far. In book seven, even though he’s dead, this is still a role that Dumbledore fulfils, even giving Harry advice on the last step he is to take. Harry’s final words to him are something like this: “But what should I do? Tell me what I should do!” In the end, what he “should do” only turned out to be something like an “expelliarmus” spell before watching Voldemort accidentally kill himself. I have spent years adoring the Harry Potter books, and still greatly enjoy the world-building in this series. But reading A Destiny Unfulfilled showed me for the first time what the books lacked in character development.
I wanted Rafen to reach his full potential. So I did a huge edit of my books at the last minute, calling each of them back from my publisher after I’d met the deadlines for them, and reworking his development over the course of each novel. In the editing process, this was something that I kept a close eye on too. I was obsessed.
 
The Fourth Runi is where Rafen’s character development will count the most. At a little over halfway through the series, this is the point where you’ll see most clearly whether he’ll continue pushing through and growing in his abilities – or whether he’ll stagnate and remain essentially in his twelve-year-old state of dependency like Harry did. I know my own faults, and I know it’s far easier to let things happen to my main character (far easier to plot meticulously without leaving room for him to do things) than to let him define his own story.
 
I’m setting you free, Rafen. Go ahead. Purge the world with your flame. Change the course of Pilamùric history.
 
Thrill me, because as an author, that keeps me writing.
 
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The Fourth Runi
 
Just when Rafen’s life is settling down, Sherwin – who has taken some mysterious journey alone – returns to tell him who he really is. Rafen’s titles of Fledgling of the Phoenix and Sianian Wolf have all been pointing to something he has deliberately ignored… but it’s impossible to ignore now. Angry at being cut off from the royal family and isolated with his blood father in the country, Rafen makes a move that he believes will tie him to the Sianian government and royal courts forever. Desperate to claim all that is rightfully his because of the phoenix feather he received at twelve, Rafen risks alienating Sherwin, his brother Francisco, and even Etana from himself as he pursues the life that he believes should be his… for only suffering will show him what it means to be Zion’s truest representative on the Mio Pilamùr.

​ 
In recent times, I’ve done a few interviews for my series, The Fledgling Account, the first four books of which are releasing this year. And in just a couple of these interviews, I’ve been asked about writing rituals, and which ones in particular I subscribe to. This made me giggle because I actually don’t have any writing rituals.
I’m a very unorthodox writer. I don’t plan meticulously. I don’t actually get particularly hooked on books at all – it’s been a long time since I’ve been so thrilled by something that I couldn’t put it down – and I have no writing rituals whatsoever, other than some prayer before writing or editing when times have been really tough.
The fact is, every time this question has come up, I feel the need to be completely honest. It reminds me that lots of people have faulty views of writers. Many folks have a glamorous – or at least mystical – impression of what it means to be a writer. They think writers make terrific sales. They think the first contract a writer gets means they will be a full-time author right away. They believe a writer’s life is full of endless inspiration and spiritual insight. This is a long way from the truth.
Without even going into the top two points (as I believe the reasons why these are wrong are fairly self explanatory), I want to comment on the last two: the endless inspiration and spiritual insight. I must point out to any readers of this blog here today that authors are ordinary people. We are not people on a higher plane (my apologies, colleagues). And we are not qualified to do our job because of our incredible spiritual insight or understanding of the world around us. To put it quite bluntly, I write because I don’t have those things. I write to fill my life with those things… not because my life is already like that.
Here are some of the main reasons why I write – as writing itself is the only “ritual” you could say I truly subscribe to. I write because I cannot understand my life, and I need to find my way. I write in order to become a better person. And I write so that in outlining meaning in the world around me, I may illuminate other people’s lives and help them to understand too. I write because writing is of God, who spoke the world into being through His Word. I write because I want to be like Him… but because I’m not yet.
May I encourage readers to think of writers as relatively ordinary people, like themselves. The only difference is that many writers have this deficiency: without writing, they cannot find their way.