Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Stats

I noticed the other day that, aside from being the lamest blogger ever, I haven't really updated my stats for my faithful fan base (you listening, mom?). In the last three months, I've had posts about killer tomatoes, blogging delusions of grandeur and buying chic notebooks and matching pencils at Barnes & Noble (which might explain why my fan base is basically my mom...she does find these things fascinating). However, I've given no info about the status of my book querying. Or the status of anything else, for that matter (except our freakish garden). So, here goes:

Queries sent to agents: 66
Full/partial requests: 7
Full/partials still outstanding: 4
Query rejections: 35
Queries close due to no response: 24
Months pregnant: 8 1/2
Gallons of ice cream consumed over last 8 1/2 months: 400
Number of donuts consumed over last 8 1/2 months: 78
Pregnancy pounds gained: 35lbs
Hopeful weight of baby: 35lbs
Real estimated weight of baby: 6 lbs
Number of lunges/squats I'll have to do to eradicate superfluous 29 pounds: 4,783,987,213,876
Number of times my son has told me I have a chubby tummy and that I should get on the treadmill: 54
Number of times I've hid his favorite Light Saber: 54
Estimated bouts of pregnancy rage: 8
Number of establishments I won't be showing my face for a while due to aforementioned pregnancy rage: 6
Number of times I've tried to talk husband into naming the baby Leia: 14
Number of times I've gotten husband to agree to naming the baby Leia: 1
Number of times husband has reneged on his agreement to name the baby Leia, claiming he agreed simply because I was in the midst of honking up dinner and he felt sorry for me: 1
Percentage of excitement over having yet another "most awesome child in the history of time" (regardless of her name): 4 Bazillion %
Number of times I've felt like the luckiest girl in the whole wide world: 6,000,000,000,000,001

For those non-writery types, the query stats may look downright pathetic. But in reality, they're actually pretty good. Considering most queries end up in a slush graveyard, to have even one actually a) read through by an agent and b) spark enough interest for a partial or full request is a true feat in itself. You have to understand that, though the book publishing industry is a business, it's all based on emotional reaction. You're not just trying to pique an agent's interest. You're trying to make them fall in love with your work. To the point that they'd want to take it dancing and buy it chocolates. That's a difficult thing to accomplish, especially when they're being bombarded every day by hundreds of other writers that want the same exact thing. I've realized that the best you can do is to just do what you do. Write what you love, send it out into the world and hope that someone decides to love it. Putting any more emotional stock into the process will result in lots of frustration, resentment and anger. And that's not good for our calm, right?

And for those non-pregnant types, the childbearing stats may look downright pathetic. And you would be mostly right. I fully blame my girth on the on and off (mostly on) morning-all day-night sickness. One minute I'm dry heaving at the scent of bananas and next I'm chain-swallowing Oreos. If I wasn't pregnant, I could totally be on one of those TLC shows about people with bizarre, OCD eating behavior, huddled on the kitchen floor at three in the morning eating all the Halloween candy left over from last year. (Just fyi...Nerds mixed with Bottle Caps are a match made in heaven).

3 comments:

Creepy Query Girl said...

Good luck with your final month of pregnancy! I'm not huge on ice cream but when I was pg with my daughters, I could get through a pint of haagen daaz midnight chocolate cookie in no time. And those are pretty good query stats me thinks! Thanks for stopping by my blog!

Jewel Allen said...

Oh, Vivi, you are awesome. You had me smiling real early in the morning; quite a feat!

What great stats you have. Good luck with both the baby and book!!

Ray Veen said...

That's a pretty high query/request ratio, Vivi. One of them's bound to hit sooner or later.

So how 'bout writing? Done any of that during your pregnancy?