Eek–where has the year gone???
We PROMISE we haven’t forgotten about you guys! We really are going to get back on track with some events and exciting things. We’ve just been a bit buried with things like WRITING and REVISING and DEADLINES (it’s almost like we’re writers or something… 
). And since we’re now in the prime of the holiday season, we’re going to wait till the new year before we organize anything officially. So make sure you check back then!
In the meantime though, we wanted to share two more AMAZING WriteOnCon success stories with you, ones we especially enjoyed because they really showed us that you NEVER know what can lead you to success. And this time I’m going to let the writers tell their stories themselves.
First up, Elizabeth May:
I wanted to share my own WriteOnCon success story, because you organizers are amazing!
During the first year of WriteOnCon (2010), I posted a query for THE FALCONER, my YA novel-in-progress, in the WriteOnCon forums. I got some excellent feedback that really helped shape the letter into something more concise and fitting for the manuscript.
The revised query went on to win Joanna Volpe’s query contest that year, and she critiqued the first 30 pages of the manuscript for me. Her critique was so insightful, spot-on, and encouraging that I rewrote the novel — twice.
In mid-July of this year, I decided the manuscript was ready, and I began querying agents. A mere 13 days after I began querying, I had my first offer. In early August, I signed with Russell Galen of Scovil Galen Ghosh Literary based on a very similar query to the one that won Joanna’s contest.
In October, THE FALCONER (indeed, the whole proposed trilogy!) went on to sell in pre-empts in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and Brazil, and has since sold in the United States and Portugal.
I wanted to e-mail you and tell you, because I’m not sure I would have had the same success had it not been for the events during WriteOnCon. The feedback I earned for the query, and from Joanna’s contest, were invaluable. I can’t adequately express how grateful I am to the organizers and participants of this amazing online conference. Thank you, thank you!
Amazing, right? HUGE CONGRATULATIONS, Elizabeth–we can’t wait to read your book!
Equally awesome is Jessica Love’s story:
Back in March when WriteOnCon announced their 2011 dates, they had a little contest with query critiques from some fabulous agents. I entered, because I enter pretty much every giveaway I can find, and I didn’t really expect to win. But I did! I won a query critique from Jill Corcoran!
I had been actively working on my query at the time, so I decided to send it along to Jill for critique, just to make sure it was ready to go. I figured she would give me a few suggestions on things to polish and then I would have a perfect query to send out when I was finally done with my ms.
Well, after I sent my query to Jill, I sort of forgot about it. And in the meantime I became very frustrated with my ms and sort of gave up on it, deciding to put it away, call it a learning experience, and start something new. A week or so after I made that decision, and I was hard at work outlining my next thing, I got a reply from Jill. But it wasn’t a critique. She liked my query as-is, and she wanted to see the full ms.
EEK! My very first query and I had a full request! But…I had just labeled that ms unfixable and put it away. I couldn’t let a full request pass me by, so I pulled it back out and worked and worked and worked on finishing it. I ran into Jill at a local writing event and told her what was up. Luckily she told me to take my time and finish. So I did. I finally sent her my full ms six months after she requested it, and within three days I had an offer of representation from her.
I can’t thank WriteOnCon enough for having that query contest, and I want to hug whichever one of you drew my name. Without the inspiration of a full request from Jill I would have put this ms away and I would be toiling away at something new. Instead I pushed myself harder than I ever thought I could in order to finish and perfect the thing I thought I couldn’t fix.
And I will say this to anyone else who wins a query critique from an agent…don’t assume that they will just critique and call it a day. They might actually want your ms, so make sure it’s ready to go! You never know! That could be your future agent, and you don’t want to keep her waiting.
So incredibly exciting, Jessica! We can’t wait to hear about all the exciting things that will come from this happy partnership!
Thank you both for sharing your success stories with us–we LOVE hearing the many different ways we’ve been able to help people along their journey. And if any of you have had any WriteOnCon success stories, please, drop us an email at writeoncon (at) gmail (dot) com. We NEVER get tired of hearing them.
See you guys next year!!!!
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