Cinder Bound - next steps
After the agent whirlwind of the conference, I figured I had to pivot.
I had removed Cinder Bound from Wattpad for querying in early 2022 (I think, don’t fact check me). I found an old Insta post dated Feb 4, 2022.
For the spoonful of my soul this apparently cost me (huzah, dramatic Insta captions), there was no Query #2. Query #1 was to an agent by referral, he sent back a kind but tidy rejection, and I saved the email to my archives with a sense of achievement. First rejection: unlocked.
And like a high schooler who wants to know what the fuss is about, kisses a boy under the bleachers and thinks, huh, nice, only to move on to more interesting things like a new werewolf novel—I left it at that.
I think I knew Cinder Bound needed more work before it faced the Trenches. But to work with the same story yarn, I’d have to unravel the entirety of the sweater I’d knit. So I left it in the Return To knitting basket (read: exile) for months, then a year. By the time I finished Bleed the Wolves (the more interesting and new werewolf novel) and Cinder Bound blinked hopefully at me from its tangled heap, I thought achhhh, but those patchy armholes and crooked neckline are a testament of the writer I was at the time. It is better memorialised as is in its imperfection. I shall buy new yarn (an urban fantasy was winking at me from the craft shelf), and one day, when I am Great, I shall make a show of unravelling this mess of dragons and fairytales and make something so beyond a sweater, winter won’t know what hit it.
Alas. I was at a conference of other crafty, inspiring artists. The thrill of solidarity and the idea of pitching to an agent tipped over the Return To upgraded Memorabilia for Future Greatness basket and I yanked out my Cinder Bound creation with a wild smile on my face.
Hm, said the agents. Fix the neckline and it would be interesting.
Somehow that made it seem more simple. It just needed to be… fixed?
Simplicity inspired the mercenary in me. Rewrite, Pitch, Acquire Agent, Submit, and Sell It for All the Money. I needed (need, present tense still applies) money. Working weddings is great, but when wedding season is over, it's canned change for dinner, kids.
And under this old yarn and my mercenary anxiety hides a smaller, more fragile thing. A little egg of a dream I’d nested in this wool: I want to write. I want to be a writer. I want to wake up, shuffle to my coffee machine, write, walk the dog, call a friend to complain about the woes of writing, chat with others interested in writing, and write some more because I love it.
And this dream needs funding, which needs a contract, which needs an agent, who needs a book. A book that I kind of already have.
Right before this conference, I received a lovely message on my Wattpad board asking me to repost Cinder Bound so they could read it again. You don’t think these little requests mean a lot to writers, but I read that message three times over, thinking—this is a world someone else wants to revisit with me? Wait. Am I brave enough to revisit it myself?
Maybe?
But that little egg of a dream has four words I think are the easiest to overlook yet the most important. Because I love it.
Somewhere between that Feb 2022 query and this Nov 2023 epiphany, I burned out hard. But I want to love writing again. Especially if I am facing the rewrite of an old piece (less fun because less surprises) that I had hoped to keep under museum glass for years yet.
So to build up my courage I’m going back to what made me love writing in the first place. Wattpad.
There is something about the community, the immediate feedback, the reactions, the critiques, the discipline of small deadlines, and the ‘well, it’s up and been posted so I’ve got to stop nitpicking such and such word choice’. And Wattpad is a way to test if these new ideas—sleeves and necklines and all—actually warm the people I am writing it for. People like me. Wattpad houses unapologetic genre fiction for avid readers, and believe you me, they’ll let you know if the sweater is sagging.
… I really have to let go of this sweater metaphor.
While I was worried Wattpad would undercut my chances with these agents, there are hundreds of agents more. Posting a second draft won’t hurt my chances with people I have yet to pitch to. And I want to love this story again more than I need to see it sold.
So I’ll start posting on Wattpad again soon. Cinder Bound 2.0 will get an entirely new story on my profile, so the old draft can be compared for posterity.
I will warn everyone now, CB2.0 will only be up for a short period of time. Once I reach the end, I’ll only be able to keep it up for a few weeks before we try for Query #2. Maybe even in time for the February 4th query anniversary (a long shot but hey, posterity). This time two years of writing angst and another several 100k words under my belt.
Wish me luck! Because I’m all big talk on here, but secretly terrified. As I suspect all artists are under our wild smiles. <:D
