Querying literary agents for THE AMIRAH DIAMOND has been long and enlightening. I have learned a great deal from the writing industry that could only have come to me by way of error. I will soon be a fully trained Jedi Master; the dark side will not prevail.
Current Query Stats: Submissions Boot Camp in late March of 2020 gave me the comprehensive query schooling I yearned for. My previous query drafts failed to inspire. Thank you to Tara Gilbert of The Corvisiero Agency for her insight. In July of 2020, I realized I still was not quite there yet. I enlisted the help of Victoria Griffin of Blue Pen and took her Query Course. After a few months of rewriting, I began submitting again. I got one full request which ended up in a pass after one month.
Meanwhile, I have sent a total of over four-hundred queries for this one manuscript. About one-hundred-and-fifty received the best version of my query.
I work full time as an office manager in a dental office. Most of my free time is spent as an author, which means I sit at a desk 95% of my life. It is exhausting.
I have added literary classes to my repertoire with Writer’s Digest and Maine Writer’s and Publisher’s Alliance. Then just when you think you know grammar you write a book. Writing a book challenged my ability to show the reader a story, my story’s reality, while maintaining correctness. I’m still leaning in and digging in.
THE AMIRAH DIAMOND, formerly known as Widow’s Stone, began three years ago during my daughter’s senior year in high-school. Shea Lynn was definitely my inspiration. Extreme-mania is the best way to explain the waves of each day. As soon as she met the “best friends of her life” and “finally felt like she fit in” I knew the extreme wonder of it all would be followed by the crushing blows of peer indecency. Some of the meanness I witnessed from her friends caused my skin to boil. Shea Lynn is sweet, kind, and considerate–Characteristics that were thrown in her face carelessly and with cruel consequence.
Alas, I had a dream. A tall case clock whose pendulum swung in direct measurement of my daughter’s experiences and feelings. It would always need to swing back. An equal bad for all good. As I was explaining my dream to her I realized I had just developed the plot for my next book.
Originally its name was Time Keeper. As I wrote, the clock, and its magical stone attached to its heavy pendulum, became the misunderstood villain. The stone tore love out of their lives and shattered dreams. The protagonist, who best mimics my father, is a woman who I like to describe as kick-ass and no-nonsense. She is fearless and clever.
Every single supporting character exudes a unique personality type found within each of us. All of them are me, and you. Their love is vibrant and passionate. Their hate is vile and coarse. Their determination to persevere is inspiring.
A current of ardor pulls the angelic stone North at the onset of euphoria within them. A hormonal excitement, perhaps. A vibrant and golden glow radiates love and adoration. At its quest to reconcile such an exotic moment an equally horrific event must ensue. As such the weight of the stone heavies, its color darkens to a cold, ocean blue and its pull to the South indicates a correcting event to balance its over abundance of verve.
Excerpt from Chapter Two of Part One, Guardian of Enemies
I know I am close. I can feel it. I will check back in with you soon and often. Good or bad this is my journey.
Now, November of 2020 and I am finding it hard to continue to query. It is a disheartening pursuit of rejection. Today, I have decided that I will query THE AMIRAH DIAMOND for one more weekend. Then, I will indie publish. I have two other WIP that I want to spend time with and this decision will allow that.
Thank you for reading and for believing in me.
Tina Hendricks