Today marks the 4th week since I sent my first batch of queries to agents, so now is as good a time as any to reflect and offer an update on where The Valkyries stands.
The first week or two were awful. I may not have hit the refresh button on my email every 5 minutes, but I definitely thought about it every waking moment.
How did I cope?
I took a page out of my own book—literally—and distracted myself, by:
Building My Author Platform
Believe it or not, learning to build websites was a major turning point in the path that led me to writing The Valkyries.
So, naturally, I returned to the website I built a few months earlier: a website to share my aspiration of becoming a writer, but to also showcase Kaelva, Astrid, and Freyna’s story.
With a fully edited and revised manuscript along with a polished query package, I set to work on tidying up the website’s existing content.
Then I dove headfirst into fresh content.
First, I finally completed something I had been yearning to do since I built the website: create character pages dedicated to Kaelva, Astrid, and Freyna. And although they’re mostly copy and paste from the book, seeing their stories on the website felt amazing!
Next, I took some time to reflect. While writing The Valkyries, some of those close to me were either blessed or cursed with me sharing the experience—the guilt I felt hurting my characters, how I struggled with doubt in the early days, or what led me to starting writing a book to begin with.
Writing The Valkyries thrust me into an emotional gauntlet, forcing me to experience not only my characters highs as they achieved their personal victories, but also the heartrending pain when they suffered defeat.
And honestly, writing those posts was therapeutic.
With my head and heart back on track, I returned to Instagram and Facebook, fleshing out my platform on social media as well. Granted, at this point, I had around 10 blog posts listed on my website, so I scheduled two posts each week to share my website’s updates with my followers.
A website, Instagram, and Facebook—a solid foundation for my author platform, but one other area I try to use more is X. However, I have a hard time doing so.
Maybe it’s just me, but X doesn’t seem to resonate with me as much as my website, Instagram, or Facebook do. On X, there seems to be a fresh wave of drama each week, or I’m getting DMs from scammers, or every post reads like a softball question seeking easy interactions.
Don’t get me wrong, I have picked up some great pieces of knowledge from X—that’s where I first learned about QueryTracker, by the way—but digging to find the gems can feel like a non-value-added activity.
Regardless, a website supported by a Facebook and Instagram page forms a solid foundation for my author platform, and it’s one I can maintain while focusing on the real work: writing!
Reading Other Epic Fantasy
With my manuscript complete and my queries sent, I only had one thing left to do:
Wait.
I’ve spent 15 years in the automotive industry with a Tier 1 supplier building and shipping parts via Just-In-Time sequencing. No, I don’t expect everyone to know what any of that means, but I’ll translate it to this:
In that world, if you wait…
You’re done.
I went from charging forward every single day, writing and revising hundreds or even thousands of words every night to prepare The Valkyries for querying…
Just so I could wait.
But as you’re reading here, I didn’t sit idly by, hoping an agent responded.
No, I found new uses for my time—and one of those was spending more time reading.
Like my little rant above about my experience in automotive shows, it’s hard for me to do nothing, and sometimes I feel like I need to be creating—refining the website, creating blog and social media posts, brainstorming the next book—instead of simply reading.
But as I’m quickly learning, both on my own and from other writers, reading is just as important in this realm as writing.
Reading other published authors, either traditional or self-published, exposes you to fresh voices and perspectives, and even helped spark fresh ideas for my own writing.
So, now that I had some more time on my hands along with reprioritizing the importance of my reading sessions, I quickly finished John Gwynne’s The Shadow of the Gods (then quickly bought the rest of the trilogy) and I’m currently finishing up Daniel McCoy’s The Viking Spirit.
And this reminds me of one of the brighter epiphanies I had early on in writing The Valkyries: this new path I’m taking is bringing me back to reading epic fantasy, something I had enjoyed for years before I slowly drifted to more pragmatic, and perhaps even hollow readings.
What's Next for The Valkyries
Sending my first wave of queries left a knot in my stomach. Every day I worried about whether or not the agents would see any value in my work—or more directly, I worried if they would mark The Valkyries as worthless.
It’s an extreme anxiety, I know, but the feel lingered all the same.
Deep-down, I knew I had achieved at least part of my goal: I had written a novel.
Good or bad, I wrote it. The Valkyries exists, and no one could take that away from me.
But that didn’t silence the next whisper of doubt.
What if The Valkyries was a fluke?
Like I said above, I spent hours each consecutive day for months writing and revising and editing. I had a rhythm. I had a flow.
Then I finished the manuscript. I stopped writing.
I turned my focus on my query letter and my synopsis. Yes, I was writing, but I wasn’t writing Kaelva, Astrid, and Freyna’s story—I was writing about their story.
It wasn’t the same, and I lost that flow.
And I feared I wouldn’t be able to find it again.
Even trying to sit down and brainstorm something felt like I was failing.
I knew I had the idea for the second book. I may have had the second idea in place back in drafts 2 or 3! But now that I had to sit down and write it…
I didn’t think I could do it.
Until I did.
I don’t want to give anything away here, but something clicked. Maybe it was while I was reading The Shadow of the Gods or playing World of Warcraft or working out at 5:00 AM with my sister, but something happened, and a fresh idea sparked: the addition of a new character to challenge Kaelva, Astrid, and Freyna in an entirely different way.
All I will say for now is that I have a name picked out, and just reading it gives me chills:
The Valkyries: Blood Debt
A draft of the outline is already complete, but now I’m combing through and tying up loose ends. Once that done, I lock in just like I did before.
I’m not waiting for agents to respond to The Valkyries.
I’m charging forward and writing the next chapter in their saga.
Monitoring My Queries
Time to come full circle: yes, I said I wouldn’t sit idly by and wait for agents to respond.
And as you can see, I’m far from idle.
But that also doesn’t mean I’m ignoring my inbox either.
I still check my inbox at least once per day. Sure, I’m hoping I win the lottery and an agent absolutely loves what The Valkyries offers, but I’m also holding myself to the timelines I set before sending a single query.
Whether I get a response or not, I’m moving forward after 4 weeks.
Some agents offer guidance on how soon they may respond if they’re interested. Some say 2 weeks, some 8 to 12, others 2 or 3 months. I won’t mark any agent as a reject until those timings hit, but I need to keep moving as well.
As soon as I’m done writing this post, I’m putting my querying hat back on and tuning in my query letter.
The Valkyries is my own creation, so of course I think it’s worthy of being published.
And those who have read some of it so far claim it to be worthy as well.
But I need to convince an agent that The Valkyries is worthy. And when agents get hundreds of queries every day, having an agent not only read my query, but then like it enough to respond and ask for more really can feel like winning the lottery.
Pressing Forward
I know The Valkyries is worthy—but I know this is a numbers game.
A long numbers game.
And that’s why I’m doing everything I can to take the emotion out of it.
I have my query process: 4 weeks and I send another wave of queries.
I have my author platform where I share updates with my followers while giving myself a moment to reflect.
I have my books, other epic fantasy novels I can learn from while granting myself a moment of respite.
I have my future—The Valkyries: Blood Debt—where I can return to what I’ve enjoyed more than anything else in this journey: writing Kaelva, Astrid, and Freyna’s story.
The journey is far from over, but it is one worth walking.
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