Mystery Girl Summer
An obsession with a genre and a querying update
So far, I’ve been querying my novel for one month. Yesterday, I sent the following text to my writing partner, Tamar:
I feel insane with impatience.
So that is how that’s going.
I plan to write a more in-depth post about my querying process later, but what I’ll say for now is that I’ve queried over 40 agents, received a handful of rejections, and one bit of good news last week that I’m still waiting to hear if it will lead to more good news.
I’ve become obsessed with looking for agents. I actually find the process kind of fun, clicking around QueryTracker, searching Publishers Marketplace like a little creep looking for the low down. “Oh wow, that’s her agent?” “She got that kind of deal?”
I feel an annoying and nagging sense of anxiety that leads me to my desk more than I need, to check my querying email inbox or to search for an author I just thought of to see who represents them.
This is also the worst time for me to start drinking coffee again. (The other day, my caffeine-sensitive ass drank an Alani, and although I had an amazing leg day at the gym, I also came home and queried eight agents in a row like a maniac.)
Thankfully, Tamar has been there to help manage this insanity as we text and Marco Polo each other most days with questions, rejections, good news and whatever else comes our way.
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Here is something else I’m obsessed with right now: Apple TV’s legal drama series, Presumed Innocent.
It's one of those shows that ends each episode with a scene that makes me yell at the TV, and I love the writers for that. This story of a Chicago prosecuting attorney (Jake Gyllenhaal) who is suspected of murdering his colleague (who also happens to be his not-so-secret lover!) has got me completely engrossed. After watching the first few episodes with my husband last week, I had this obvious yet elated thought: God, I really fucking love a mystery.
Ever since I was a young reader, I gravitated toward the mystery thriller genre. Nancy Drew paved the way for me. I loved that each book had a little checklist inside of all of Nancy’s other adventures so that I could keep track of the mysteries solved and volumes read. (This probably planted the seed for my love of tracking my reads in composition notebooks as a teen and later my enthusiasm for Goodreads).
When I was around 11 or 12, I started playing the Nancy Drew game adaptions, an obsession that had me begging my mother for an extension of my one hour a day of computer time on our family's boxy PC. In the games, I was Nancy Drew herself, asking people for information, solving riddles and puzzles to open trap doors or to get people to talk more. My sister would sit beside me and watch as I clicked through a haunted mansion or a French chalet, or an old theater in St. Louis. The mysteries were always different— a stolen item, a “ghost” wreaking havoc, a kidnapping—but the thrill of unlocking a clue, of actually feeling like I was solving something, was unmatched in my little mind at that time. I saved up $20 whenever a new one was released, and my sister and I would squeeze into our tiny family office, inserting the CD-ROM with a delicacy of a new thing about to be discovered.
By sixteen, I discovered Harlan Coben. In college, it was Tana French. Some real hard-core crime and detective work. These were about disappearances, homicides, organized crime, identity theft. These were books that really broke down the process of what goes into solving a murder, and I was hooked. I loved the forensic evidence—what bones and blood and skin could tell you—the retracing of steps, the critical thinking of assessing how someone would do a thing, or maybe how they wouldn’t. The feeling of being absolutely engrossed with a question— who did this and why? — it gets me every time.
While I’m watching Jake Gyllenhaal lie (or not?!) when more evidence is brought forth, while I’m yelling, “C’mon!” when the screen goes black after some pertinent information is revealed, and I’m forced to wait another week to find out what happens, I’m so damn happy.
Other TV shows have done this to me. True Detective, season one, with Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey, is one of the best scripts ever written, in my opinion. The dialogue takes me out every time. The darkness of that mystery, the way it haunted Rust, McConaughey’s character, to his core and shaped his whole life thereafter, makes sense to me. That blatant obsession.
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In my last post, I admitted feeling nostalgic, so I’m not surprised the first piece of writing I’ve been about to conjure up since then is more about my past, another thing that has shaped me into the person and writer that I am today. I guess it also makes sense that what I want to consume right now for entertainment is a genre that relates to my querying journey.
Querying feels very much like a mystery—a thrilling one at that.
Everyone has an opinion on how to do it and how not to. Sometimes, agents will get back to you, but sometimes, it will just be radio silence. I literally have no idea what to expect daily when I sit at my desk. When I started a month ago, I had a plan for how I was going to approach looking for an agent, and that plan has been completely revised as I take each day as it comes. But then, in a moment, a twist— a full manuscript request. An agent I really want to read my work suddenly open for queries. It’s no wonder I feel insane right now (right?).
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m on the edge of my seat. And adding more mystery to my life, for some reason, feels really comforting. Another thing to untangle.
↓ If you have any mystery thriller book recs for me, you know I want them all!! ↓
Good luck on your querying journey, Kailey! I hope you get all the requests!! PS Have you ever watched Broadchurch (UK)?
Sadly no mystery recs but I REMEMBER THAT NANCY DREW COMPUTER GAME. I feel seen that is all.