Author Patrice Sarath

Today the Lis buried their daughter, a victim of the Chinese earthquake, and their grief is emblematic of an entire nation’s sorrow. China has played many roles lately, among them the oppressors of Tibet, deliverer of poisoned food and medicine, hosts of the pollution Olympics, and the most evocative, Beast from the East, but the face of the Lis and their words as they dressed their little girl for her funeral is the image that haunts me right now.

The government’s reaction to the earthquake has been slow and ineffectual, as aid and excavators and soldiers are slow to arrive, and bureacracy is preventing survivors from treating their loved ones with dignity. The response is evocative of two other nations — Myanmar of course, and the US state and government response to Hurricane Katrina.

Well, the Myanmar situation is just bizarre, so it doesn’t count. But the parallels to the 2005 devastation of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are pretty stark. Both the US and China are world powers, and both nations grappled ineffectually with a human disaster on a vast scale.

Part of the destruction in China came because poorly constructed buildings collapsed – part of the destruction in New Orleans was a result of levees that were a joke.  We had “Heckuva Job, Brownie” and China has a Communist Party system that rewards greed and corruption on a localized level, with no incentive for good leadership that takes initiative.

Governments and governed, whether that political system is democratic or Socialist, have a compact. That compact gives citizens of any country the expectation that in the event of an enormous disaster in which thousands of lives are lost and people have lost their homes and livelihoods and their lives are disrupted that they can expect soldiers, excavators, relief workers, and food aid. This isn’t a handout. This is part of the compact.

The US failed at this compact in 2005, and China is failing now.

By now, most of you who know me * know that I have a conflicted relationship with the practice of yoga. As I’ve said in the past, yoga makes me tense. All that breathing that needs to be coordinated with movement and all the while you have to think mindfully and deeply and yet let your worries go; this strikes me as multitasking. There’s just too much going on.

On the other hand, I know it’s good for me, and I often feel quite exhilarated when I’m done, although, yeah, that might be for more obvious reasons rather than transcendental ones.

 So I got my good friend Vanita to drag me to yoga for the past two weekends and it has been fun. Hard, but fun. And lately the stress has been mounting, some self-imposed and some situational — K is graduating from high school this year and there’s been a round of must-dos plus college prep that still has to be done. My second child, A, has his activities as well. Plus, you know, the day job, the glorious day job that keeps us in groceries and health care and retirement funds. And then there’s the big one — Book 2.

Although book 2 doesn’t have to be delivered til September, I am close enough to finishing that I can finish it this month, giving me enough time to rewrite this summer. It’s been a wild ride so far, and I am so close to the end that I can taste it. There’s something especially crazy about finishing a book, a combination of relief, exhaustion, sadness, and wild happiness. But all of this has conspired to turn me into a walking stress bomb lately, so yoga it is.

At the end the yogini asked as to come out of our practice that morning with a mindful intention for the day. As we were rolling up our mats and chatting we discussed our intentions.

Mine was “To just calm the f— down!”

It didn’t really work (sorry about yelling at you, A) but I came out with almost 2,000 words on the new book, so whether that was the day’s asanas or luck I don’t know. I don’t want to argue with success though, so I’ll go back next week with trepidation in my heart and hope for the best.

 Namaste.

* Shamelessly stolen from the opening line of my favorite “Alice” essay by Calvin Trillin. Steal from the best, I say.

I had queried 48 agents and a handful of editors, and I had gotten very little response. A few had asked for the first three chapters, but mostly I got initial interest from my query letter and then either a form or a personalized rejection. No, however, means no, and I had started to make my peace with that. I wasn’t completely sanguine — sometimes I felt sad that the characters in my novel, who I had grown to, well, really really like, wouldn’t get to play their parts to a wider audience than my writers’ group.

But there were a few loose ends, and I requeried a few agents who I had not heard from — including one agent who had asked for a full. My spreadsheet showed me that it had been months since I heard anything from her. So I queried, politely of course:

Dear Kae,

I just wanted to touch base with you to see where you are in your consideration of my fantasy ms., Gordath Wood. I sent the full at your request back in August. Please let me know if there has been any change in status. Thanks.

Best,

Patrice

Kae assured me that she would have a response for me in two weeks or so. Assuming that the next correspondence would include a but on her part, I didn’t think much of it.

Much to my surprise her next letter was an offer of representation.

Over the next few weeks we hammered out the details: contract, markets, requested changes. By the end of May we had an offer — by the end of June we had another one.

I was pleasantly surprised at how fast things went. I know that isn’t usual — read any number of writer blogs and the stories people tell about the weird and wonderful path their work takes to publication are truly astounding. But there were a couple of things that I am glad I did that I think helped me.

I set a goal. Not publication — I didn’t have control over that. I set a goal of a finite number of agents I would query. My career was going to more than one book — I couldn’t let my publication dreams hinge on one manuscript. I had to think of my writing as a continuum.

 I listened to what agents told me and made changes according to their suggestions. But I also stayed true to my vision for the book, even though it meant that probably, this one wasn’t going to find an agent.

Believe me, when you’ve heard over and over again that this type of story doesn’t sell, it starts to sink in. Bonus points to any readers who know what kind of plot device this is — I’ll give you a hint. Kristin Nelson of Nelson Literary ranted (in a nice way of course) about this very plot device on her blog about a week after I queried her (and was rejected). Put your best guesses in the comments field and I’ll try to think of a suitable reward for the right answer.

I messed around with my query letter, and even tested a couple of different variants to see which one “pulled” better, i.e., got an agent to request a partial. There are a lot of resources out there for writing queries. I think I used all of them.

So my advice is this — be really clear about what you want. Make a plan. Try not to be too desperate. Craft the best query letter that you can. Listen to what agents say. If they respond with a personalized rejection, learn from it. And keep thinking of yourself as a writer, with more than one book under your belt.

Finally, I’ll leave you with my favorite rejection of all.

Dear Ms. Sarath,

Thanks for contacting me. This sounds excellent and you have some impressive credentials. Unfortunately, it’s always hard for me to work up enthusiasm for a novel that is similar to something I already represent. In this case Diana Gabaldon has completely sated my appetite for “woman who slips into a portal into another world and has romance and adventures” novels.  She, and her work, are a full meal!

Best wishes,

Russ Galen

Now I ask you, who could get depressed over a rejection like that? (He didn’t even say but.)