Nichole Schaeffer is querying

Hey #WritingCommunity, just posted an article on slashing word count and editing your manuscript for over-writers like myself). nicholeschaeffer.com/post/how-to-ed… Would love suggestions if I’ve missed anything! #amediting #amwriting #wordcount #writerslife

@davidhogg111 Much love to you, please take good care of yourself as you grieve.

Last night I lost the best person I have ever known- my father. I’m grieving not only for my family and his friends but for the world which has lost the best human I have ever known. I have never cried so much it physically hurts to continue until now.

@WaywardCelestia Thanks for posting this. I’ve been at it a couple years at a really slow pace and have gotten pretty discouraged, completely took a break from querying recently. This reminder will help me get back at it 💙

🧵 I keep seeing #amquerying writers anguish over having a... not-big number of rejections. Over getting no feedback. Over having queried a whole week with no full requests. I'm seeing people respond to these poor writers with "self-pub!" and "that's the market right now!" 1/4

@ParanormalJunk2 I’ve been feeling so demoralized lately at my continued failure in the query trenches, this is a ray of hope. Any recommendations for indie presses for urban fantasy writers?

Queriers; writers; friends... I have never had a single agent like from a pitch contest. I've never had a full request from an agent. Not one. But I've just signed my third contact with a small press. Indie presses are where it's at.

@sotirazbook I hired one to help with the first several chapters and the query letter, synopsis. I think it’s all in good shape yet nothing but rejections thus far.

Did you hire an editor to polish your manuscript before querying agents? #WritingCommunity #literaryagent #writinglife

@ContraPoints One of my earliest dissents to my evangelical upbringing, probably at age 7, was the “streets of gold” and images of people singing hymns on repeat. I thought “gaudy AND boring”…. There’s got to be another option besides hell, right?

What if heaven is real but it’s kitschy

@ContraPoints One thing that helped me break into fluency was getting the Spanish translations of my favorite English books (ones where i knew most of the words by memory), watched the dubbed version of my favorite movies. Oh, and get a language buddy to speak only Spanish with you!

I hate being monolingual, it makes me feel linguistically trapped. I want to put in the effort to get near-fluent in one of the languages I’ve dabbled in. Should it be

@DavidBadurina We don’t turn our noses up at Shakespeare for taking artistic liberty from a story that came centuries before. There’s space for new ideas. There’s space for retellings.

I understand your point, but it's hardly a good comparison. Romeo and Juliet was still the story of Romeo and Juliet, though stylized. It wasn't Trans Romeo and Genderfluid Tybalt with artificially cranked-up sexual tension, falling for one another in a forbidden romance. It would be absurd to say that is in any way related to Romeo and Juliet. It's sexualized Shakespearean fan fiction at best. Marketing it as having anything to do with the original would be a lie to make money at the expense of the original artist and original work. That's what this is. If I put a pizza in a blender and serve up a smoothie of the result after switching out 2 of the ingredients (let's say mustard instead of tomato sauce and tofu instead of cheese), I shouldn't be calling it "Pizza Remixed." Call it a Vegan Mustard Margherita Smoothie (hurl) but it has ceased to be anything remotely resembling pizza. I'm marketing it that way to trick you into spending money, not for any virtuous reason. I'm just trying to sell you unoriginal garbage by using a familiar term. This is artistic appropriation at it's core - a marketing scam using a cherished classic to sell an unoriginal story to suckers that are going to buy it up when what they should be doing is demanding actual representation with original characters and original stories. But these people are lazy, and it's just easier to try and re-brand something for cash by firing the rainbow flare gun into the sky and pretending what they're doing is either brave and/or original, when it's neither. You have thousands upon thousands of original authors who focus on creating original LGBT fiction with original characters, and they are getting steamrolled in favor of a re-hashed story with an LGBT veneer. It's unfortunate, but most of those small time indy authors probably buy into it not realizing they are the ones having their ideas shoved aside. How is that not offensive to indy authors with fresh ideas? It's lazy, it's misleading, and it's disappointing that some decent people keep falling for re-branded fan fiction feeling like they are "finally being represented" when they're just being fleeced like suckers because someone sees an opportunity to split the fools from what's in their wallet.

Well, there goes the dumbest thing I've seen today.

@DavidBadurina There’s a whole lot of assumptions going on. Read the writers’ profiles and reviews of both books. The authors seem genuine, the readers seem to have enjoyed it and appreciated the representation. Don’t see a prob. Would you be as outraged if it were restyled in a different way?

@DavidBadurina @GavinNewsom I was about 5yo when visiting extended family when my great uncle’s mentally ill, adult son grabbed me and held a gun to me while demanding $ from his father. This fucked me up for years. I can’t imagine how much worse living through a mass shooting would be.

@DavidBadurina @GavinNewsom I dunno, it seems like good steps to keep people safe, and i can’t help but want to prioritize the well-being of the thousands and thousands of people that are being affected by gun violence in this country. People are living in fear just existing in this country bc of shootings.

NEW: I’m proposing the 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution to help end our nation’s gun violence crisis. The American people are sick of Congress’ inaction. The 28th will enshrine 4 widely supported gun safety freedoms -- while leaving the 2nd Amendment intact: 1) Raising the minimum age to purchase a gun to 21 2) Universal background checks 3) A reasonable waiting period for gun purchases 4) Banning the civilian purchase of assault weapons

My kid insisted on wearing all four pairs of her sunglasses to the store, and got quite a lot of attention. The zero fucks she gives for conventionality is such an inspiration to me 😂

@HWickersWriter @kristenwEditor Wow, the reviews glow so brightly they’re blinding! Thank you! Have you used her services personally? This looks like exactly what i need.

@NSchaeffer27 @kristenwEditor

Hey #amquerying #WritingCommunity anyone have a recommendation for a great editor who can help refine first chapters and query letter? Got 3 rejections in a day and need to step it up!

Two query rejections in one morning. Starting the day off strong 😵‍💫 gotta remember this is a marathon not a sprint…

My 5yo just complained about her doll leaving her shoes in the middle of the floor 😂🤦🏻‍♀️

@esluken Wrote a blog post on querying and finding a way to overcome me knee-jerk desire for external validation. Maybe someone will relate 💙 nicholeschaeffer.com/post/the-liber…

Apropos of nothing at all: QUERYING WRITERS ARE OUR COLLEAGUES. They aren’t lesser than agented or published ones and shouldn’t be treated as such. People aren’t magically turned into professionals the moment they sign. Professionalism is a journey, and we’re all on it.

Hey #writingcommunity and #amquerying crowd, here’s a blog post on working with perfectionism and self-validation while querying. Not advice so much as my own process, but hoping others can relate. Stay strong, stay vulnerable my dears 💙 nicholeschaeffer.com/post/the-liber…

Sigh… She ultimately rejected. 6 more outstanding to wait for. What a miserable process this is 😂

Obsessing over Query Tracker and how an agent I’m excited about skipped my query but has responded to several after mine. Does this mean I’m a maybe? #amquerying #writingcommunity

@ashtaylorwrite1 Thank you!!!

@NSchaeffer27 Could be! Good luck!