Seven Noble Knights in Search of a Home, Again

Seven Noble Knights will always belong in Salas de los Infantes... 

The steps between completing an excellent novel and becoming a published author can be painful and confusing, and frankly, most authors would rather skip them and get to "the good parts." The ones I'm thinking of include researching and querying agents and publishers, receiving multitudes of unhelpful rejections or brushoffs, wading through contracts, and waiting, waiting, waiting.

In the case of my Seven Noble Knights, I experienced all of the above plus an evisceration that ended up vastly helpful to the complete rewrite of the beginning of the novel.

When Seven Noble Knights was accepted for publication, it felt like my writerly dream come true--with all of the trepidation something like that can cause. (I read somewhere that writing long fiction is the most cognitively complex task known to brain researchers. Input from all directions! Is it any wonder that every moment of a writer's life is fraught with mixed feelings? This is not a profession for wimps.)

It turned out to be a long journey from acceptance to publication. I'm thinking about this now because this week, my contract with Bagwyn Books has been terminated and I've received the publishing rights back. Which is to say, Seven Noble Knights is again an unpublished manuscript.

The contract came to an amicable end based on mutually recognized issues at Bagwyn that have nothing to do with my novel. I'm pleased to have the rights back under auspicious circumstances. All the options are open, which is ideal and also scary.

It also feels like starting over, but it's really not. Seven Noble Knights has already debuted to critical praise from the Historical Novel Review and thrilled at least two book clubs. I fulfilled my dream of giving a reading and doing a signing at the Harvard Book Store. Seven Noble Knights has rubbed elbows with the Book Doctors, countless luminaries at the Historical Novel Society Conference and the Tin House Summer Workshop, and was the focal point of a lightning-fast radio interview.

My options include researching and approaching more agents and/or publishers, or redoing the launch and publishing myself, or letting it rest for a while until the time is right. I'll definitely consult with a few of my writer friends who have gone through something similar (rights reversion is not uncommon in the volatile publishing industry) before I make a final decision.

So there you have it. Seven Noble Knights will soon be unavailable for purchase. It's an end that promises an even brighter beginning.

Hold onto your bloody cucumbers! Great things are on their way!

UPDATE: Seven Noble Knights will be available wherever fine books are sold (particularly here) from Encircle Publications December 11, 2020! 

Citric Lovers and Rejections

I thought it would feel like this, with me as the small snowman.
Not yet...

Two weeks ago, the only agent I had a real "in" with politely rejected my query for SNKL. I thought I would cry and scream at the unfairness of such a sad event, but really, it's just gone into the little black box where all the rejections have gone. I'd thought just sending out made the whole process real, but I guess I've assimilated that already. For it to get real again, I'll need a positive response.

My favorite poet, Manolo García, has a wonderful song about accepting rejection, which I partially translate below:

"The Citric Lovers" [Not lovers of citrus, but lovers who are made of orange]
I had a love, and I'll have others
but today eating takes up my time
because boys don't cry
the world is so big with its four corners. [There are more fish in the sea.]
So full of possibilities and challenges,
so full of corners to sniff around in,
and of so many beautiful women.
I had a love, or thought I did.
I've been walking alone since daybreak
and new vastness will open up out of this slow road.
....
I stupidly believed that an orange in love
is half a sphere
belonging to another half sphere. [This is the popular Spanish image for the concept of "soul mates." One's partner is often called one's "half an orange."]
Although late, I discovered that art exists,
and that it consists of citric lovers
making a move at more or less the same time.

Isn't that the truth? All the ducks have to be in a row, all the pieces have to fit, for the magic to take place, with love, with finding an agent, with everything.

If I keep submitting (and getting rejected) at my current rate, I'll be out of possible agents before the end of the year. Cross your fingers I won't run out! And of course, I have something up my sleeve...