Content Warning: Medical trauma and gore

There is a blood trail behind me, smeary across the hardwood floor, streaked across the cement, and staining the pale tile. Dark clots cling to rock or dirt or pavement wherever I go. When I move, the threads of the beast pull taut in my core, the pressure molding my organs against the monster, every step weighed down by the effort it takes to carry it with me. When I curl my body around my husband in our bed, my fingers twined in his, the beast slides up beneath the sheets and yanks me back to my belly, pressing from me the last shred of peace in a body that no longer feels like mine.

My mask is soaked with tears and snot, and I peer across the stirrups affixed to the exam table. The paper cover beneath me crinkles and sticks to my thighs which are filmed with cold sweat. The doctor on the rolling stool says my monster is the same pesky vermin that half the world carries. But my creature looms over me, eating the light and casting me in shadow. It enrages me that this doctor cannot see it. 

Months go by and the beast grows. I have never known the lines of my ribs, but now I trace them while I lie in the dark. At my brother’s wedding, old friends mistake my burden for something beautiful. They gaze at the hollow of my collarbone and tell me I am gorgeous. With heels on my feet, the monster’s tendrils pull tighter, taking my breath and vining clean flesh with raw wounds that grow and thicken into filaments of scar tissue, knitting my organs together. At the reception I can dance only a little as our blood trail stretches out behind us. My monster’s ropey pale limbs bulge through my skin from the inside. 

Each month the monster shifts, and my wounds open fresh, and the scars overlap and thread deeper into my body. Time passes and when I look in the mirror I see the beast in the dark circles under my eyes and in my pain-pinched brow. In the air around me, my creature creates a vacuum that swallows my voice before it can leave my throat. 

So I focus my days on finding laughs so hearty they break free of the void. I spend hours in pursuit of grand and sweeping stories that take me places my monster can’t go. Most of all, I keep close the people who look at me and broaden their shoulders before taking a protective step between me and my monster, if only for a moment. Especially my mother, who glares at the beast’s every vivid detail, thrusts her sword into the air, and bellows in its face. And my husband, who stares down the demon every waking moment of every day and far into the depths of night, never fleeing even when he grows tired and the beast grows so large our home shakes on its foundations. And my boss, who combines his abundant laughter with my own, sending my monster slinking away into dark crevices.

One humid August day, a doctor puts me to sleep and works hours to pry my body from the monster’s grasp. By the time I wake, my burden has a name. There is power in knowing the true name of a demon. For a time, the beast diminishes. But the monster is me and I am the monster, and while one lives so does the other. But, I gain power and strength from my pain. I keep turning my face to the sunlight, and I keep seeking stories and laughter and I surround myself with those who see the beast I carry and walk with me anyway, even if it means blood on their shoes.

If you’ve spent any time at all talking to me about writing, you know that there’s one rule I live by: don’t do it alone. I owe so much of my success so far along this publishing journey to my strong support network of writers. Not only because I learn so much from my writing peers, but also because being an author in pursuit of traditional publishing is full of highs and lows. The highs are all the better when you have friends who will celebrate every milestone with you. More importantly, staying motivated through the lows is much easier when you have other writers in your corner who understand deeply what you’re going through. It’s essential to have people who will encourage you and drag you back from the ledge when you feel like giving up.

Let me introduce you to my writing support network: the Quokka Crew. (I promise we are actual authors and not just a group of adorable Australian woodland critters.) Together we support each other as we each navigate the publishing world. Over time, and due to our broad range of experiences, we’ve amassed a vast amount of insight into the ups and downs of publishing. The Quokkas combined have drafted, edited (and edited some more), queried agents (and been rejected), landed agents, and sold books. After recognizing how helpful our discussions have been to our group members, we’ve decided to offer a series of Instagram Live round tables that allows anyone to tune in for insight and discussion around some of our favorite writing/publishing topics. If you have questions about any aspects of this wild industry, or you just want to listen, join us on IG Live. Our upcoming schedule is as follows:

Sunday, August 29th: Finding Your Writing Community & Pitch Events, 11 AM PT / 2 PM EST / 7 PM BST

Sunday, Sept 12th: Writing Mentorships, 11 AM PT / 2 PM EST / 7 PM BST

Sun, Oct 10th: Landing a Literary Agent, 5 PM PT / 8 PM EST / 10 AM AEST

Sun, Oct 24th: NaNoWriMo, 11 AM PT / 2 PM EST / 7 PM BST

Sun, Nov 7th: Working with Critique Partners, 11 AM PT / 2 PM EST / 7 PM BST

Sun, Dec 5th: Balancing Writing and Parenting, 5 PM PT / 8 PM EST / 10 AM AEST

If you’d like to connect with us, suggest a future round table topic, or learn more about the Quokka authors, take a look at our various platforms:

Website: www.quokkacrew.com

Twitter: @quokkacrew

Instagram: @thequokkacrew

I just found out that some of my Bugle magazine nonfiction pieces have become available online. The most recent one “Things That Heal A Heart” from 2016 is my favorite. It’s much more than an elk hunting story. Of the three stories I’ve published with Bugle, it’s the one that people have reached out to me about the most.

It’s also worth noting that the location of my real life elk hunts is the same landscape I used for my fiction novel, The Language of the Mountains, about a group of women surviving together in the post-apocalypse.

Yes, I signed my agent contract in my bathrobe. It was either this or in the woods. Or on a boat in the mangroves. There is no middle ground with me. It’s either abundant coziness or mud and mosquitoes. This was on January 23rd, eight days before my 33rd birthday. I have moments when it still doesn’t feel real.

Let me tell you how I got here, because I know I’ve read and reread a million posts like this to keep me going when querying felt impossible. I started querying The Language of the Mountains at the beginning of October, 2020. It was my third venture into the query trenches, and my fourth novel. I queried a fantasy novel in 2014 when I was living on a mountain in the Sierra Nevada. I had written that book while surrounded by nine feet of snow. It was as close to writing in a vacuum as you can get. No betas, no CPs, nothing. I didn’t know the first thing about what I was doing.

In 2015, I moved to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The grocery store was five minutes away instead of two hours, and now I had a local community center that offered groups and clubs. I joined a writing group, and each week we got together, brewed some tea, and read our work aloud around a dining room table. I gained a second family and learned a ton, and by 2018 I had the first two books completed in a fantasy trilogy. I went back into the query trenches. I had more requests this time, but still wasn’t hitting the mark. I ended up shelving the project after about 80 rejections.

Around the same time I was querying that fantasy trilogy, I was sitting on a return flight to Boston after a three-day primitive weapons training for my day job, and a new idea popped into my head. I started scratching out notes right away, “group of women surviving together in the mountains during post-apocalypse. Rockies, Colorado. Use black powder weapons because they’re easier to find compared to rifles/handguns. They hunt elk for their food. Influences: Jeremiah Johnson. Lonesome Dove, but with all women.”

The Language of the Mountains began to take shape, slowly at first. Then in December of 2018, the government shut down over a proposed border wall with Mexico (one day, when you read the book, you’ll see how my reality at that time influenced the world-building significantly.) I was furloughed from my day job for 37 days. I spent the first week wandering around the house in my jammies in the midst of a mild existential crisis, then I sat down and wrote 30k of what I lovingly called my “feminist, post-apocalyptic, dystopian western.” In March of 2019, I was selected for a job in South Florida, and took a hiatus to make the move to Key Largo and learn my new position, but I got back to work on the book by the fall. By the time I was ready to query in October of 2020, I was on my fourth draft, and had received and implemented feedback from two betas and two CPs. (I mention this because I like to scream from the mountaintops on how important it is to have good betas and critique partners in your corner. It makes all the difference.)

When I started querying, I had four full requests almost immediately. The vibe on this trip into the query trenches was different right away. All four of those fulls ended up in really nice rejections, but with not a lot of constructive feedback. I grappled with whether this meant the book was actually good and it just hadn’t landed in front of the right agent yet, or if this meant the book had so much wrong with it the agents didn’t have the energy to tackle feedback at all. One of the agents did take the time, however, to say that she believed the book would be successful and she would be rooting for me. I hung onto those words and kept querying. I got another flurry of full requests just before the holidays, and then everything went quiet except for a smattering of form rejections. By early January, I still had four fulls out, but I had received enough form rejections that I was beginning to consider major revisions.

Then, I was sitting on the couch watching TV with my husband one night, and a Twitter notification popped up on my phone. One of the agents with my full followed me on Twitter. My heart started pounding, but at the same time I kept telling myself it might mean nothing. But midday the next day, an email came through from that agent requesting a phone call. We jumped on the call that night and had a very nice chat, including an offer of rep. I let all the other agents in the running know, and over the next week I researched the offering agent. On the last day of the deadline, I received another offer of rep from Lindsay Guzzardo of Martin Literary Management. I was ready to make a giant white board list of pros and cons to help me make the decision, but after a phone call with Lindsay that evening, I knew my mind was made up. We clicked on a whole other level than I had with the first offering agent. Her vision for my book was so clear right from the start, and she had picked up on the Wild West feel I had been going for in the book all along.

I ended up sending about 110 queries for The Language of the Mountains. My request rate was 11 percent. Because I started out with so many full requests right off the bat, my confidence was bolstered, and I queried aggressively to get this book in front of the right agents. Had those early requests happened to come later, I probably would have queried slower and in smaller batches. Would it all have worked out the same? Who knows. Querying success varies so much based on the time of year, the happenings in the world, and so many other things, so I’m not telling you this so you can compare numbers or strategies. What worked for me might not work for you. But I am telling you this so you will keep trying. The big takeaway among all these “how I got my agent” posts is that you have to keep learning and you can’t give up. If it doesn’t seem like it’s working, sometimes you just have to shelve a book and try again. Expand your writing network. Beta-read for friends. With every step, you equip yourself a little better for success. Also, celebrate EVERY milestone. My husband and I popped a bottle of champagne (ok, maybe two) that weekend I signed with Lindsay. And then we left an unopened bottle in the fridge, waiting for the day the book sells. Fingers crossed.