Never Forget Your Superpowers

Especially When You Enter the Query Trenches

Hello Friends,

As I finish up the latest round of revisions on my third novel and prepare to look for a literary agent yet again, I do so with a familiar sense of dread. Sending out query letters is like extracting your own wisdom teeth. Not only is it painful, it’s slow. And you’re very much awake for it. Plus, unlike your dentist, who will manage to yank out those teeth eventually, you will almost definitely fail in that mission, just like with querying, where failure happens like 99.99% of the time. This shows an incredible lack of wisdom. Who would undertake something with such a miserable success rate?

It kind of makes me wish I’d gone to dental school.

In any case, as I sit down to write more query letters, I need an ego boost. And the way I’m pumping myself up for what’s to come is to write down a list of my superpowers. This will remind me that I’m good at a lot of things! I am not my book! And maybe it will inspire those of you querying to write down your superpowers, too.

SUPERPOWER #1

I am fantastic at irritating young adults early in the morning.

My daughter can vouch for me on this. All I need to do is look at her before she’s had her coffee and she takes her mug and leaves the kitchen. And the students in my 8am class? This is where I really shine. I ask them a ton of questions: How was your commute? How are your other classes? Geez, you guys look catatonic, have you had any coffee this morning? Look at me bouncing around up here, and I’ve only had half a cup — I bet your parents are like this, right? This is one of the rare questions they answer, and it’s always the same response: No, our parents actually aren’t full of energy at 8am. This is when I know for sure I have a gift: When it comes to being irritating, I’m even worse than their parents.

SUPERPOWER #2

I know how to keep a secret.

I’ve heard some doozies over the years, and my friends know I’m a vault. Mostly, this is because I forget the secret as soon as they tell me. I don’t even have to work at it. And as far as I know, I’ve never divulged a secret, although I might have forgotten if I have.

SUPERPOWER #3:

I am an amazing reader when I’m in bed.

It’s not because I can stay up all night with a good book. It’s the opposite: I’m remarkable for how little I read in bed. In fact, I’m so good at falling asleep when I try to read that I read backwards. Let’s say I leave my bookmark on page 121. I often can’t remember what I read the night before, so I go back five pages to remind myself. I could very well be asleep by page 118. I’m so skilled at this that I could join the Book-of-the-Month Club and reverse-read one month’s selection before the next one comes.

SUPERPOWER #4:

I am SO good at giving a fuck.

Everyone says don’t go down this path, especially here on Substack: Now that you’re middle-aged, my peers advise me, you can declare that this is the life-stage when you have no more fucks to give! But I can’t stop myself. I care when my students can see my pit stains. Or when I forget that I needed to buy milk and that’s why I went to the grocery store. I still cringe when I get caught muttering about some idiot on a Zoom call because I wasn’t on mute. For someone my age, or really any age, I’m seriously good at getting my panties in a twist even though society has granted me permission to stop. Guilt and embarrassment will define me forever, even when I’m dead. I don’t need to leave instructions. My family knows to put “She Gave a Fuck” on my headstone.

SUPERPOWER #5

I am really skilled at breaking my left-foot pinkie toe.

Seriously. I think I’ve done it over a dozen times. I bump into tables, my bed, my desk chair. Pretty sure I broke it once because I tripped over my shoe. In fact, breaking my left-foot pinkie toe might even correlate with the number of times I’ve entered the query trenches. It’s a different kind of stress fracture.

Which leads me to my last superpower…

SUPERPOWER #6:

I am an expert, and I mean an expert, at rejection.

This definitely comes from querying. It’s not that I don’t feel gutted by my rejections. I DO feel gutted. That’s why I’m so good at rejection! I’ve probably written 500 query letters if you count all the querying and re-querying I’ve done for three books over fifteen years. I now have an existential crisis every time I send out a query letter because rejection isn’t a hunch, it’s a given.

But to clarify, it’s not just the quantity, it’s the quality of the rejections that have helped me develop this superpower. Because I’ve been rejected in so many ways. Sure, like all aspiring authors, I never hear back from most agents. And of course, we all get form letters. Those have sharpened my rejection skills, but they haven’t set me apart. Now, I get personalized rejections, ones that might say “this is a very subjective business, and another agent might feel differently, so don’t give up just because I thought your novel sucked” or “the voice of the main character, the one you spent two years crafting, just didn’t work for me,” or “I have no idea how to place your book in the current market, and I don’t foresee novels like this becoming a trend in the future, either” or “I liked the book, I just didn’t love it enough, but let’s keep in touch because maybe you’ll write something one day that I think has more value.” It’s rejections like these that allow me to open my inbox because after so many years, at least I can say that I’m a huge success when it comes to rejection. And I don’t need to protect my left-pinkie toe with each new round of queries, either. The whole experience adds to my legacy.

Please leave a comment if you have superpowers that you’d like to share! I love to be inspired.

Or send me an inspirational message. Or even a rejection! I’ve never gotten a Substack rejection letter. You could write my first!

Or else you can subscribe to my newsletter. Don’t worry if that’s the opposite of a rejection. Someone else is bound to make up for it by unsubscribing. And more people have read my posts than subscribed to them, so I’ve already been rejected on Substack. I’m used to it.

P.S. I should have added two more superpowers. I’m great at not-exercising. In fact, I’m writing this post when I’m supposed to be on the treadmill. And the second superpower is that I’m great at forgetting things. I even forgot to add these superpowers to my list.