2 Literary Agents, Now 0 (Plot Twist Inside) 💣
and...WANT TO BETA READ MOONSHOT??
Note: The recording above is a reading of this newsletter. The content is no different, but perhaps a tad more melodramatic. If you’re someone who needs or prefers to hear their news, I hope you enjoy my melodious voice.
Yoo-hoo! I’m Caroline Davis, a YA sci-fi author represented by the agency behind The Hunger Games and currently preparing my first book, MAY WE PLEASE THE SEA, to pitch to publishers.
Represented by the agency behind Ender’s Game and currently preparing my first book, MAY WE PLEASE THE SEA, to pitch to publishers.
Not currently represented by anyone, but my mom still thinks I’m awesome. This newsletter shares my latest author updates & creative process musings.
🚨First off, big announcement! 🚨
I’ve finished my 2nd book MOONSHOT. If you’re interested in beta reading, please respond! First 10 responses will get the elusive, only-offered-once-before Beta Reading slot. Ooh aah.
Yeah wait, what’s MOONSHOT?
It’s the book I’ve been writing since I shelved MAY WE PLEASE THE SEA. (We’ll get to that later). 🫤
*Clears throat to begin the pitch she gave to 10 agents last weekend*
MOONSHOT is a young adult dystopian novel about a deep-sea oil rig welder on a floating company town in the Pacific who hacks her way into the Lottery to win a chance for a better life on the moon, only to discover it’s a televised competition to the death…and her estranged childhood crush is also a competitor.
Bum Bum bummm. If that sounds up your alley and you want to read the finished manuscript and give me feedback, let me know!
🎵and now back to our regularly scheduled content. 🎵
Psh, well that’s a joke. This newsletter is far from regular. I haven’t emailed you since last summer, and I had to remember how to use this platform. Surprise, surprise, I found an unsent draft from last November. Soo…instead of writing more, I’m going to share that draft with you:
From PAST CAROLINE of Nov. 2024 with *edits* from PRESENT CAROLINE:
I’m looking out over mountains as I write this (*accurate at time of writing*), my back sore from sitting on this cross-country flight, my eyes dry from binge-reading Shift (the sequel to Wool/the tv series Silo) on my phone’s tiny Kindle app screen, and I’m deep in the throes of a book hangover.
How devastating and beautiful and tragic that I read this book across two flights and a layover, 7 hours in total, when it took the author far far longer to create it. Such is the way of creation vs. consumption.
I’m returning home from YALLfest, the Young Adult Literature Lovers festival in Charleston, South Carolina that I’ve gone to the past four years.
Every year, I leave YALLfest energized: to write more, to write faster, to write better and to more accolades. It’s a dangerous energy, like consuming one too many drinks or whizzing down a steep hill on my tri bike.
I’m more of a slow and steady energy, not the frenetic type. I like to joke that if only I did cocaine like Stephen King, maybe I would writer faster, but for now, that’s still a joke. Which is why I’m not allowed to do cocaine.
It’s been a slow year (*2024*), one where I haven’t shared my updates because things kept changing. You might be thinking, uh, doesn’t that mean it’s been a fast year? Well, the turbulence light is on, (remember? I’m on an airplane?), so sit back down for a second and let me tell you why I kept not sharing….
🌊 Last December (*2023*), I told you how excited I was for my first book, MAY WE PLEASE THE SEA, to finally get pitched to publishers.
… but then my agent decided she didn’t want to try to sell it. She wanted to shelve it and focus on something new.
🚀 I sat with that disappointment and channeled my energy into my second book, MOONSHOT (another YA dystopian sci-fi), still working with my agent. In March (*2024*), I prepared to tell you how I was making peace with shelving MAY WE PLEASE THE SEA and how I was finding excitement to complete this other book to sell instead. I sent my agent MOONSHOT’s detailed outline and first chapter….
…and my agent dropped me.
I told you that part. Kind of. I said “we split”. The truth is: she dropped me. Why? I’ll elaborate another time. The point is—>
📚 I was left with a book my ex-agent didn’t want to pitch to publishers and another book I hadn’t even finished writing. So I had to find a mindset shift. Just after convincing myself that MAY WE PLEASE THE SEA wasn’t good enough, I had to find my belief in it again. That took time.
…but I did. After avoiding my book out of fear of how bad it must be, I sat down and read it. And I loved it! (again!). And I got back on the proverbial horse and I pitched that book to new agents through the summer (*yes, we’re still in 2024*), again and again.
🖊️ And I got a new agent!
I hadn’t told you that part either. It happened in August (* still 2024*). And it ended in August. A relationship not much shorter than my first boyfriend in 7th grade, who dumped me in the hallway while I was wearing a turkey costume for the middle school play and I had just started my period for the very first time and was walking out of the bathroom with a tampon hidden up my wing: a “woman”, a turkey, and newly single.
That’s basically how I felt this (*past*) August, minus all those very specific details. But a jumble of unexpected good and bad mixed together.
The agent was great, but alas, the agency and the decision maker behind her were not.
So I walked away.
I had author friends tell me to stay. “It’s better than nothing.” And just like my 7th grade breakup, which I honestly have not thought about in 20 years, so I too am intrigued with where this is going…. Ah yes, I’m comparing my red-flag agent to the relationship fear of “but what if I never find anyone else?”
That sentiment probably aligns better with my more life-impacting break-up in my late-20s, but it’s far more fun to talk about the one involving me in a turkey costume.
So here I am, flying back from a book festival for the fourth time, with some lower back pain to remind me I’m aging. Last year (*2023*), I had a powerhouse agency that represents The Hunger Games representing me, the end of revisions for MAY WE PLEASE THE SEA were in sight, and I was absolutely positively boiling over with hope and optimism for a book deal in 2024.
That’s not what 2024 entailed. I’ve had two agents this year, and I’m back to zero. See now how it’s both fast and slow? A hop-skip forward and a stumble-fumble back.
But that forward-back direction depends on the axis used.
[I was going to draw a really creative Chart here, except I can’t be bothered]
Yes, objectively, I’m further away from a book deal. But that’s only one metric to measure. What else has changed?
This YALLfest, I didn’t have imposter syndrome. I didn’t go hide in the bathroom or have a internal moment of overwhelming crushing doubts. I had the most energizing, revitalizing visit with old friends and new friends.
So let’s put that on an axis.
[Again, pretend I have a cool Chart here. Wow. Oh, it’s so insightful. There’s no chart. just go with it.]
I was brave enough to walk away from the thing I’ve wanted and talked about with you for the past—oh my—four years, because it didn’t feel right to me.
How amazing is that!
That’s not nothing. That’s growth and progress. Maybe not in the external self-validating goal-accomplishing way that I’d really prefer.
[See the Chart. Be the Chart. Are you inspired? Good. Me too.]
Where does that leave me? I took a pause on MAY WE PLEASE THE SEA. I’m focusing on MOONSHOT again. It’s 40% drafted (*remember, this is Past Me*) and I’m going to channel that book festival energy into finally get this book done.
But not right now. I have 20 minutes left in this flight, and I need to stare out the window and bask in this book hangover from SILO/WOOL. My books are taking me years to write, but maybe someday, someone will binge-read them on a plane ride.
Slow and steady my friend,
Caroline
WHEW. ok, lets hop back to Present Caroline.
Honestly, I don’t have much to add. Past Caroline-on-a-plane, just like some snakes, really gave you the full run-down there. 2025 has been drafting Moonshot, revising Moonshot, and next week, I’ll be sharing Moonshot for the first time with some beta readers. Woohoo!
P.S. Remember that I said I pitched 10 literary agents recently? (Even though I wasn’t done with revisions, teehee, look at me, finally being a rule breaker). Well, all 10 of them requested to see my book!
So once I’ve had some beta readers read Moonshot to make sure this crazy plot I’ve cooked up actually works, well then, it’s off the races once again!
ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?? [looks for an emoji with an twitchy eyeball, and can’t find one and moves on]
What else have I been up to (2024 version)? I…
moderated a friend’s book launch (funny, because I’m still not a published author)
harvested my first onions, garlic, and strawberries from the garden
cried at a wedding during the father-daughter dance
completed a 60-mile bike race (and got an impressive thigh and upper arm tan)
sliced my thumb on a veggie chopper and learned many others have done the same
planted banana trees, a fig tree, a peach tree, a cherry tree
built a fence
spent a lot of Author Energy on pitching, and finally, slowly, wrote the first ten chapters of my next book → and now that book is DONE!
Books I Wouldn’t Shut Up About in 2024 when I drafted this email, and honestly I still think about:
Wool and Shift by Hugh Howey:
Wool is great. Shift is greater. Granted, I’m even more fascinated than usual with the end of the world and doomsday and bad choices and anti-heroes. To be clear, my cozy comfort TV show is Naked & Afraid. I think that conveys my tastes.
On the 🌟Instagram🌟:
I went viral for a reel in September 2024 that got me 9.3 million views, 15,000 followers, an NPR feature on All Things Considered, and the lesson learned that people can be really mean online, even about the most innocent story of a stranger helping me unload gravel and how it reminded me of my dead dad. Sheesh people.
Since starting this journey,
+848 people have joined my newsletter
+203 virtual teas have been sent to me on Ko-Fi, yummy! Thanks friends! 🍵
Thank you for being a part of this journey with me!
🌊❤️,
I would like to BETA read MOONSHOT!