How Not to Go Crazy While Querying
- May 24
- 1 min read
The querying process is, to put it gently, a masterclass in sitting with uncertainty. You've written your truth, shaped it into something coherent and even beautiful, and now it lives in a stranger's inbox somewhere between a newsletter and a pitch for a celebrity dog memoir.
Here's the thing: your book already exists. You wrote it! You really wrote a whole book! No rejection changes that.
While you wait, go back and read a passage you love — not to fix it, but to remember why you wrote it. That memory, that hard-won sentence, belongs entirely to you. The agent's response doesn't.
A few practical anchors:
Keep a running list of the reasons this story must exist in the world.
Read books you admire.
Write something new — even something tiny — so your identity stays "writer" and not "person who is waiting."
And when the anxiety spikes? Remember that every book you've ever loved also spent time in an inbox. Someone doubted it. Someone passed on it. Then it found its way.
