Querying from the In-Between: A Writer's Journey into the Unknown

Right now, I’m standing in that strange in-between place writers rarely talk about—the doorway between “I did the brave thing” and “now I wait.” I’ve sent The Obsidian Throne out into the world in the form of query letters, and honestly? It feels a little like setting a paper boat on a wide, unpredictable river and whispering, “Okay, sweetheart… please don’t sink immediately.”

Submitting to literary agents was supposed to feel exciting, right? Big Author Energy. Confetti. Triumph.

Instead, it feels like handing someone your diary—the diary, the one full of your carefully built worlds, emotional ribcages, and questionable plot decisions—and saying, “Hi, could you read this and maybe like it? Or at least not set it on fire?”

Before I even reached this stage, I spent months in Research Goblin Mode. Burrowed into agency websites. Crawling through Manuscript Wishlists. Squinting at interviews like they were ancient prophecies. Stalking… I mean… observing… agents on social media. Querying is basically the publishing equivalent of dating apps: you comb through profiles hoping one of them says, “Loves fantasy, hates gratuitous love triangles, adores chaos gremlins,” and you go, “MY TIME HAS COME.”

Some agents have already responded. Some have passed. Some have vanished into the mist like mysterious fae creatures who will only answer if you spill wine on your keyboard under a full moon. And that’s fine. This is round one. Level one. The tutorial part of the quest.

But wow, querying demands stamina. The same kind of stubborn energy I use when wrestling a misbehaving chapter into submission or bribing myself to finish revisions with iced coffee. It’s slow work. Emotional work. Work that gnaws a little at your courage. But still—it’s the work.

I never went into this expecting the first agent to leap out of the bushes yelling, “I HAVE CLAIMED YOU AND YOUR BOOK AS MINE!” I’ve always known this journey can be long, twisty, and occasionally paved with “thank you, but—” emails. I’m also fully aware that traditional publishing may never open its gates for me. And weirdly? I’ve made peace with that.

I’ve considered self-publishing. It’s powerful, flexible, beautifully direct. You build the book. You launch the book. You steer the ship. But it’s a ship that requires energy, time, money, and a whole toolkit I simply didn’t have back then. So for me, the agent-plus-publisher route was the path I had the capacity for at the time.

People have opinions about which publishing route is correct, holy, efficient, profitable, or doomed. My take? Do. Your. Research. Know what you’re signing up for—either way. Pick the path that aligns with your goals, your bandwidth, your budget, and your life.

At the end of the day, I write because the stories won’t leave me alone. Because my mind is full of worlds and magic and characters who set up camp in my brain like they’re paying rent. Because I want to hand my readers a piece of wonder that whispers, “Hey… I made this for you.”

That belief—quiet, stubborn, glittering—keeps me going.

Speaking of which… the characters in my head are knocking on the walls of Winter Tower like, “Ma’am? We have scenes to act out?” So I should probably get back to writing.

Until next time,

Indigo Winter