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Writer's Digest

Querying: These Days, We’re All Just Trying Our Best

One of the most popular questions I’ve been asked lately, as I sit at my desk in my home office, attending another virtual conference, the sound of my toddler running around the house when his school bus drops him off in the afternoon, is “how is querying going with agents and authors these days?”

The stress, of course, is on these days.

Sometimes I answer that question just as my kiddo bursts into the room, where he’ll play with his toy cars while I’m on a Zoom. I’ll shrug, and say, “Oh, we’re all just trying our best.” Folks laugh, knowing smiles shared across a virtual space. And then I continue, sometimes with a kid on my lap, sometimes with a new episode of “The Octonauts” playing in the background. There’s a large chance you’ve been given advice from me while a legion of cartoon animals sing “creature report, creature report!” while discussing various kinds of sea life.

That’s these days, really. I’m sneaking in writing this article while he sleeps, before I put him on the school bus later in the morning.

Querying these days is a challenge. So many of the agents I know are working from home, squeezing in the time they can in-between childcare and

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