Cheryl Angst (Cheryl on QT) has recently signed with agent Becky Vinter of FinePrint Literary Management. Cheryl, thank you for agreeing to this interview. Congratulations and good luck.



QueryTracker: Can you tell us a little bit about the book for which you’ve found representation? What inspired you to write it?

Cheryl Angst: Sure, INTO DARKNESS PEERING is a classic teen coming-of-age meets The Twilight Zone. It’s about two best friends and how their plans for a perfect spring break road trip turn into a nightmare when one girl starts believing she’s living another woman’s life whenever she’s asleep.

When I was in high school my best friend told me about this family she used to dream about, and how ‘real’ those dreams seemed. Our conversation made me wonder about the nature of dreams and reality and where the line blurs, and what might happen if dreams were really more than we assume. Twenty years later, I finally got around to exploring the idea.

QT: How long have you been writing?

CA: I started the first draft of my first novel in late 2009. Prior to that, I wrote some short stories to entertain myself.

QT: How long have you been working on this book?

CA: I spent just over four months planning, drafting, and tweaking it. It’s not a fully polished manuscript in the sense of what most people query with. At the time I wrote it I had an agent and we were going to revise it and get it ready to go on submission. She left the industry and I ended up having to pitch it to other agents pretty much as-is.

(Note: I do not recommend this approach to querying! I was fortunate to find an agent willing to pick up where my predecessor left off – most agents won’t touch a rough draft no matter its “potential.”)

QT: Was there ever a time you felt like giving up, and what helped you to stay on course?

CA: I’ve never felt like quitting writing – I don’t think I could if I tried – but the news I needed to seek new representation hit me hard and I didn’t write anything for more than a month afterward.

QT: Is this your first book?

CA: No, it’s my third. My first novel was published in 2011 by Lyrical Press, and my second novel was a YA dystopian that landed me my first agent but will likely gather dust in a trunk now.

QT: Do you have any formal writing training?

CA: No, nothing formal.

QT: Do you follow a writing "routine" or schedule?

CA: I write six nights a week after my children go to bed. When I’m not planning or editing, I aim for 1,000 words a night. Sometimes I can hit 2,000-3,000 words, but that’s pretty rare and I’m more than pleased with a 1,000-word per day pace.

QT: How many times did you re-write/edit your book?

CA: LOL, I shouldn’t be saying this as this book really is an exception to the querying “rules,” but it’s basically a first draft.

QT: Did you have beta readers for your book?

CA: Just my trusty cheerleader (who reads everything I write) and my previous agent.

QT: Did you outline your book, or do you write from the hip?

CA: OMG, I am soooo not a pantser! I tried pantsing a novel for NaNoWriMo 2010 and ended up with 55,000 words of mess! The novel was awesome; great characters, great world-building, great everything… only, it was missing a small thing called a plot. *headdesk*

I have to plan. I start with the kernel of an idea, flesh it out into a general story arc (so I can make sure the idea is ‘big’ enough to handle 70,000+ words), and then I plan the whole thing out in a spreadsheet. I don’t write a single scene until my spreadsheet is complete (which is somewhere upwards of 100 boxes of text, usually 3 solid pages at size 8 font)

QT: How long have you been querying for this book? Other books?

CA: I received the offer of representation exactly one month after sending out the first query, which is pretty fast when you consider the Christmas/Hanukkah holidays were in there and it seemed like the entire publishing world was away from their inboxes.

QT: About how many query letters did you send out for this book?

CA: Just over fifteen, I think. It helped that my previous agent sent out a number of referrals on my behalf, so my request rate was very high and I didn’t need to query much beyond my top ten choices.

QT: On what criteria did you select the agents you queried?

CA: Some were recommendations from my previous agent, some were agents who’d shown interest in my dystopian (I had several requests for R&Rs), and the rest were agents and agencies I’d researched and felt I’d LOVE to work with.

QT: Did you tailor each query to the specific agent, and if so, how?

CA: If the agent was a referral, I made sure to mention that up front. If I’d queried them before with my dystopian and they’d asked for the full (or an R&R), I started with that. If the agent was new to my list and not a referral, I briefly explained my situation then launched right into my pitch.

QT: Would you be willing to share your query with us?

CA: Sure!

Dear Amazing Agent:

[Here’s where I tailored my opening depending on who I was querying.]

My latest project is a YA paranormal thriller (think The Sixth Sense rather than vampires or other undeads) currently titled INTO DARKNESS PEERING.

Astral projection, possession, call it what you will; when the person doing the dreaming is your best friend--and she's totally screwing over your life--it's called a living nightmare.

For best friends Jenna and Ami, senior year is all about dreams: dreams of next year at college, dreams of the future with their boyfriends, and dreams of the perfect spring break road trip. For Jenna it’s about getting out from under her parents over-protective meddling and into the college program of her choice. But for Ami it’s not so much about dreams of the future, but rather the past—someone else’s past.

Jenna believes Ami’s dreams are just that—dreams—until her best friend overdoses on a sleep aid in order to stay in her fantasy world. Determined to experience the perfect spring break road trip—and earn a full scholarship to USC on the side—Jenna sets aside her concerns for her friend’s mental health and goes ahead with the trip. It’s not until everything goes horribly pear-shaped in LA that she realizes her mistake. Dumped, still a virgin, and stranded in LA with no ride home, Jenna must unravel Ami’s historical delusions before the dream world destroys even more of her future.

INTO DARKNESS PEERING, a classic teen coming-of-age novel meets The Twilight Zone, is complete at 81,000 words.

[I finished up with my previous agent’s contact information, my publication credits, and my contact info.]