"A Shadow Warrior's Redemption"

Well, here we are again, with another completed story (a novella) to query. And just like before with my commercial debut novel Line 21, I want to share with everyone the journey to publication with this novella.

First, some background info is in order. A Shadow Warrior's Redemption had its original birth in a short piece of flash fiction entitled What If? From that one short piece of flash fiction, a novella about revenge was written, in the present tense, called "A Shadow Warrior's Redemption".

The meaty portion of the query letter, which went through 2 drafts and took me a total of 15 minutes each time to write and revise, is thus:

The hotter the humiliation, the more sickening the payback.

Ashanti, a demonic spirit that escaped from Purgatory centuries ago, is blackmailed by Kevin to turn Keisha, the girl of his obsession, into the hottest slut of any male or female’s desire, so that he can ride to her rescue and make her beholden to him. A distress call sent out by Ashanti’s eldest child prompts two archangels, Michael and Raphael, to appear in the flesh and help Ashanti not only obliterate Kevin but to become Keisha’s personal savior.

A Shadow Warrior’s Redemption tells the story of how a supreme demon bitch from the bowels of Hell, when pressed, can briefly become a genuinely compassionate being.

  That my friends, is the 79 word synopsis. The first draft of the whole synopsis can be found at my blog called "It's Always Saturday In Suburbia". The whole synopsis itself was written in first person narrative, which is in keeping with the entire tone of the novella. The novella itself clicks in under 19k.

So please stop by for updates to what I've done (or haven't done) with my novella, and feel free to leave a comment or question, and I'll try my best to answer it and/or respond.

1} E-mailed query to Comet Press on January 21, 2013; have not heard back from them since receiving an acknowledgment about a week later; went to website and discovered that they've changed their wait time to 120 days; received a polite two sentence rejection on May 17, 2013.

2} E-mailed query to Random House's new imprint called Hydra on February 27, 2013; have not heard back from them, so the assumption can be made that it was rejected on April 10, 2013.

3} E-mailed query to Solstice Publishing's smaller imprint line called Summer Solstice on February 28, 2013; received the world famous "almost there but not quite yet" rejection on May 15, 2013; did some moderated editing based on what the editor suggested needed to be done (including creating a new title) and resubmitted on June 4th, 2013; received a "I don't think it would be a good fit for the new line so we will pass on this" on June 13, 2013

4} E-mailed query to MuseItUp Pubishing on April 14, 2013; received a rejection (along with a short thoughtful explanation as to why the manuscript is being rejected) on April 27, 2013.