NAT LOCKETT ON BEING AGENTED AND MENTORSHIP

Writers in Progress has started off with a bang! With my first interview finally finished and second on the way I’m happy to present the compiled lessons from my interview with Nat Lockett. This will not be in traditional Q&A format as this interview was -checks notes- two and a half hours long despite only getting to roughly half of my planned questions. (What? We were having fun!) Without further adieu: Nat Lockett on having an agent and mentorship programs!

Nat finished her first book in 2018 and made the (by her own admission) questionable choice to immediately start pitching to agents in person and without revision. However, the Writer's Digest conference in New York was a big help and after the experience, Nat decided to build a community of her own. Now, Nat is the host of the Write Away podcast and the founder of Rogue Mentor. She is agented by Tara Gonzalez of Erin Murphy Literary Agency and her YA Horror Fantasy, THE DEAD KING, is currently on sub.

The Dead King was Nat's first book and she touched on the struggles of getting it agented and mentor ready in the interview. She acknowledged that the first book takes longer and is often harder. There are skills beyond syntax and word choice that writers learn with each book they write and the first book is harder because those skills are undeveloped. Creating structure and pacing is largely foreign to first-time writers However, as much as growth is important, Nat stresses that your first novel should not be about these things -- it should be about falling in love with writing.

“You’re not gonna make it through publishing … if you don’t love [writing] to the point of when you’re sitting there saying ‘I’m going to quit’ and suddenly realizing ‘I will hate myself if I quit’.”

But how do you get published? For those unaware, it’s through querying agents -- sending a specialized pitch to an agent, with whatever samples of your manuscript they require. It’s a long and tiring process full of repeated, impersonal rejections. Natalie is standing on the other side of that barrier in more than one way. As an agented author, she has survived ‘the querying trenches’ and come out on top. As a mentor and founder of RogueMentor, she has been the one to receive queries.

Nat spoke on her experience as an agented author for me, demystifying the next phase many writers are anxious to get to. First and foremost, it’s not as different as you may think. Nat explained that, while it was validating to know that someone loved your work enough to champion it, it is also accompanied by long periods of silence. She has been on sub (her agent has submitted her manuscript to publishing houses for consideration) since September, and as of giving this interview has yet to hear back.

“The best way to describe [being agented] is long periods of silence … there’s no reason to be emailing back and forth.”

She elaborated that once you get to the publishing stage it’s business; it's not about art anymore. Publishing houses are concerned about sales, profits, expenses, and whether or not it’s worth gambling on the success of your manuscript. Nat said that you need to understand that you are not your book and that at this stage, your project is both art and a product. It’s anxiety-inducing. Nat recounted an anecdote about how, one time, she sent a panicked email to her agent asking if editors were printing out copies of The Dead King to use as toilet paper. Her agent answered no (of course!) but this tale, while funny in hindsight, is a good example of the stress the publishing process can bring. Getting an agent is not the finish line we often wish it to be.

Nat finally stressed that this process can be made much easier if you’re picky about who you work with. She trusts her agent, and the fact that she can send emails asking if her manuscript is being turned into toilet paper is a relief and something she enjoys. While Nat acknowledges that it’s not the relationship everyone may want or need, she does say that finding a fit that works for you is the most important thing. You need someone you trust. This echoes the adage of ‘no agent is better than a bad agent’ however, Nat applied this to more than just agents, but beta readers, critique partners, and even mentors as well!

“The right fit is more important than fitting generally.”

Ultimately, we came to the conclusion that agents are all just “some guy” in that everyone in the industry is just another person with their own individual opinion. It’s up to you (for better or for worse) to decide whose opinion to trust and who you want to have a hand in your project. They have to be people too (not just a headshot and an email address!) and they have to be people you trust. Nat was able to summarize our conversation by saying, “Your agent and your editor have to buy toilet paper, there is no exception to this rule.”

Of the people you can choose to trust, mentors are one of them. Mentorship opportunities, like the ever-popular Pitchwars and Nat’s own RogueMentor, are a great way to break into the industry and make your query stand out. In them, agented or published authors help those looking to get an agent by giving advice on your manuscript and your query package. Mentors are here to support their mentees, and many keep in touch long after the program itself has ended.

Nat was a mentee with Author Mentor Match before she was agented, and started RogueMentor as an homage to that experience when she was not selected to be a mentor in AMM’s most recent round. She described the experience of creating RogueMentor as “spontaneous.” It stated largely on accident after a tweet of Nat’s, expressing her plan to mentor independently (‘going rogue’), received more interest than she could handle -- from potential mentors and mentees alike!

She expressed how grateful she was to have to support of her critique partners and the community she found in creating RogueMentor as they were what ultimately made it a viable project. At the moment, RogueMentor is entirely volunteer-run and Nat hopes to have some more BIPOC volunteers and mentors in for the next submission window. Nat is looking to open RogueMentor for another round of submissions in April and wants to run it twice a year.

Mentorship programs like RogueMentor are structured pretty similarly to querying agents in that they request similar materials for the mentors to peruse (query letter, sample pages, synopsis, etc.). This means, as I mentioned previously, that Nat has been on the receiving end of query letters as a mentor. When I asked her about the experience, the first thing she said was that she wished she could have been on ‘the other side’ before querying. It made it so much more obvious that querying isn’t (usually) about your skill or talent, but the agent. Nat said that you quickly learn that there are certain ‘flags’ that might indicate whether or not a manuscript is one you’ll consider further. She described thinking:

“I’m not the best mentor for this, I don’t know how to help this, I’m not passionate about this -- and that doesn’t mean anything about talent or skill … some people like caviar, I don’t like caviar … it’s not personal at all.”

Any agent will have already learned these ‘flags’ but mentorship programs can make your manuscript more competitive and your query more eye-catching. If you’re looking to apply for a mentorship program, Nat and I went over what makes for a good mentee and a “mentor ready” manuscript. The final conclusion? “Mentor ready” (or query ready!) is a ripeness; it’s different for everyone, mentee and mentor alike. Nat even shared a story of how one of her critique partners submitted an unfinished manuscript to AMM and then hurried to complete it when a mentor requested the full version. (Which we both agreed was ballsy.)

More quantifiable is your readiness to be a mentee. A good mentee is one who is willing to accept help and Nat actually provided me with a list of questions she asked her mentees during the drafting process. She said that if you’re ready to be a mentee, you should be able to honestly answer the following questions about hard feedback:

1. Does this stay true to my story even if it isn’t exactly as I imagined it?

2. Can I work with this suggestion or do I want to work towards an alternate solution?

3. If this suggestion doesn’t excite me is it because I’m afraid of the work or because I can’t see its potential?

4. If I’m not happy with this suggestion, how can I make it mine? If I am happy with this suggestion, how can I make it mine?

Ultimately, a mentor is not god but just another person and to get into the industry you should be willing to learn and grow, but also protect your story. Sometimes suggestions just aren’t your style, but you should be willing to make hard changes. Oftentimes, these are changes you already know you need to make but are too scared to. Nat emphasized that you should be honest about the changes that need to happen. When you’re at the point where you can emotionally admit there is a problem, that’s when you should start reaching out for help.

You can find Nat Lockett on Twitter @nat_lockett or at her website here. Information on RogueMentor can be found here.