Katy Atlas has recently signed with agent Rosemary Stimola at Stimola Literary Studio. Katy, 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?

Katy Atlas: MOVING NEUTRAL is the story of a girl who runs away from home the summer before she leaves for college to go on tour with her favorite band. It's a love story between the main character, Casey Snow, and the lead guitarist and songwriter for the band, Blake Parker.



QT: How long have you been writing?

KA: All my life. I grew up reading constantly, and writing was always important to me. After college, I slowed down a bit, but I founded my blog in 2007, http://www.sugarlaws.com, and after that, writing was a daily activity for me again.



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

KA: I started it at the beginning of 2010, wrote for about four months, revised for another month or so, and started querying. That seems like a pretty short timeframe, but I'd been writing really seriously for a while before starting this book, so I had a lot of the kinks out already.



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

KA: There really wasn't -- I had moments of fear, definitely, but from almost the day that I started writing about Casey and Blake, I felt like I had found my story. My favorite book, The Secret History by Donna Tartt, has a line that goes: "I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell."

I hope I have lots of stories left in me, but as I was writing Moving Neutral, I kept thinking about that line -- this was my story to tell.



QT: Do you have any formal writing training?

KA: I majored in English at Princeton and took courses in creative writing, modern fiction and playwriting.



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

KA: I write in every spare moment I can find -- early mornings, late nights, weekends, vacations.



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

KA: I went through at least a dozen rounds of edits, but only a few large changes -- mostly just polishing. Several key scenes did get rewritten entirely, though, and sometimes more than once.



QT: Did you have beta readers for your book?

KA: Of course! My husband and a few friends provided amazing feedback, both encouraging and critical. I also had several actual teenagers as beta readers, who were terrific.



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

KA: I could see everything that happened in this book when I started writing it, but I didn't outline in a formal way.



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

KA: I queried for three and a half weeks.



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

KA: I sent out 49 queries, received 15 rejections and 19 requests for my full manuscript. They're still trickling in every once in a while. The agent I ended up signing with was my absolute top choice, so I feel incredibly lucky.



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

KA: I did a ton of internet research, looking for agents who had represented books I'd loved and agents with great sales records on Publisher's Marketplace.



QT: What advice would you give other writers seeking agents?

KA: Set aside anything that isn't the best you can do -- whether it's a paragraph, a page, or months of work. Only put your book out into the world if, in your mind, it's flawless.