Roxanna Ramzipoor (Pieohazard on QT) has recently signed with agent Alexandra Machinist of Janklow & Nesbit Associates. Roxanna, 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?

Roxanna Ramzipoor: The story of this book is a funny one, because it was never supposed to be a book. It wasn't a book, initially. Its conception was entirely accidental. Say what you will about fan fiction (personally, I disagree with George R. R. Martin's assertion that fan fic is a poor exercise for writers of a more "serious" nature), but I abide by the fandom commandment which clearly states in stone-etched granite that "Thou must write copious amounts of fan fiction." Indeed, I spend a good deal of daydreams with a lightsaber in hand, on the deck of the Black Pearl, thinking with portals, and dodging death traps with a fedora hanging onto my head for dear life. And, indeed, the main character of my novel was actually a supporting character I devised for a series of Sweeney Todd fan fics. While I was writing said fan fics, slowly falling in love with their monocolored, Frankensteinien setting, exploring this new character and loving him more every minute, and enjoying the way my friends (and a few people I didn't even know, which was odd) were responding to the material, I was slaving away on a young adult novel about Norse gods which I felt certain would be a bestseller. Well, the YA book went absolutely nowhere, and I was stuck with half-rate fan fics, cramped fingers, and a series of untouchable fantasies.

Which happens to be the such stuff dreams are made of.

I finally put two and two together, and while math has never been my strong suit, I think I might've come up with a passable answer, even if it's not correct to the very last decimal point. I said goodbye to Mr. Todd and wrote a novel using the MC I created for my fan fiction, devising a story around his life which is part Sherlock Holmes, part gothic novel, part "Strange Tales" adventure pulp, and part Indiana Jones. I didn't know if I was going to be able to find an agent for it, and a publisher was basically out of the question, at least in my mind, but I didn't think about any of that when I was writing the novel. I didn't think about readers, I didn't think about betas, I didn't think about all the people around me who would've hastened to exclaim how nuts I was if they happened to find out what I was writing. It was just me, my MC, ten gallons of sparkling water, and a weathered old keyboard. That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

And when all was said and done, I realized that I had written a love letter to the films and novels, classics and remakes, television shows and music, comics and video games, Asimov and Neal Stephenson, Dark Horse and Dracula, Mark Twain and Mary Shelly, Wilkie Collins and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, Harryhausen and Vincent Price and Neil Gaiman and National Treasure...everything that I've always loved, that have shaped my creative process and fed my desire to create.

If you're interested in learning more about my MC, you can browse his fan fictional origins here: http://secret-lab186.blogspot.com/

And you can check out some of the fan art a friend of mine did of him: http://browse.deviantart.com/?order=11&q=roddenstein#/d38ipow



QT: How long have you been writing?

RR: I've had this inane obsession with being a writer since the beginning of time. The odd thing was that I never thought of it as a profession. I was going to be an archaeologist when I was five, but I wanted to write for the local newspaper. I was going to be a neurologist when I was eight, but I wanted to write poetry like John Keats. I was going to be president when I was eleven, but I wanted to turn all of Shakespeare's plays into novels. Then, when I was twelve, I wrote my first novel. Actually, I'm not sure if I'd be so kind as to refer to it as a "novel." I can't say what it was. There were some words, and there was some punctuation, and that was about it. But even then, I never thought of writing as a profession.

Then I hit high school. When I was in tenth or eleventh grade, I won a short story contest and had my story published in the school newspaper. And something in me snapped. I wanted to be a writer. No, I wanted to be an author. I realized then that I'd always wanted to be an author. See, the human brain is weird; you can go your whole life knowing something and never knowing that you knew it until one day realizing that you've known it all along, even if you didn't know that you did. That's what happened to me. I think.



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

RR: It took me about a month to write the book, and another week or so to polish it up. I wrote it in between my college courses. Don't tell anyone, but I outlined the book during a math class and typed it up in my four-hour-every-Saturday history class. The terrible thing was that I had a professor who didn't really care for me--which I could never understand, since I'm so full of wit and charm and effortless modesty--and when the idea for the book hit me, I started vomiting some notes onto a piece of paper in the middle of class. She become irritated with my lack of participation, stopped class, grabbed my piece of paper, and prepared to rip it in half. By that time, about three fourths of the book was planned out on that paper. She must've seen the terror in my eyes because she relented, gave me a stern look, and went back to lecturing. After wiping the sweat off my brow, I darted out of the room to finish outlining in the saftey of the hallway, and I started typing as soon as I got home. I finished the first chapter that night.



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

RR: I wouldn't say that I ever felt like giving up, but there was always this little black raincloud chanting a mantra in my ear. "Who's gonna read this? Who's gonna buy this? Who's gonna read this? Who's gonna buy this?" But I was honestly having so much fun with the whole thing that I didn't really care if anyone read it or bought it. Well, that's never entirely true, of course, but the fun of the experience allowed me to overlook the negativity. Whenever I felt like I might feel like giving up, though, I had my sister to prop me up, and I looked to my hero, Tim Burton, another person with "weird" ideas and the determination not to part with them. That really helped. That, and copious amounts of asprin. For the headaches.

Speaking of Tim Burton, as I was throwing around the idea of writing this novel, I watched his film "Ed Wood" for the first time. It taught me that anything is impossible, but who the hell cares, anyway? That's probably the most valuable writing lesson I've ever learned.



QT: Is this your first book?

RR: Yes and no. I've written about a half a dozen "books," but this is the second one I've queried for.



QT: Do you have any formal writing training?

RR: Nope. The most formal training I had was going through my copy of Ray Bradbury's "Something Wicked This Way Comes" and trying to figure out how he did it.



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

RR: Not really. I write when I feel like it, which is most every day. Sometimes I have to wake up at six in the morning because an idea is smacking me in the head and won't let me sleep. Sometimes I write until four in the morning. Sometimes I can't write all day. Most of the time, though, I try to follow Stephen King's advice at put in at least 2,000 words a day. Yes, he gave me this advice personally. No, that last statement is not true.



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

RR: I did a global edit three times before querying, and I've done one partial re-write and one round of edits for my agent.



QT: Did you have beta readers for your book?

RR: You might find it odd, coming from a prospective author, but I'm very private about my work. I don't really like a lot of people reading it. That's mostly because, to tell you the truth, I don't care for my writing. I love the process of writing, I love the experience, I love exploring characters and creating locations and populating them with odd beings, but I don't know that I'm truly ever satisfied with the result. When someone reads my work and enjoys it, that's one of the greatest feelings in the world. But when I'm working and enjoying what I'm doing, that's the greatest feeling in the world. So, no, I didn't have any beta readers.



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

RR: I didn't outline it using any of the models they teach you in school or explain online; I drew a bunch of squares on a piece of paper and filled each square with stuff that I wanted to happen in that chapter. The margins of the paper (nay, the margins of every notebook, deskpad, sticky note, day planner, movie ticket, dollar bill, and receipt in my possession) were filled with stray ideas. But there's always going to be parts where you have to grind your boots into the dust, unholster your revolver, and fight it out. There were quite a few parts like that, actually, and those were some of the most challenging and fun to write.



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

RR: I started querying for this book on May 18. My agent offered representation on June 13.



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

RR: Sixty-four, according to good ole QueryTracker. This site saved my life, by the way. That's only a slight exaggeration.



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

RR: It helped if their agency represented someone I've heard of, but mostly I chose an agent based on whether they represented my genre. That helped, too. Astronomically. Once an agent asked for a partial or a full, however, I did more in-depth research so I'd be prepared if they called and asked about representation. It was helpful if they had a blog, because that was a great way to look at their personality, preferences as a reader, and work ethic. Reading their Twitter feed was helpful, too.



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

RR: Honestly, I know it's a good idea to do that, but I didn't do it. Maybe once or twice; I don't remember.



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

RR: Don't be afraid to do something different, odd, outlandish, insane. Don't be afraid to try a billion times. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Don't be afraid to have fun with it. Don't be afraid to write something that doesn't "fit the current market," as they say. Don't. Be. Afraid. And, as Winston Churchill said, "Never, never, never, never give up."



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

RR: I'm not 100% comfortable with doing that at this point. I'll give you this, though: It was an unconventional query, it didn't follow the traditional formula, and it wasn't written the way they tell you to do it on all those blogs and how-to sites. And it landed me tons of responses from some fantastic agents. So I repeat, don't be afraid to be different. It certainly paid off in my case.