Wordwrought – One Writer's Journey

Chronicling my traditional publishing journey

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Author of Fantasy Novels, High, Cozy, and Urban varieties! Rep’d by Tricia Skinner of Fuse Literary!!!
  • My Journey in Traditional Publication Starts Here

    My Journey in Traditional Publication Starts Here

    “Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don’t have to make speeches. Just believing is usually enough“ – Stephen King

    November 2024. That’s when I stopped being a “writer” and became someone who actually writes. Every night after tucking my wife and three daughters into bed here in the forested mountains of northeast Pennsylvania, I’d pour myself something warm and sit down at the keyboard. Usually two hours at a minimum. Every single night.

    The result? Four completed novels, one novella, and another book in progress. Three of those novels written since April 2025 alone.

    But who the hell am I to be talking about this?

    Fair question. My name is Allan Kaspar. I’ve been writing since I was six years old (my first act of literary rebellion: changing the ending of a Winnie the Pooh story because it pissed me off. We all start somewhere, usually in fanfic). Right now, I’m still chasing the dream of making this my day job. But I can say with confidence (backed by actual data) that I’m on the right track.

    Why I’m Writing This

    Kevin Hearne, author of the Iron Druid Chronicles, shared his traditional publishing journey fifteen years ago when he set out to publish Hounded. Those observations changed everything for me. If my journey goes somewhere and I end up published, you can blame Kevin.

    Now I want to do the same. Not because I’ve “made it” (spoiler: I haven’t), but because I’m in the trenches right now, learning what works and what doesn’t. And if you’re reading this, you’re probably in those trenches too.

    Where I Am Now

    This July, I completed A Cook’s Guide to Supernatural Philadelphia. My cozy urban fantasy about Mac Sullivan, former sidekick to a cosmic hero who saved the world back in May 2024. Now Mac’s trying to figure out what the hell to do with his life post-apocalypse-that-didn’t-happen. His solution? Invest in a magic-powered food truck with a GPS that has the attitude of a snarky teenager.

    The book is currently on the query journey. I’ve sent about 20 query letters to literary agents, and here’s where things stand:

    • 2 requests for full manuscript (agents read my five-page preview and said “send me everything”)
    • 3 requests for partials (agents wanted the first fifty pages)
    • 1 full manuscript (for a different novel, not part of this specific journey) out with another agent since Memorial Day weekend (yes, I’m still waiting. Welcome to publishing, where patience isn’t a virtue, it’s a requirement. Masochists welcome.)

    For context: previous novels I queried? Twenty queries sent, twenty “thanks but no thanks” responses.

    This progression—from zero interest to multiple requests—tells me something’s clicking. Each novel gets stronger responses. The Favor and the Flame, the romantasy I wrote before A Cook’s Guide, landed my first full manuscript request in May. Now I’m getting multiple fulls and partials per round.

    The trajectory is there. Which makes this the perfect time to bring you along.

    What Happens While You Wait

    Publishing moves at glacial speed, so while A Cook’s Guide sits in agents’ inboxes, I’ve been writing:

    • The sequel: A Cook’s Guide to Supernatural Succession—a cozy urban fantasy murder mystery (completed). I may share some of my favorite excerpts
    • Book three: A Cook’s Guide to Cosmic Consequences. I’m three chapters in, where Mac has to confront the fallout from actually saving the world

    What’s Coming

    Later this week, I’ll share the query letter that’s been getting these bites. According to a recent agent nudge, it just landed another full request.

    This is where the journey gets real. Buckle in.

    Questions? Reach out on Threads or drop a comment. I want to hear from you as we navigate this together.hear from you as we take this journey together!

    Al

  • While we wait…

    Hey readers/writers!

    It’s been a bit, for sure. The reasoning is pretty sound though! I had another large batch of edits to do, mainly because of Trish and my “Kill your darlings!” Edit pass 🙂

    I may have mentioned this previously, but it’s pretty wild how much tighter the book became with some really strategic cuts. Despite having to do significant rewrites, I do think it made the book (and Mac’s journey) even more fun of an experience for the reader.

    So what’s next? Well, I’m waiting to hear back from Trish on the latest batch of edits, and see if we’re ready to start pitching the book around. The infamous “going on submission” 🙂 Fingers crossed we’re ready for kickoff there!

    But in the meantime, I’ve been playing around with two projects, and finally settled into the one I want to do. Believe it or not, this is an epic fantasy that I’ve had in mind for a long time. But what about Cozy Fantasy you ask? Well I actually have the sequel to Mac’s adventures written, but it would need another draft to get it ready for prime time. I also have another idea about a dragon chasing estate sales to get their hoard back, that’s got some writing done already.

    But the epic fantasy is one I’m really enjoying diving into. It’s basically Wizards Meets Goodfellas in a high fantasy world. Wizard families controlling magic, run like a mafia, and being the real power in a huge fantasy city? Where even the King must bow to their whims and play their games? That’s just fun all around to play with. And I have a rough idea of the arc I want our MC to go through from start to finish, and it’s going to be, well, pretty epic!

    Other than that, it’s keeping myself busy with other projects while we wait 🙂 Until then, keep writing, writers, and follow me on threads!

  • What is it like having a literary agent? (Part 1)

    I was asked this question the other day and I found myself walking away and really thinking about the question. What is it like having a literary agent? Well, I have to preface this with a caveat: It is very early in my journey as an agented author.

    I signed with Tricia Skinner and Fuse Literary back in March. Which is why I titled this entry “part 1”, because I know there is a lot of road ahead here. And frankly, that’s what has me so excited every time I think about it. In previous entries, I explained that we were deep in the editing process. I sent the last batch of edits I did (which was a BUNDLE) to Trish at the end of June.

    She was in the process of reading and editing 2 other manuscripts. She let me know towards the end of July that she was back to reading the latest version of my manuscript. I gotta be real? I’m just as excited (and nervous) as the last two rounds. And the reason for that? Is pretty god damn special.

    In our previous phone chat while we were talking editing strategy at the start of June? She said something that really ignited some fire inside my core: “I love this book, and these characters so much, and I want to give it the best possible chance we can at getting picked up.”

    That’s a powerful as hell statement. It’s one thing when you hear friends and family and even beta readers say they enjoyed reading something you wrote. But hearing that from someone who literally reads, edits, sells books for a living? That really left a mark for me. No matter how many hours I’ve spent editing, or just going through it asking myself over and over if this is the best it can be? I keep hearing that in my head. My agent loves this book.

    So what’s it like having a literary agent? It’s pretty damn motivating. And it’s awesome. And I know it’s still early, and there’s a lot of road ahead. Having someone that believes in your book, believes it’s special and wants it to shine? Man talk about motivation. It’s also done something else. In the almost 6 months I’ve been represented by Tricia Skinner?

    I’ve grown in leaps as a writer, like hyperspeed on my writing space highway.

    I’ve been working on a new book for the past month, and every piece of advice, encouragement, and editing tips Trish has given me so far, ring over and over in my head as I write. My writing is a world away from where it was, just one year ago. I’ve said it a few times now but,

    I’m really excited to see where this journey goes.

    What? This is my excited face!

  • Find your tense, and rock it.

    This is probably self-explanatory, but when you’re writing a story or a book, you should be comfortable with the tense you’re writing in. For early drafts of A Cook’s Guide to Supernatural Philadelphia, I had a go at First Person, Present Tense. Full transparency, I just wanted to try something different. In the end I still wrote a good manuscript (as far as early drafts go), good enough to attract the interest of my current agent, Tricia Skinner.

    But once we got deep into the editing phase, a few things were apparent right off the bat. For one thing: this was writing WAY outside of my comfort zone. Really, the majority of books I read are either: First Person, Past Tense, or told 3rd Person from a particular character’s perspective and mind. When I tried to flip that around, I hit a lot of issues (that I didn’t realize at the time):

    Tense slips: there were points throughout where my brain was desperate to go back to what I was comfortable doing, and I slipped into past tense (at one point it happened twice in the same chapter!

    This also resulted in a LOT of passive-voice instances that just sounded rough when you re-read the book. After some amazing back and forth feedback sessions with Trish, I came to an obvious conclusion: I needed to restructure the WHOLE book to be First Person, Past Tense. That took a few weeks. But it also made it easy to spot those awful passive-voice pieces and write them in proper active voice (again, I’m just more comfortable writing this way. It’s good to challenge ourselves, but sometimes, you gotta stick with what works for your brain).

    It was a crazy month for me on the personal front. Some health issues with my Dad, and then our three daughters are home from school for the summer. Somehow I still managed to re-write and patch up my entire book over the course of about 2.5 weeks. I probably put in almost 80 hours of editing work in the last week of June alone.

    I just sent the latest edits off to Trish, and I’m excited for her feedback. When we spoke on the phone, Trish asked me flat out: Do you handle deadlines well? Do they make you more productive? I said they did, and they do. “You know what you need to do based on that feedback. Get it done by the end of the month.” I sent the edits in this past Sunday, June 28th. Just like in my day job, I tend to be prompt, and try to deliver ahead of schedule.

    Anyway, as the title says: Know your tense. If you’re going to color outside the lines of what you’re used to tense-wise, you should probably read a LOT MORE books from that perspective than I did 😉

    Keep writing, writers!

  • Edits – Round 2

    Hey writers and readers! It’s been about a month or so, but I have a good excuse for that…it’s called *drumroll* THE EDITING PROCESS (DUN DUN DUN)

    Superagent Trish has been a hell of a General, pushing me to keep running up Curahee (Band of Brothers reference) until I get this damn thing shining! Her patience with my first round tendencies to slip into Passive Voice (I blame my day job for this lol) is exemplary.

    But the results are impossible to argue. I’ve been able to expand and “show” a lot more about the MC and the characters in this book that I love so deeply. And the story is shaping up to be something incredible and I’m so eager to get on the path to sharing this with the world (read: pitch to editors/publishers)

    I have to keep this one short, because the goal is to finish our shape up of this book by end of June, and then start pitching. So it’s back to the scribes table to make this perfect.

    Remember, fellow writers, another great piece of advice from Stephen King: The Editor is Always Right (unless they’re like, a scammer or something). Go in with that attitude and understand where they’re coming from. Trish hasn’t been wrong yet.

    Time to get back to it! Hoping to have more updates soon!

    Pictured: Me Sporting my Mega64 shirt that I got at PAX East 2026, and my “yup, keep smiling, keep editing, ya dingus” face on.

  • Edits (round 1) are off to my Agent!

    Hey y’all!

    It’s been awhile since I updated, but that’s because I’ve been KNEE DEEP IN ALL THE EDITS! Trish (my agent) had done an initial read through (after the one where she read it and wanted to represent me) and she had a lot of great feedback. I’ve mentioned this before in another post, but there was a LOT of work to do.

    Work that resulted in a ton of changes. some of it was adverb slaying (I really don’t want to make that mistake again lol). But a lot involved really looking at some core pieces that I hadn’t spent enough time on. One of which is describing my characters more. I tended to paint character description with a broad brush and try to bring their character out in dialogue and mannerisms. But it was really fun to sit myself down and say, “OK Al, write down what you see in your head when Dave Kowalski, the Baron of Barbeque, walks on the scene.” And then actually doing that.

    I also tended to lean on Mac’s (the main character) introspection and inner voice in situations a bit too much. Which resulted in some repetitive thoughts intruding on the page. Sure, he probably IS thinking these things, but he doesn’t need to bore the reader with it for the fourth time 🙂

    All this to say, I purposely went into editing with a very open mind, and the attitude that I wasn’t going to hold anything “too precious to be changed.” Taking that attitude allowed me to take a chainsaw to the book where it was needed, to patch things up in a way that made it stronger, and I think A Cook’s Guide to Supernatural Philadelphia is better now than it ever was!

    Adverbs are the devil when left unchecked 😉