Agents, research, and finishing up Chapter ten (or not)

Meet Matthew. He's dreamy. But in my book, he's more of a father figure to the main heroine, and saves her ass more than once because of the stupid things she does.

Chapter ten is taking me far too long. I completely lied to myself when I said that the chapters would get shorter, because with the scenes I actually planned plus the scenes that I seem to need, it may just end up being the longest chapter yet (over 11,000 words). 

Sigh. 

I think the word count of my book may turn into a problem. I know that some authors mentioned prospective agents complaining at 130,000 words, which may very well end up being the word count of my rough draft... there goes my word budget of 100,000. Oh well. 

As for my novel's development, I'm kind of glancing at it every so often, wishing that there were more to glance at. I have so many ideas bursting to be written down, and I have to keep reminding myself that there's only 8 days standing between me and complete writing freedom! There are 15 Chapters, and I do have a lot of the upcoming chapters partially written, which makes starting each chapter a little less intimidating. 

Anyone writing a book? I guess just out of experience I have a few tips. Advice that you may or may not take, that may or may not be helpful. I'm writing them anyways. I hope they're helpful. Here's my first one:

Tip: If there are scenes burning in your imagination, begging to be written, WRITE THEM DOWN. Don't hesitate or worry about writing the book from beginning to end. Don't worry about the plot changing slightly. Write the scenes you can't stop replaying in your head, and then worry about "sewing" them together. You can always change the details slightly if the plot has grown more complicated. 

I sent out a query letter to one agent so far, Maya Rock from Writers House, and got a very swift rejection letter. No hard feelings, I kind of expected it (being my first query and all) and if anyone out there is looking for a good agent, Maya Rock seems pretty legit to me. 

It doesn't hurt so much that one agent rejected me, but it scares me to think that NO agent will accept my queries. It's terrifying, when you're up late at night pouring your heart into a story, knowing that there's a very real possibility that it will never see the light of day, that people will never read it. But I guess that's where the love of the game comes in. 

There's a saying I heard about musicians that I think applies to writing (and many other professions that may or may not pay off monetarily in the end) and it goes something like this: You are a musician because you can't picture yourself doing anything else. I think it was phrased a lot better when I heard it, but you get the gist of it. 

And I do love writing, like August Rush loves music: More than food.