Apr 27, 2011

good news.

So, I have some very good news. (Drumroll please!)

....(brum da dum)..........(brum da dum).................

I got an offer of representation! I just had a phone call with a wonderful agent who loves the manuscript and wants to shop it to a bunch of different editors. While I would really love to go into detail about this right now, I need to wait until the situation becomes a final, done deal.
But yes, I'm very excited at this HUGE step on my way to becoming a published author.

Apr 22, 2011

the see-saw of submitting

Sending your work out into the world can be a bit like riding an off-kilter, unpredictable see-saw. There's the sweat and blood of writing and revising. Then more revising. And more. Then the sweaty fingertips as you type up query letters and send them off to agents, praying that your pitch will grab their attention. Then there's the waiting. For minutes, hours, days, weeks. Sometimes months.
Then the responses come. Inevitably there are rejections. It doesn't matter if they're form or personalized, the letter always stings. But there are some rejections that are much more crushing than others. These are the rejections that come after faint (and sometimes bold) glimmers of hope. An agent requested pages, wants to read more and loves your voice, but ultimately passes for some vague reason that is more often than not out of your control (Agents love talking about "chemistry" with a book. If they don't feel that spark then they don't bite.)
Last week, the see-saw decided to turn. It's funny that when bad things happen, they seem to take place all at once (your windshield cracks, your boss schedules you on days you need off, etc). Well, so do good things. On Saturday I entered a Twitter contest held by Maggie Stiefvater and managed to win a signed and doodled copy of her book "Ballad"! It's one of those things I always enter but never actually expect to win!
Then on Tuesday, after a day at the beach with my family, I logged into my email to get a message from an agent who read my full. At first I thought the email was a rejection, but as I read further my heart began to race and the realization set it. She wanted a phone call!
Phone calls with agents are a big deal. It means your manuscript stood out enough to catch their attention. It means they were in some way touched by what they read, enough so to take time out of their schedule to talk to the author. Sometimes, they also mean an offer of representation.
So, I have a few more days until the call itself. I'm catching up on my research, figuring out questions to ask the agent while I'm on the phone with her and refreshing myself on the manuscript itself (it's been a few months since I last worked on it).
I'll be back next week with more news of the see-saw. Hopefully it will be up!

Apr 16, 2011

the last leg.

With the impending arrival of Palm Sunday, Lent is beginning to wind down. So far I've spent a total of 5.5 weeks without writing. Here are some things I've learned from it.

1. I can't NOT write: While this period of writing abstinence has been good and quite insightful, I know for a fact that I could never voluntarily stop creating stories and characters. They keep popping in my head... Fighting them off and holding them back only create an ache that I want so badly to stop.

2. I must find other creative outlets: I've baked homemade granola, revamped a shirt from the thrift store with my amateur sewing skills, painted a picture with Indian ink and jotted down a few awkward poems (poetry was never my forte). Also, slightly unrelated to that, I bought a bike and started zooming around town on it. On the flipside of this, I've realized that writing takes up a good deal of my time. Not that I mind.

3. Working on my current WIP is the best way to distract myself from pending submissions: I've spent more than a fair amount of time on QueryTracker... poring over the statistics of the agents who have my MS. Sigh. I must get back to LIGHT OF THE SOUTHERN SUN soon or I'm going to become a permanent fixture on that site of obsessive waiting.

4. I will be very happy when Easter comes. (Self-explanatory)

I have had some more bites on GODMOTHER, so hopefully those will evolve into some very good news soon! Another lovely occurrence that happened today is that I won a doodled copy of Ballad from Maggie Stiefvater via a Twitter contest. Awesomeness!

Off to spend my Saturday reading and praying on a rainy porch.

Apr 2, 2011

lent

Storytelling. It's in my blood.
I love consuming stories-whether they be in the written word or conveyed through the screen of a television. I love telling stories.
But sometimes, it's easy to get too wrapped up in this cycle of consuming and telling. Which is why I decided to take a break from writing for Lent. 40 days (well, really 46, but who's counting?) without writing.
As of now we're about halfway to Easter, and I'm aching to write. It's almost agonizing, keeping myself from my WIP and any other writing project. Some might call this abstinence from art foolish or detrimental, but I know that this detox will only make my writing (and my life) better in the long run. What good is writing if it's the only thing you do? Life is and should be so much more than that. I shouldn't define myself in my success (or lack thereof) as a writer.
So these 6 weeks are teaching me to rest, to read, to contemplate. My characters will be waiting for me when I return. They will be as griping and demanding as ever. Perhaps they will give me a rough time for abandoning them for so long. But who knows. For now I'm resting, and trusting that my art will be better for it.