Giving Thanks

No list this week. I have to stop, at least for a while.

I got a letter from an agent in California. He's willing to take a look at the first 50 pages of my book and a one-page synopsis. This is definitely not a "no." It's a very clear "maybe."

I'm keeping my expectations low. Odds are he'll take a pass. I expect to get a couple of agents willing to look at the book, but who will turn it down for any of a million reasons. It would be highly unlikely, I think, to get a rep without a little more suffering on my part.

Still, it's a start. It's the next level of disappointment and it's going to hurt more now.

On a side note: I'm also wondering if it was my revised query letter that got through. So far, I have not received any of the improved letters back with some kind of scrawl at the bottom wishing me the best of luck, but please don't stalk me. I'll have to check my notes on what I sent. If so... heh... guess who'll be getting letters again in about two months? Right. Everybody I've already pitched at.

Anyway, I'll be sending off what is requested and waiting through the holidays for a response. Best case scenario is he tells me to send the remainder, he loves it and we go into the business of making me a published author in 2009. That is what I want more than just about anything in the world.

If not, we'll resume sending out mailings in January. From several sources I've read agencies and publishers tend to feed stuff from the slush pile (the term for unsolicited manuscripts and the like) into the furnace at the first of the year. I was going to have to knock off soon anyway. With a little more luck, I'll have a crude first draft of my new novel, tentatively titled "The Snake handlers of Lee County" by January. That's what I'll work on through the Winter and maybe Spring.

So, as gloomy as it sounds like I'm being, this is really good news.