Cloud 9,000

I got perhaps the best news of my writing career this afternoon.


About a month ago—it seems far longer!—I got in touch with a reputable literary agency in New York. A friend of a friend worked there, and I sent them my query letter, and they responded with enthusiasm. (Which pretty much on its own put me into a manic state.) I sent them the manuscript.

And I waited.

And I waited.

And I waited.

It’s hard for me to be patient or realistic with such things; I had sent them a manuscript that was about the same length as Moby Dick, and I was in near-suicidal despair when they hadn’t responded after a week. (OK, maybe it wasn’t that bad, but it wasn’t far off; I was checking my email pretty regularly, and checking the spam filters too, just to be safe.) I completely lost track of how much time had elapsed; if it weren’t for the time stamps on the emails, I wouldn’t believe it has been under a month.

But there was an email in my inbox today; after the salutations, it read:

"I want you to know that I’m almost finished with Part 3 of Resistance and will surely be finished by the time I get back from the Thanksgiving holiday. I am really enjoying the manuscript! I have some notes that I’m writing up and will, again, share those with you as soon as I’m back from the holiday. Please hold tight and thank you for your patience!

Have a very happy Thanksgiving!"

Now, I’ve never gotten to the point of having a respectable agent read and like my manuscript, and have serious notes and comments in the works. So I dashed off a quick reply thanking her, and telling her that her email had made my day, my week and my month. I then updated my facebook status to indicate that I was “on Cloud 9,000.”

I did stick to my evening routine, which felt good; I’m even making a point of writing this, just to do some writing today, because that habit—aping a lot of far more successful writers who have gone before me—is what’s even allowed me to get to this point. I’m trying to stay present, rather than scripting scenarios of and talk show appearances and book tours, and book tour groupies piling in to the back of the Resistance tour bus. There’s a lot that has to happen before I get to that point.

But right now, things are going as well as possible. Happy Thanksgiving, indeed!