Back to The World of the Living!

I am back!  I was sick for so long I was beginning to think this was how my life was going to be.  And just when I thought I was over it, the larygngitis came on.  My kids loved it...there was no way I could yell at them to clean their rooms or pick up after themselves and somehow pointing strenuously in the direction of the stairs just didn't carry the same weight.  As for work?  Fuhgeddaboudit!  Working as I do mostly on the phone it was just an excercise in futility.

But I do have good news.  I am trying to remain nonchalant about it but I am so excited I might scream.  I received an email, just today as a matter of fact, from the killer agent I met at the Southern California Writer's conference I attended a couple months ago, Brianne Ogden from Martin Literary Management.  She had previously told me she wanted to get back in touch with me in November as she had another conference in October and the first part of November and would be tied up.  I hadn't heard anything and was wondering if she forgot about me and maybe that was a polite blow-off when the email came today!!!! Cue the heavenly orchestra!!  It was NOT a blow-off after all.

She said in the email she would love to see The Ghost and the Guy if it already wasn't with an agent.  Already with an agent?  Are you kidding me??  I was TOTALLY WAITING FOR HER????  She is at the top of my "A" list!  I am going to work on the manuscript all day tomorrow and make it SING and them drop it in the mail firs thing Monday morning.  Hopefully, I'll beat the holiday mail freezeup for Thanksgiving.

And we shall see what happens.  I love the story.  I hope she does too.  Stay tuned my good friends, stay tuned.

Oh God, Have I Been Sick!

The last time I missed this many days of work was when I had just given birth!  The worst part of it for me was no matter how longingly I looked at my laptop, I just couldn't bring myself to write, much less sit up!  I missed a week's worth of writing time.

i realize I wasn't even holding down solid food so this might sound ridiculous, but in hindsight all I remember is all those precious hours I had at home NOT WORKING when I could have been writing.  I have conveniently forgotten the fact that I was very occupied being so sick I wanted to die, thank you very much.  That's how much writing means to me.  I guess I must be a true writer after all.

Reminds me a little of how I used to feel after I was sick when I was a smoker.  I knew I was feeling better when I was wanting a cigarette again.  I don't smoke anymore, haven't for more than ten years now, but the craving is the same.  I knew I felt better when the urge to feel the keyboard under my fingers grew stronger and harder to ignore.  Funny.  Now writing is my habit of choice, my drug.  Now words are my fix.

Ha ha.  I'm a literary junkie.  I quite like that.

Getting back In There

I was reading some of the blogs of my fellow writers and was happy to see that Corrine Jackson landed an agent: Laura Bradford of the Laura Bradford Literary Agency.  Today is also my birthday.  So I am celebrating both of those things.

I submitted an ms to Ms. Bradford before and she requested a partial.  She passed on it but I am pleased to see her offer representation to a fellow writer, and a fellow YA writer at that.

Cory Jackson's blog is really fun to read and she passed on some great tips about writing the dreaded query letter.  I am going to try it with my most recent novel, The Ghost and the Guys, which I am considering renaming The Girl, The Ghost and The Guys.  I don't know who she got her tips from but they are worth passing on, so here goes:

1. Make your query about your protag and her/his problem.
2. What they are going to do about their problem.
3. What conflicts keep them from reaching their goal.
4. What are the stakes?  What happens if they don't succeed and why the reader should care.
5. Talk about the characters and their struggles, not the plot.

I am re-writing my query as we speak and hope to get some requests based on a new query letter.  Wish me luck!

Does the HuffPost Lie? or REALLY????

So I was reading the Huffington Post the other day.  I always read the Books section and I came across an article about a $2.5 million dollar advance paid by Sonny Mehta from the Alfred Knopf publishing house.  Now while the advance was enough to blow me away, you won't believe what they paid for.  On the strength of a writer's four page proposal, this advance was paid.

A FOUR PAGE PROPOSAL!

The book has not even been written!  If you believe the article, and I really have no reason not to, it's the Huffington Goddamn Post, there was no outline, no other pages, no chapters, no nothing.  And this was a work of fiction.  The author is Kiran Desai, whose second book was The Inheritance of Loss, the Booker Prize for 2006.  Clearly, they expect the same for this next book, to be called The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny.


I don't know whether to be bouyed or deflated by this news.  Should I be happy and think, Oh, this could happen for me?  Or should I think, ARE YOU SERIOUSLY KIDDING ME?  and HOW IN THE HELL DO I COMPETE WITH THAT?

I prefer the former.