THE AGENT HAS LANDED

After a long weekend of waiting, a day and a half of voicemail, answering machines, and email messages, I finally won the game of phone tag with dream agent, only to be told, “Can I call you back in two minutes? I’m on the other line.” What’s two minutes when I’ve been obsessing for four days? Sure thing.Two minutes later, the phone rings. She loves Crash Test,...
read more

Torture, Thy Name is Email

Dream agent sent me an email this afternoon. She wants to talk with me about Crash Test. She’s leaving the office early today, so she wants me to call her on Tuesday.All together now for a primal scream: AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!This waiting thing may actually kill me. I’m going to have to snap on the surgical gloves this weekend to preserve what little intact cuticle I...
read more

Confession Time

I am a bad writer.I don’t mean bad writer in the sense of my writing is bad (at least, I hope that’s not the case), but that I am bad. I do bad things. I do not have an appropriately writerly persona.Take journaling, for instance. I have lots of journals. Lovely journals. Journals with just the right kind of paper, the creamy velvety kind that calls to you in a sultry voice,...
read more

Why Today?

My husband is a lovely, lovely man. One of the annoying things he has to put up with is a little game we’ve developed. “Why today?” I’ll ask him, and he’s supposed to respond with one little reason he loves me today. Occasionally, he’ll pop the “Why today? question on me, but usually, he’s the one on the hot seat. Ah, the neuroses of adult love.In...
read more

"Life IS pain, Highness"

One of the more fun exchanges in one of my more favorite movies, The Princess Bride, goes like this:Buttercup: “You mock my pain! Never do it again.”Man in Black: “Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.”That Westley’s onto something. Turns out I haven’t heard from dream agent because my manuscript arrived in New York,...
read more

STILL Waiting…

So I think, “What the hell!” and email an editor I’ve been courting about my book. She says yes, please send me the full! (Go me!) Then I email the agent I’ve been courting (still no word, and only three days until the 30-day exclusive expires) to tell her about the editor and she emails back with “Good for you!” And that’s it. No phone call? No auction?...
read more