I'm excited. I can't help but be. I'm one week away from having my very "own" literary agent.
One week.
All these different ideas keep running through my head. I keep adding items to a list that I hope to go over with my agent--when she officially becomes "my" agent.
I feel like it is inevitable that I will sign with her, but right now I am doing my due diligence, waiting for the agents I previously queried and the other one who requested a full to respond to my notification of an offer of representation. It would be nice to have multiple offers, of course--but right now I'm so excited to move forward with this agent that waiting to hear back from other agents is SO hard.
This process has involved so much waiting. When we writers imagine getting an agent and getting published--novice, unpublished writers, I should say--we don't think about all the waiting between the various steps. We work our butts off to write a story and edit it. (and wait between various editing stages) We research literary agents and write query letters. (and wait anywhere from hours to months to never to hear back from agents) We keep querying, reworking our query letters, researching literary agents, and waiting to hear back. It takes weeks, months, years. I've been querying since 2016...or 2012...I'd have to check my records. (I gave up a few times, though)
Now I am . .<this close to having an agent and the waiting is so much more intense because of the nearness of my goal.
The future has lots of waiting in store, too. Waiting for my agent to read through my manuscript and note whatever work needs to be done. Waiting for those edits to be reviewed. Waiting for my agent to finish her submission package. Waiting for editors to respond to the submission package. Waiting for meetings to happen. Waiting for my turn to come on the publisher's publishing schedule. Waiting. Waiting.
But that stage of waiting feels so much more active. Because while I'm waiting for all of those steps to occur and fade into the next phase, I'll be working on my next project and my next project. :)))))))))) I'm doing that now...but, honestly, some part of my has this tiny, tinny fear that my agent will back out and choose not to become my agent. That I will have somehow missed my chance and stay in this stage of waiting.
I think my writing and my...destiny, you could say, have been waiting for me for a while. Waiting for me to be ready. Waiting for me to accept myself. I accepted myself this year. I admitted, after trying to give up writing as impractical and unlikely--unreliable, unpredictable--that I am a fantasy writer. Everything else that I do to make money is not my vocation; whether it is a 9 to 5 or not, it's my side hustle. I'm a fantasy writer. I have to live like that. I have to write.
In March of this year, I decided that I would self-publish my book, The Monster Within, this July/August. I started working on the cover art, trying to find an illustrator and trying to be my own graphic artist. I took a couple online courses. I was planning to go all-in and market my book the best I could. I needed the closure so that I could move on to my next book. Then I heard about the Twitter pitch contests and decided to try a couple.
And some agents were interested. So I decided to do one last round of queries.
And it worked. An agent expressed interest and stayed interested after she read my full.
I've been working on a full outline for book two of this series...or as full of an outline as I'm capable of creating. (I hate writing out information that I am intensely aware of. It seems unnecessary.) When I am brainstorming and outlining, I write tons of notes. So I've been looking through my 2017 and 2018 notes for this book two...Man, my writing and my vision are so different now. What I was making my story into in those notes is nothing like what it is now. And I think that is probably why I didn't get an agent back then...as well as the fact that my first pages are now much smoother and my query covers the first 30-ish pages of my manuscript instead of the first 100. I think I just really wasn't ready in 2012, 2016, 17, 18. Now I am. My book hasn't changed much in the last 3 or so years, but I have. Now I can write the story I actually wanted to write back then.
I'm -<this close to having an agent. -.<this close to being published. -.-<this close to expanding the world of The Monster Within through book two. ----<this close to finishing that world and creating the other worlds that have existed for years as a blurb on paper and a feeling in my heart. I'm so close.
I don't know if you have faith in anything outside of yourself, whether you're spiritual, religious, mystical. But keep trying. Keep going. If you know that you are meant for something, when your heart can't let it go, don't give up. You might just be ----<this close and not even realize it. Maybe you just aren't ready for it yet.