I’m sitting here trying to think of how to write this blog post and I’m totally blanking. I’ve started it probably four times. Five if you count this time.
Do I talk about how many novels I wrote before I wrote the one I finally started querying? Do I talk about the novels I queried first, the ones that didn’t help me get a literary agent? Do I talk about how proud I was of the first one, and how I felt like the second was the best I could manage at that time but didn’t live up to the first one? How that made me feel like I might lose my touch? Do I talk about my query stats? Across all the books I’ve queried or just the one that ended with an offer of representation? Do I copy what I did on Twitter and name all the people I want to thank for being my friends and my support network and my first readers and occasionally my scolders and, again, always, forever, my friends?
Chances are if you’re reading my blog, you’re a writer. So you probably already know this, but for the people who might stumble in here who aren’t writers (hi, mom), once an agent makes an offer of representation it’s standard to ask for two weeks before you answer that offer so that you can nudge other agents to give them the chance to finish reading your book and decide whether to counter-offer or not. My offer came just before Thanksgiving, so my nudge period had an extra week tacked on in consideration of the holiday.
That means I’ve had three weeks to plan what I’d say here, and I didn’t even think of it until just now.
I’m so proud and so lucky to get to make any kind of announcement like this:
I’m now represented by Chris Bucci at Aevitas Creative Management! Talking with him on the phone about my Lake Erie hotel horror-suspense novel, The Cut, was amazing—everything he said about my work, both from an artistic standpoint and from a business standpoint, drove home that he is absolutely the best agent to work with to get my books out there. I’m thrilled to be working on revisions he suggested, and I’m so excited for everything that comes next.
(Also it feels very strange to not be obsessively checking my inbox anymore)