My Manuscript has a Body Count

My manuscript is bloody.  It's been hacked and cut and beaten.  It's had its guts pulled out and put back in.   And it's been retitled.  And retitled again.  My manuscript has a body count.

The fist casualty- subplots.  Some of these subplots were funny, others had shocking twists.  A select few even had some achingly beautiful prose.  But don't feel sorry for them either.  They were guilty as sin.  They distracted from the main character arcs, complicated the plot unnecessarily, stopped moving the story forward, or *gasp* were a little too convenient. In short, they had it coming.

The second casualty- characters.  Some lovely characters with invariably witty dialog and secret agendas.  The gay son of a macho warrior who gets off on disappointing his father and has a wicked sense of fashion?  Sadly, gone.  The little girl with magical healing powers that are never explained but critical to the climax of the story?  Axed.  Not that anyone really misses her.

The third casualty- werewolves.  What??  But this was a WEREWOLF book.  Surely the werewolves had to stay.  Nope.  The werewolves were guilty too. Turns out that the werewolves were weighing down the story with my own preconceived notions and baggage associated with the wolf mythology.  Getting rid of the wolves freed me up to reimagine the story and focus on the characters.  And as a bonus, no bestiality undertones!

The fourth casualty-almost the entire second half.  Forty thousand words. Some of them really good words, but words that didn't serve the main characters or conflict. Some great scenes died here.  And I can't lie. It was bloody. 

The fifth casualty- fear.  You'd think with all this cutting and shredding, that there would be no getting rid of the fear.  And at first, there was a lot-seriously, a lot- of fear.  Fear of cutting out some of the best parts of the book.  Fear that I couldn't write anything better or even as good.  That fear was killed off the old-fashioned way.  Not by slashing (even though I wished I could), but by creating.  Writing.  Who new that writing could be such a powerful weapon?

So don't worry about my manuscript and it's body count.  It's fully recovered.

And then some.

In which my manuscript becomes the Bachelorette

I have been submitting my paranormal YA for a few months now. There have been many hopeful meetings with producers (queries) that led to a few callbacks (requests for partials) and even a few dates with the Bachelor (agents who read the full). There was even one meet the parents that was so close, but alas, the Bachelor did not choose me.

And then something strange happened. All of a sudden I had not one, but two agents requesting revisions and offering to look again. Then an offer from one. Then an offer from a third agent. Everything seemed crazy and possible, and for a week I could barely think straight. My manuscript, like Tristan, got to be the Bachelorette.

So yes, you really can find a match on a reality TV show, I mean, through the querying process. I am pleased to announce that I am now represented by the wonderful Sarah Davies at the Greenhouse Literary Agency! http://www.greenhouseliterary.com

For those who are querying take heart. I did not know Sarah. I didn't know anyone who knew Sarah. I did not attend a conference where Sarah was speaking. Nope. I did things the old fashioned way. I sent a blind query + 5 pages, following the submission guidelines on her website.

Before querying, I did read her blog and several interviews with her available online. I spent some time on writer forums to get a feel for the buzz about her, and I felt confident that she would be a good fit for my work. I continued to do research even after sending my query, only to see a comment from another writer that Sarah had recently said she was seeing way too many werewolf/shapeshifter books. My heart sank. Yes, I had sent her a werewolf/shapeshifter book. So I wrote that query off.

Then, I got an email in my box from Sarah's co-agent in the UK, Julia Churchill. Julia said she was reading Sarah's mail while Sarah was at a conference, and that she liked the pages. So I sent them out, thinking I was lucky that someone else was reading the mail, but that Sarah would probably reject me pretty quickly.

Not so. Turns out, Sarah had read my query originally, but was on the fence about it because of the subject matter. She liked the sample pages enough to send it to Julia for a second opinion. So I was lucky that Julia liked the pages too.

Sarah went out on a limb to offer representation, even though we agreed that the manuscript would have to undergo a pretty significant revision before it could be submitted to publishers. Sarah's experience as an editor (she has worked with Phillip Pullman and Meg Cabot!) gave me complete confidence in her judgment. I agreed with her comments, and feel like the revisions are going to take this book to a level far beyond my original vision.

Finding an agent who believes in you is a major milestone for any writer. Finding someone who believes in you AND is willing to put the time in to make your work sing. That's priceless.

So, I am of course thrilled, excited and bouncing off the walls.

But enough gushing.

I have work to do. My poor characters have no idea what's coming...

A Day Late

I am in the midst of a massive head cold. Probably not the best time to fly. I have to keep my day job, so today I found myself flying to LA and back for a meeting. No, not a meeting with movie execs or publishers, just an ordinary everyday business meeting.

On the first flight I downed cough drops and orange juice, loading myself up enough to survive both an Amazing Race-style cab ride through East L.A. (we only just missed entering the freeway going the wrong direction, and only because I was screaming wildly from the back seat), and a two hour meeting with a potential new client. I faked my way through the meeting on Adrenaline alone.

It was the ride back that killed me. I thought my head was going to explode during the last twenty minutes of the flight, just like that movie from the 80s where the psychic's head blows up? I was pretty sure it was gonna happen. I was almost hoping for it.

But none of that was the worst part of my trip...

Nope.

That honor goes to the moment when walked into the Airport bookstore and saw a hot new YA novel with almost the exact title of my WIP. My wonderful, amazing, completely original, blow-your-mind (not literally this time) high concept?

So done.

At least the story was not at all similar, which gave me some hope. My husband is thrilled now that I'm now forced to go back to my alternate title, which he always thought was better.

Still. I feel so violated.