So, it’s been a little while. I’m sorry about that. I really am, because a good part of writing this blog is my desire not to forget a single second of this process. I want to live it, not just rush through it so that all I remember are the millions of email checks and the anxiety.

In the last few weeks, I’ve revised my novel with my agent. A major revision that went so smoothly. I cut about 5,000 words and added 10,000. Part of me was a little afraid that I was revising out whatever made my book special. Okay, more than a little afraid.

At some point (I hope), I’ll figure how to just believe that this is happening. I’m actively working on that. Finding success as a writer isn’t a fluke. No one is going to realize I don’t deserve it and take it away from me.

All I have to do is what I’ve always done. Write. Everyday. Read. Everyday. Read like a writer. Write like a reader. Be willing to learn and grow and be vulnerable to rejection.Then even if this book, in the end, doesn’t sell, I won’t fall apart. I’m not a one book wonder.

I’ve heard from my agent that my manuscript is ready to go. (That was good.) I need to write a few paragraphs this weekend about the full story arc in the hopes of convincing an editor that there is a sequel or two in my future. If everything goes as planned my book will go on submission to editors in the next ten days or so.

Yeah, man. This is happening.

Here’s what you might think happens, if you ever spend time thinking about signing with a literary agent:

You make a choice, if more than one offers, and then the heavenly choir sings and unicorns start pooping rainbows on your front lawn. You have an agent! Someone Important with a capital I has read your work, likes it, thinks publishers will like it, and is willing to invest quite a lot of time on based on that belief in you and your work before ever getting paid.

You’ve hit the big time!

And you have. Being offered representation is a Very Big Deal.

But the choir and rainbow-pooping unicorns are another story. Because maybe, once you’ve had some time to think about it, you realize you made the wrong choice. If you’re choice is anything like mine, there were really no second place finishers. Everyone was tied for first, and you only have a few days to decide which of those tied-for-first agents to sign with.

It could be that you weren’t able negotiate an appropriate author/agent agreement. Maybe after a day or two, you find yourself unable to stop thinking about another agent and what they had to say about your work. Sometimes personality differences come out that you couldn’t have anticipated even a week before.

I’m not going to lie. It is serious, big scary to even think about not signing with an agent that you’ve already told you want to sign with. Every time you think about writing an email that has any variation of “I think this might not work” in it, you’ll want to puke. You’ve already sent out those awful rejections to the others, and you probably thought you’d never have to do it again. At least, not this soon.

There is this moment of panic where you’re sure that you’re about to step off a cliff back down to the querying process, just after you were so sure it was all over.

If you’re anything like me, you’ll probably feel like you’re throwing your career away, giving up your one and only chance at being published, and branding yourself forever as difficult and high-maintenance.

My advice (which I had a very hard time taking myself) is to try to breathe. Here are some things to consider when you’re thinking about choosing not to sign that agreement:

1. What was the response to your query? If you sent out 10 queries and had five requests for your manuscript and three offers, you’re in a different position than if you sent out 100 and had just one request and offer.

2. Where there other agents who offered? You’re allowed to realize one of them might have been a better fit. They wouldn’t have offered if they didn’t feel strongly about your book, and chances are they are still interested a week or two later. You have options, which hopefully makes breathing a little easier for you.

3. Did some ask for a revise and resubmit? Did some who backed out after you had an offer do so because of a lack of time, rather than a lack of interest? These are options, as well. 

4. Are you really uncomfortable? No one but you can make the choice to sign a contract with an agent. Just because your lawyer friend thinks something needs to be a deal breaker, doesn’t mean it does. Do your research about the agent and think carefully. Make a pro and con list. Whatever it takes to get yourself to a place where you aren’t making a choice based on the emotion involved in even thinking about turning down an offering agent.

5. Can you work with this person for years, maybe even decades? I just read where Neil Gaiman has been with his agent for 18 years (maybe even longer, since I’m not sure how old that article was.) That’s what you want. An agent you can grow old with. An agent for the length of your career. And the fact is that even a rock star, cool kid agent to the NYT best seller list maybe not be that agent for you. Is that hard to face? Oh, yeah. Trust me. But if it’s true, it’s true.

Hang in there. The choir and rainbow-poop might never come, but you didn’t get into this for the smooth ride anyway, did you? This is just part of the adventure.

My day job is pretty awesome. I go to an elementary school and for two hours, four afternoons a week, I help a group of fourth graders (and one seriously funny first grader) become better writers.

On Tuesday, I gave my fourth grade students an assignment: Think about what your life would be like without electricity. Brainstorm, then write three paragraphs.

One of my small groups is just two students. As they were talking out the brainstorming portion of their assignment, they agreed with each other that if there were no such thing as electricity, they’d never be able to go to Mexico.

Now, we live in Northern Nevada. And while I wouldn’t call Mexico a close neighbor, it’s considerably more accessible than say, Iceland or Australia. So I asked, “Why couldn’t you go to Mexico without electricity?”

Because there would be no cars or airplanes.

Which led to a discussion of all the ways it would be possible to get from Northern Nevada to Mexico, sans car or airplane. They would walk. Ride a bike. Get to California and then take a ship. Ride a horse or donkey. Take a cart pulled by a cow. Get a piggy back ride, if they could find someone willing. Hang glide, at least part of the way.

The coolest part was the way these kids lit up. Their ideas got wackier and wackier, but when they finally got their fifteen minutes to write their mechanical pencils were on fire. On fire, I tell you!

For the first time since I started working with them, they wrote and didn’t stop. They didn’t ask me how to spell anything. They didn’t agonize over doing it right. They each wrote three solid paragraphs and then kept going and filled their pages, were surprised when I called time, and had to do rock-paper-scissors over which got to read share first.

This was big fun for me. And it really got me thinking about writing. You have a character or two, and they have a problem. And, sure there are obvious solutions out there: if they want to get to Mexico they can drive or take a plane.

But what kind of fun is that?

Take away the obvious and you get to find out that what lives behind it is the story of the girl who walks from mountain-to-mountain through Nevada and down the length of California, ever Southward, hang gliding from each peak on her way to visit her sick grandmother and eat her famous Tamales just one more time.

And a nine-year-old who didn’t realize she had such a great story inside her.

I thought I’d post a little about the querying process for anyone who wants to know. I am aware that there are a zillion posts out there in Interwebs land about agent querying, but here’s my take on it:

1. Write a really good query letter. Write it, then have a few people read it. Then write it again. Get this one right guys, because it’s your one chance for a first impression.

2. Send it out to a few agents at the beginning. If you get instant rejections, even though the book is something the agents represent, think about reworking that query some more. When you start to get some positive result (requests for pages) from your query, then you know you’ve nailed it.

3. Read this to give you a start on how to write a query letter. Google “how to write a query letter.” I may write another post at some time about how I wrote mine, but there are plenty of resources out there to help you. Look for forums where you can post your query for strangers to critique.

4. Once you have that letter right, query wide. Be bold! Also, be prepared to wait. And wait some more. When you feel like you can’t wait another minute, you’re probably halfway there. Use that time to go through your manuscript again and make sure its perfect. Start writing another book. (I wrote an entire novel with my crazy-waiting energy.) There is a lot of waiting in publishing, and this is when you are baptized in it. You will feel like you’re going crazy, but you will survive.

5. Be prepared for things to happen fast, too. Once an agent reads your manuscript and wants to represent it, things will pick up to a fury of activity. You’ll send emails to every agent who has your manuscript or query letter to let them know you have an offer and give them a deadline for making their own decision (usually a week, maybe two.) Some will want to read and will ask you to send the manuscript right away. Others will write and congratulate you, but tell you that your book isn’t right for them for whatever reason (at this point, rejection is almost sweet relief. It’s also far less impersonal than a form rejection, which is kind of nice.)

6. At some point, you’re going to have to talk to a real, live literary agent on the phone. If you are anything like me, this makes you want to throw up. I’m not good on the phone. I get nervous, which makes me get this weird giggly thing going on, which I hate and so I try to stop it which only makes it worse. I’m a phone mess. Guess what, though: This may be your first prom date, but the agent you’re talking to has done this before. A lot. I talked to four on the phone, and in every case, they never let me sit there giggling and falling all over myself. They asked questions first and by time it was my turn, I was far more comfortable and had myself together.

7. You can do this. Trust me.

8. Be open to revision. An agent is a super reader. They read a LOT of books and they know what works. They know their stuff, right? That’s why you want one in your corner. Don’t get so caught up in the ‘this is my masterpiece and I won’t change a word’ trap that you get blinded to advice that may make your baby even more awesome.

9. On the flip side, don’t compromise if your gut tells you the changes are wrong. I had an agent tell me that if I ever rewrote my book so that it was much darker (she used The Road as a comparison,) she’d love to read it again. A revise and resubmit is pretty exciting. Only problem was that thinking about making my book that dark literally made me want to cry. I don’t even read books that dark, I really didn’t want to write one that way. You’re the writer. Take revision ideas and requests seriously, but also listen to your intuition.

10. If you get more than one offer, you’re going to have to write rejection letters. I knew this of course. But I had visions of being like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman when she goes into that shop on Rodeo Drive and holds up her fancy bags to the snobby ladies and says, “Big mistake. Big!” Yeah. It wasn’t like that. AT ALL. All of the agents who offered were amazing and talented. These aren’t the people I wanted to reject. (I wouldn’t have minded so much if there was a requirement to send a rejection to that one agent who has requested three manuscripts from me over the years and always sends me a letter that basically says “thanks, but no thanks. Close, but no cigar.” Big mistake, lady!)

11. Unless you really know contracts, have someone you know and trust, and who can be impartial, read your contract and help you come up with any questions or revisions you want to ask for. This part is hard. It will make you feel like you’re having a stroke or something, because every single cell in your body is going to scream at you to sign whatever this fabulous agent who sees your potential and is your key to your name on a book cover puts in front of you. (Experience speaking here, your dad might not be quite impartial enough. He might turn a simple agreement into a three page legal document. Out of love.) Boil down the advice to what’s really important to you, and then gather up your nerve and ask questions. Remember this: the contract isn’t for right now. Right now, there is no actual money involved and you and your new agent are a mutual adoration society. The contract is for when there is money and for the unlikely instance when that mutual adoration society falls apart. Make sure you understand what you’re signing.

My father gave me a copy of Stephen King’s The Stand for my thirteenth birthday, and I was hooked. A serious King fan from then on.

And I still am. Even after Dreamcatcher. It seems though, that sometimes I read something he’s written and my brain is searching for that same high I got in the eighth grade reading about Captain Trips and the end of the world. I had high hopes for 11/22/63. High enough that I asked my husband to buy it for me for Christmas. In hardback. I’d say my expectations were close to met, but not quite.

Here are few notes:

1. Stephen King is a talented, amazing writer, but he should never (ever, never ever) write romance. Ever. Those awkward scenes were as bad as walking in your parents doing it. You just want to back out of the room and bleach your eyes.

2. The vast majority of the action is in the last 100 pages or so out of 849. The action is good, but was out of balance tension wise with the rest of the book.

3. I strongly dislike sad endings. That’s all I’ll say about that. I especially dislike sad endings when they could as easy be not sad.

4. I think the one thing that disappointed me the most was that Stephen King, with his giant imagination, could have come up with a better time travel story than a bubble.

5. The descriptions of small town life in the late 50s and early 60s made me wish I could find a time bubble myself.

6. The history was well presented and I really enjoyed it. The time travel aspect was much less well done, and I was sorry for that. I would have liked to have heard more about the Yellow Card Man and the time travel itself.

So, my final analysis? It’s a worthy read. Engrossing, fairly epic, written by a master who maybe took a few short cuts. I kind of wish I waited for the paperback, though. It’s not one I’ll read over and over like I have The Stand, but I’m not sorry I spent the time on it.

So the last few weeks, as my book has had a giddy-crazy burst of attention, I’ve heard a lot about luck. I belong to a website where I tracked my query letters and was able to chat in forums with other writers in a similar situation. Whenever I reported a request, someone would invariably say, “you’re so lucky!”

And then the other day a friend reminded me of how hard I’ve worked.

Is luck part of it? Hell, yes. Luck that I had an idea that fit in the marketplace in the time when I was ready to shop it around to agents. Luck that I hit certain agents at a time when they were receptive to what I wrote.

But there is the hard work part, too.

I started writing fiction, like I said in my last post, in November 2004 when I successfully finished NANOWRIMO for the first time. That’s just about exactly seven years. (Easy to keep track since the baby that was 8/9ths cooked then is now almost exactly seven years old.) In those seven years, I’ve:

1. Spent two good years revising that first novel. I learned to write actively vs. passively with that novel. I learned how to use its/it’s the right way (most of the time.) I learned how to write believable dialogue, put a sense of place in my stories and about a hundred other skills. Revising that book (and it went through easily a dozen revisions) was a master’s class in novel writing. Eventually that book won first place in a contest. I will always believe that working on Devil You Don’t was what took me from wanting to write to being a writer.

2. Learned how to work with a critique partner.

3. Wrote three more full-length novels, each being progressively more well-written than the last. In other words, I kept writing.

4. Wrote and sold two novellas for epublishers. This brought me through the acquisitions and editing process. Twice.

5. Finished 3/4 of a BFA in Creative Writing (and counting.)

6. Read approximately all of the writing craft books ever written (give or take.)

7. Studied great literature, in depth, and wrote about it. I also read literally 1000s of books of all stripes and paid attention to how they were written and why they worked or didn’t work for me.

8. Participated in writer workshops, sometimes with prestigious leaders and sometimes not.

9. Went to three major writer’s conferences where I spent time in workshops, talking to authors, agents and editors, and generally soaking up the wonderfulness of those experiences.

10. I learned how to write a good query letter. This took more work than you might think, given that it is basically a one-page sales letter.

That’s a lot of work. I’m pretty proud of it, if you want to know the truth. I loved every minute of it, even when I was crying or in the depths of self-doubt so deep that I’m not sure how I managed to stay the course. But I did.

And maybe that’s the best luck of all. Luck that came from deciding not to give up. There is some luck involved, I think. Sure there is. But if you put the work in, and keep writing and reading (and then writing and reading some more. And then some more. Etc.) you’re going to find that eventually the need for luck lessens, I think. And it definitely makes it more likely that at some point your hard work and luck will intersect.

It all started in the middle of last November.

Let me start by telling you that querying agents in the middle of November is generally a crazy-making idea. Everyone is going on vacation. They’re trying to clear out their inboxes for the new year, and so might be quick on the rejection trigger.

It still started in the middle of last November. I finished a revision of my novel, Freaks and the Revolution, and because I’m a very impatient girl I wrote a letter and sent it to a few agents. When that worked out pretty well, I sent out a few more, and then some more.

It got sort of addictive, having agents write back and request my manuscript. And they did. And it was completely amazing. It cut the pain of the many (many) rejections that those requests were mixed with.

And then last Friday, one of those agents who was reading my manuscript emailed me that she’d like to talk to me on the phone. She loved my book and she wanted to represent me.

Let me backtrack. This is my third completed novel. The first I queried all over the place and never got more than a tiny bit of cursory attention. It was a romantic suspense written during a time when no one wanted romantic suspense.

Then I wrote a paranormal romance. I took that one to a big conference and an editor at Harlequin asked me to send it to her. We worked on revisions for more than a year and then one day she sent me a rejection.

While I was doing those revisions, I wrote Freaks and the Revolution. It was my first attempt at YA, and the rhythm of that voice and pacing just really worked for me. I’ve found my niche.

Having an agent, one who really knows her stuff, tell me that my book had merit and that she thought she could sell it was so satisfying. Absolutely validating. I wish there were words to describe it.

I sent out emails to the other agents who were reading. That’s when the insanely crazy, really amazing week started. They had seven days to read and decide. I slept with my phone in my hand so that any early morning emails from New York (which would be 5 or 6 early morning for me in the west) would wake me up. A week of freaking out, let me tell you.

And all-in-all, four offered representation. I’ve decided to go with the first agent. We had a strong connection, she is awesome and passionate and all around a very good fit for me and my work.

It’s been an amazing ride, and early next week I’ll be able to tell you who she is.