I mentioned last week that an agent requested my entire manuscript. Actually, she said my first 10 pages were ADORABLE, and she wanted my manuscript. Sorry to repeat myself, I just wanted to make sure you got that part. About my first 10 pages. Being ADORABLE.

Anyway, when I saw her name in my email inbox today, I wasn’t thrilled. I’ve heard that agents/editors/publishers send letters with bad news, but will CALL you with good news. Turns out, I’m still hanging in there!

Lisa,

Thanks so much for sending this along. I’m traveling this week and, since we’re coming up on Thanksgiving, it’ll take me a little while to read. I apologize for that delay but I really am looking forward to digging in.

Mary Kole

Whew. Waiting to find out if someone wants your book is hard. But I’ve been interested in seeing how another writer handled the unveiling of  her debut book. Sarah Palin seems to be doing okay with the whole agent/book publishing business. So I’m wondering….

Do you think I’ll get my bus BEFORE or after the book is published?

I know that 98% of my readership tune in each day to A) see pictures of  the Moonpie, or B) hear stories about the MoonPie, and I do have some new ones. But they’re going to have to wait. I mentioned yesterday that an AGENT requested the first 10 pages of my novel. Today, she responded with this:

Lisa,

I adored the first 10 pages. If you could slip me the full manuscript as a Word doc attachment, I’d love to keep reading.

Thanks!
Mary Kole

She ADORED it. My first 10 pages are ADORABLE. So instead of spending the last few hours editing MoonPie and her latest cool endeavors, I’ve been re-editing my novel to send today. How exciting is that? If she finds the OTHER 260 pages adorable, we’re good to go. You know me. I can do adorable for long stretches, right?

Never mind. I promise that tomorrow, we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming. And it will even  include bears.

Last week I posted about a Query Contest. I didn’t really expect anyone to run out and WRITE a query, but one of the requirements of the contest was to POST about it on your blog. (For those who haven’t spent hours sweating over a query – it’s basically a letter that says, Hey – my book is about this – want to read it? Sometimes agents ask for a synopsis or chapters, but a LOT of the time – the letter is your only shot.)

Anyway, I submitted my query, and did not win. Not an honorable mention, not third place, not second, not first, not the Grand Prize – nothing, nada, zip. BUT. Today I got this email:

Lisa,

Thank you so much for entering the query contest and sharing your work with me. Though I didn’t choose your query for the contest, the premise of your project sounded very interesting. If you’d like to submit a writing sample for my consideration, go ahead and paste the first 10 pages in a response to me, I’d love to take a look.

Thanks,
Mary Kole

Do you know what this means? IF this goes anywhere, it will be the first time this BLOG has helped me in any way whatsoever! And it only took a year of daily posts. Awesome.

This blog post is brought to you courtesy of Advil. Thank you, Lord for Advil. Thank you very, very MUCH.

Now where was I? Oh yeah, hanging out in a college town with a bunch of authors, editors and agents is way cool. We do fun, creative exercises.

I read one of my creative endeavors out loud and a PUBLISHED author, who should KNOW, told me I did very well. Did I mention she should KNOW?

This is me at the reception making myself available for autographs. People were a little timid. It’s understandable.

This is me, NOT drinking. Well, technically I am, but it’s just cranberry and sprite. I thought I’d point that out since my posts lately have involved cocktail recipes and bacon flavored vodka.

See the woman in the brown dress? I’m stalking her.

Why? Because she’s the woman that evaluated my manuscript. Why isn’t she looking for ME? Shouldn’t she try to sign me before someone else steals me away? What, she’s NOT the evaluator? She’s just another author at the conference? Well that explains it. Never mind.

This is Brandi Bowles. She’s a agent from New York. She looks this way because Deborah just asked if she could submit a story to her. She said yes, so I took the picture as evidence.

This is Brandi after I said, “you look scared, and she looks crazy.”

If one of the goals of this conference is to be remembered, I’d say we’re a shoo-in.