Writing news

As mentioned in a couple posts past, we have an agent coming to class to talk about agent-y things. Our writing teacher asked us to send the agent a pre-emptive strike of our sample query letters, as written up weeks ago for a confidence building exercise...a way to help get out into words what we were working on so we could sell our babies with convinction. The agent had agreed to read them, giving us feedback on what agents are looking for. Stuff we eat up in class with fresh pens, clean pads of paper, and fevered intent to get all the arcana we can use.

Well, this morning, I got a reply from the agent.

Here it is (name omitted).

Dear John,

   I find your story line intriguing, but as you know, with fiction, it is all in the telling.  If you would like to, please send me an overview (synopsis) and a representative sampling of the work via e-mail. (Please do not send more than 100 pages of the manuscript, however, and try to break it in a logical place.  I will take a quick look before Tuesday's class.

   Thanks for your query, and feel free to e-mail with any questions.

Just sent the first chapter, synopsis, and a nice, low-on-the-slobbery-buggery thank-you note to Agent X (as she'll be known from now on). Trying to keep calm. It's not a contract. It's not a door open to fame and fortune. It's just an agent who is doing a favor.

But still...there's an agent who wants to read me. Even if I get rejected, it's a wonderful starlight feeling in my heart today. I'm lighter than helium. I'm made of sunshine and I feel as if I can leap tall buildings in a single bound. My life, the one I want, grew a little more real today.