I’m excited to announce that I’m now an agented YA author! Last week, Jason Yarn of Paradigm Talent Agency offered me representation after a record-setting read. (Well, record-setting certainly according to my record of material requests and finished reads!) I was impressed by his enthusiasm (and probably more than a little in shock), but I had four other agents who had yet to reply regarding manuscript requests, so I took a week off to make the decision. (And to nudge the other agents.)
I didn’t sit idly by during that week off, though! Client work slowed to a crawl, so I devoted much of the work day to getting ready for a possibly viable future as a creative writer. (I’m not “quitting my day job,” but my “day job” is simply writing from home anyway, so…). I:
- Made this website (Hello! Thanks for reading so soon after I created this thing!)
- Wrote three chapters of the sequel to my book in case it goes somewhere and because I’d been dying to do so for months but didn’t really have an excuse to (my strategy was to concentrate on other WIPs in case this manuscript never got picked up)
- Somehow inexplicably (well, I can kind of explain it–I’ll do an entry on brainstorming soon) came up with the entire outline of the rest of book two and all of book three in this intended series (and even started thinking of ideas for a fourth book, but I didn’t write them down–I’m getting way ahead of myself!)
And now, aside from editing, I promised myself I’d put this series aside. I’m trying to be an optimist, but I’m also a realist, so I don’t want to put all of my eggs in one basket. Back to the other WIPs…
I accepted Jason’s offer late Tuesday night, and we’re working on edits to the manuscript, getting the retainer signed and all of that good stuff. It’s probably going on submission soon, and I’ll be sure to update with official announcements when I can.
And amongst all of this writing development, I took my cat to the vet. With a little portion adjustment and exercise, she lost almost two and a half pounds over the past year, as per the vet’s instructions! I guess the diet paid off. Too bad the poor thing has developed a habit of spending most of the waking day begging for more food. Anytime I walk past her food bowl, she gets into position nearby and gives me her best attempt at puppy dog eyes. I feel like a cold-hearted bastard every time. Which is probably precisely what she’s hoping… But she’s not getting too many treats from me!
Amy McNulty 