When y'all weren't looking, I polished up the first 14 pages of Never A Bridesmaid and sent it off to a Senior Editor of a smaller publishing company who, in a fit of Christmas magnanimity, offered 15 page critiques to a number of responders on her blog.
She's all about crime fiction and I'm all about the romance, but she said she'd take whatever we're working on and offer editorial feedback. I'm sure she regrets it now.
It took me 6 days to get back to her after she made the offer because I was spending my Christmas* Vacation** away from home and didn't have the concentration to polish a script and defend my brain from the 24/7 CNN news feed with which my aunt was trying to kill me. Plus, editing scares me. But that's a story that's been covered before. I only sent 14 pages because that's where the chapter breaks, but now I think I should have included that 15th page and stopped mid-sentence... just to build up the suspense dontchaknow.
On Jan 3rd, I emailed my work off to her with a song in my heart and a birdy on my shoulder. I mean, I know the moment she reads it she'll be blown away by the quality of my prose. I'm sure she's already schlepped the pages out to all of her editor friends crowing about how well I turn a phrase and how she discovered me first. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, she's probably talking with others in her publishing house about expanding their line to include romance, based on the strength of my pages alone. She's checking the budget to see if they can offer me a 7-book deal based on a new series and hoping to preempt any other offers out there.
Ahem.
Ya. So, I haven't heard back from her yet.
Here's the pathetic, part. (Yes, more pathetic than that paragraph above.) She hoped to have the critiques finished by Jan 9th or 10th. For those of you keeping score, that's 3 days ago. I haven't heard back from her yet. I check my e-mail about 75 times a day looking for that message from her. When I wake up in the morning the Blackberry is already glued to my palm anyway, but it's not the text messages and regular emails I'm looking for. It's the Gmail notification in the special icon off on the right side of my screen that I'm hoping to see.
When I'm going to sleep I drop whatever book I'm reading at 5 minute intervals and grab the BB to see if the little red light is flashing at me. It may be the signal I've been waiting for. The blessing from an editor. The cyber nod in my general direction that says, "Yes, one day you will be able to give up your day job."***
Now I ask you, how the hell am I going to handle query season? If three days is enough to put me on tenterhooks, months of waiting is going to drive me batty. They say it's all part of the process, but Good Lord! How do normal people survive this?
Currently Reading: Now & Then
Currently Reading: Blood Bound
Currently Reading: Wolf Tales VI
*** No cracks from the peanut gallery about finding a day job first, please.
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3 comments:
That's so exciting!! I hope you hear back VERY soon. I'd be going a bit nuts, too!
"A bit nuts" What a polite way to put it :)
Still no word from her. Industry standards dictate that I need to wait about a month - maybe 6 weeks before I even ask her about the status.
I might be living under the bed by then.
So without my cracks about you finding a day job first, I am left with this: I hope you get awesome notes from her. I hope she thinks you're brilliant and recommends you to a friend who is the romance genre. Let me know what happens.
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