Full Manuscript Request and Very Little Giddiness...

I don't know if you saw my postscript on Monday or not, but, after my positive thinking about that nice agent who asked for the partial, I was promptly asked for the FULL Hafan Deg manuscript! He also requested a thirty-day exclusive on it, and I'm happy with that.

Funny thing is, I'm not overwhelmed by this, and I thought I would be. I mean, I don't want to sound casual about it, but I am just so relaxed with this whole query process. If it happens, it happens. (Which is in keeping with my more or less Buddhist philosophy on life, anyway.) You'd think there would be anxiety, but I've so come to terms with the constant reminders of the time it can take to find an agent, that I'm not really expecting one yet. How practical and sensible is that? Anyway, one agent has Hafan Deg from start to finish, and I hope he enjoys it, but I'm also thinking that a partial is now being opened at another agency, mailed the week before, and I'm wondering if something might come of that, too. It would be uplifting to have to apologize to them that the full couldn't be released to them yet, right? Oh, optimistic fool!

When I first started querying, I was surprised at how easily I sent my snippets out. I enjoy the research, tweaking my little stats spreadsheet I've set up in XL, and updating my Query Tracker list. I figure I have a lot more names to add before the exercise is complete - if ever. The act of querying has become a sort of game, and quite fun.

Can you believe that after all this time, re-writing and re-writing, weeping over words, reading blogs that depressed or alarmed me, being warned about "agent" con artists, hearing about failing publishing companies, and that e-publishing is the wave of the future...all of this stress suddenly disappeared as soon as I let the book go? Well, it did.

Hafan Deg is on its own out there now, I hope safely, in professional hands, and I'm not experiencing that stab of pain felt when I handed a child over to school that very first day, and I thought I would.

We've all had it drummed into us online that it could take 30, 40, 50 or more queries before we get a nibble. Some never get a nibble. So I came into this expecting to wait quite a while, and it somehow released me to get on with writing Strachan's Attic. I honestly think this has been the saving grace. If you haven't already done it, start on that next book now. It will renew you.

So - Query Summary - 12 Pending, 1 Partial, 1 Full with exclusivity, and 5 Rejects.

And I'm just about as relaxed as I can be.