What Writers Want.

I mentioned last week that there were still a couple of chunky submissions out there...well, heard back from one. She was under the impression she had already told me she was declining the opportunity of representing me. Believe me, if such an email had arrived, I would have known about it.

However, that old full submission is still in limbo. Perhaps it's been so long collecting cobwebs on the hard drive that their computer thinks my follow-up was just another poorly-worded query, and dumped it before it reached human eyes. Ah, well...c'est la vie and all that. And of course, the agent could be away at some long, long convention, in some remote place where there is no access to the internet.

In the meantime, I sent off six new queries over the last ten days, spread over all four manuscripts. Three rejections later, early this morning my time, I received a request for a FULL of The Place of Dreams, from the very first query. To say I was stunned is an understatement. My experience has always been (and remember how many queries I've sent out over the last year or so) that a full request comes at about query number 52.

A New York agent, too, which is refreshing. This book is most definitely not set in the US, and I always figured that's why I've struggled so much to get a good response from that city's creme de la creme (really thinking in French today). I'll still approach some British agents -- just as soon as my printer is up and running...really.

What writers want, in fact, need, is contact with folks who say they really liked the bits you've sent them so far. It's totally reassuring. It makes all the work -- and I'm not talking about the actual writing here  -- worthwhile. As an aside, with my paintings, if someone wanders into my house -- friend, neighbor -- and spies one of my pictures and says how much they love it, I often give it to them. I'm a total pushover for flattery. Of course, I won't be doing that with my novels. Will I?

I'll keep you posted, as they say.