Friday morning was rough. I had been up till 1am the night before preparing for giving the BEA tour I had promised. I also made sure my publishing resume was updated, on good paper, and on hand should the spontaneous need for it come about. Both of those were enough to make me feel prepared, but I hated the fact that I had a partial proposal done and I was going to walk out the door without anything.
At about 20% of my normal energy level, I pushed my way through typing up the title page, opening blurb about the book, and table of contents — the most selling part of the book right now.
Last year I didn’t even take this much and there was no way I was going to go back 12 months later without progress.
It was worth it. I got great feedback. Larry, who is never swift with compliments and who’s opinion I highly respect, said it had real potential. But the most motivating was Tara Weaver’s response. She works for the Candice Fuhrman Literary Agency when not in school getting her MFA and sees a lot of manuscript submissions. Tara said not to delay at all in getting it out, that the timing for this is key to both the current appeal and need for chic lit, as well as springboarding from the release of Sand. All kind words, but what really lit my fire was her insistance that I don’t just send it to one agent. She thought it should go out to several and is worthy of being bid over. Thank you for your time and the chat Tara, I am going to act on it.
My pleasure, Jen–and I was being totally honest. You must remember, though, I may be agenting and studenting it at the moment, but I’m a TTer at heart:-). Great to see you this past week. Hope you’re feeling better.