SO THIS HAPPENED.

Okay, since the date isn’t there, it happened about 2 weeks ago, and we signed a couple of weeks before that. Still, LET’S ALL GET EXCITED ONE MORE TIME!

I’ve been sending out novels and short stories for publication since 1999, although I haven’t made a real serious effort with agents until recently. I sent out a monstrously high school novel around 2002, after a few years of revising; bounced; sent out a slightly better monster around 2005; bounced; got mired in longer and un-revisable projects in the following years and didn’t get another novel out to agents until 2014, then finished and sent off a couple MORE short novels in 2015-2016 aaaaaaand boom.

I previously worked at a literary agency for two years, slaving away over my boss’s slush and occasionally trying (note the lack of a successful completion verb) to sell the gems in the slush she didn’t want to invest in. So while I was familiar with the business, and while I could write a decent query & cover letter, it took quite a few years, lots and lots of rejected subs (including a few to Sara) and three novels to land the agent.

So. Big step. Chocolate eaten. Next step awaited.