Friday 28 October 2011

Exciting Time and Fresh Ideas

I made a statement in my last blog update that there was nothing 'I' could do to improve my story, I was wrong. I think the statement should have been more along the lines of, "please don't let me have to go through it again, let it be finished."
However I have been going through it again and have been able to make improvements.

Exciting Times

The reason I have been going through it again is because an agent read the first chapter and liked it so asked for the first five chapter. This all came about for the following reasons.
 I originally emailed this agent to ask if I could email her my work instead of sending it by post. This was because on her webpage she asked for unique fantasy and I thought, why no just contact her directly.
  She replied and was very nice and polite, but said to send it the traditional way. I thanked her and sent it off.
  I got a rejection.
  However I noticed it was from one of the general readers agencies have to help agents prioritise their clients, and the readers would hand high quality work to the agents.
  I was disappointed as felt my work was what this agent wanted. I decided to email her again and say I felt  a bit discouraged that it didn't make it to her. She was incredibly nice about this and could have easily said she only accepted it if it came through from one of the readers, but she didn't, and said she would read a chapter.
  I sent it off and got an email at the beginning of this week asking to read the first five chapters.

This is very promising and I am excited to hear what she thinks of the story. When she asked to read the first chapter I quickly read through it and made improvements. Then when she asked for five chapters I could not stop smiling with excitement. I read through the chapters again, made improvements, and sent it to her.
 She emailed today and thanked me for sending it through. Now I just sit back and pray she sees its potential and asks for the whole story. If she does I am going to have an interesting time trying to speed improve the other twenty chapters. I may just have to be honest and tell her I'm giving them a once over and will get them to her asap.
What an amazing feeling it is to be at this point. It's amazing to think that one persons choice effects your whole future, but even if she says it's not for her I still have so many options. I will obviously be disappointed but never discouraged.

Fresh Ideas

Why will I not be discouraged?
  Well I have a number of ideas for books that I have put aside for when the time is right to write them. I am incredibly fortunate for the flow of ideas that seem to never stop, and recently an idea came in to my mind for a one book story that is very very exciting.
  I have a 3,000 word outline of this story and because it is simpler, and only one book, I know an agent will be more likely to take it on as it will require less faith on their part.
  It is such an exciting, simple and unique story and I cannot wait to write it and show it to people. However patience is the bane of my existence and I will sit on it for now and maybe start in January 2012 if this doesn't work out.

I will keep the blog updated when things happen and thanks so much for reading.