The Next Step

You’ll probably notice me getting a little quieter over the next week or so.  Yes, part of it is that I went back to work Monday and have been in a whirlwind ever since.  Today, for example, I’m going to be attending an all-day teachers training seminar with a hundred anglophone students right off the boat.  It should be interesting.

But the biggest reason I haven’t been around this week is that I’m doing revisions on my recent manuscript. 

But not just any revisions. 

This revision is based on agent notes. 

And not just any agent,

but THE agent I was most excited about. 

If you’ve been following this blog for awhile you’ll know that in Creepy Query Girl’s world, this is huge.  After wading through the query trenches for two years with three different manuscripts, this is the first time an agent has shown enough interest to actually READ the manuscript in its entirety and offer ideas as to how to make it better.

At first I panicked.  What if I can’t pull off what she has in mind?  What if I have to tear the whole thing apart? Trash the story?  Or what if she has some kind of existentialist ideas and I have re-write the whole thing from the point of view of a cockroach?  Or make my main character Australian?  I don’t know how to write an Australian accent!!!  WHAT AM I GOING TO DO!???

*ahem*

But when I actually received the notes, it made me see why agent feedback is so valuable.  She doesn’t want me to trash my story.  The story is what interested her in the first place!  Instead I’m focusing on fleshing out certain characters, tweaking plot details, and revisiting the ending.  It’s not exactly child’s play for a revision hater like me, but totally do-able and in the end I’m positive my manuscript will be stronger for it. 

Will this lead to representation?  God, I would love that.  But even if for some reason it doesn’t work out, this experience and the benefits my manuscript is receiving from it is priceless and I couldn’t be more thankful.