Agent Appreciation Day!

Happy Agent Appreciation Day, agents! My agent, the ever-delightful Kate Schafer Testerman (or Daphne Unfeasible, as some may know her), makes my life better and easier exponentially.

1. She believes in me and my writing, even when I’m having a crappo day. I try to be a ridiculously positive person, but I still have crappo days on occasion. When those occur it’s so good to have Kate in my corner.
2. She is freakishly optimist – the best kind of cheerleader to have. It’s tough worrying the worst will happen if Kate’s involved in any way.
3. She has excellent taste in shoes. (Though sometimes she puts me in positions where I must resist the urge to purchase MORE SHOES CONSTANTLY.)
4. She loves much of the random pop culture I do, as well as cute dogs, which means we have a fantastic amount in common on top of the whole literary thing. For me that’s a really good added bonus, considering how much random crap I often feel the need to talk about.
5. She couldn’t be better with quick responses to questions, jumping on the phone when I need to talk something out, and making me feel less panicked when I get into that mode.

In short, she is A++ awesome, and the best agent I could have hoped for.

Smell of Rejection in the Morning

The first email I got this morning was a rejection to a query I’d sent off many, many months ago!

Of course when I got my first offer of representation, I emailed everyone who had material out to keep them up to speed. However, by then it had literally been four months since I’d sent any queries out, so I thought it was quite safe to assume no response equaled rejection.

About a month ago, I actually got a request for a partial. I jotted off a nice note that I’d actually since found representation, and that agent sent me a cute email back saying he couldn’t wait to see my book in stores. (Buddy, me too!)

But, nope, the agent today sent me a very kind rejection. And here’s the thing: I’m signed with basically my dream agent! I am at hard work on rewrites! I want for nothing! And yet: I totally reacted like none of that had happened. I was just back in my old shoes, trying not to take it personally, remembering rejection’s the name of the game, being hopeful. Then, you know, slapping sense into myself.

When they talk about how this business is just more rejection to look forward to, though, I do not think this is what they meant! Oh, the delicate flower of a soul of a writer. I am a goober indeed.

Congratulations, Steph!

Big, big, big, and hearty congratulations to Stephanie Perkins, on her TWO BOOK DEAL! (Also congrats to Kate the super agent!) I am so proud and impressed and excited, and would like to leap about on your behalf, Steph.

Also I cannot wait to read it!

kt literary new site!

The new kt literary web site is gorgeous, so you should definitely check it out.

I spent the day at Disney Land. Since I’m a baby (and since I forgot my iPhone in the car), I spent my time waiting for my friends to ride both Space Mountain and Tower of Terror writing BY HAND on some leftover slips of paper in my purse. Weird and obsessive or just amazingly productive? (All three?) Either way, word count increasing… and BEDA still on track.

Most excellent news!

I am happy to announce that I will be represented by Kate Schafer Testerman of kt literary. Kate comes highly, highly recommended with some great credentials, and I couldn’t be more pleased that she will be taking Ink out to find it the right home.

Book Expo

Thanks to the Book Expo being held in Los Angeles combined with my mother’s job as an office supervisor for one of those big book chains, this year I got to attend the BEA. I kept envisioning that it would be like Comic-Con, but with books instead of T-shirts featuring clever references to Gallifrey or whatever. Luckily it was a lot less crowded and weird than that experience, though things got a little nuts around some Stephenie Meyer display. Man, people are into those sparkly vampires!

All in all I made out well. At the end of the day I had about thirty-five free books, including the new John Green, Paper Towns. (Already devoured, thank you very much.) Obviously I was hoping to run into some agents who handled YA lit and would obviously be dazzled by my sparkling (NOT sparkly mind you!) personality, but, alas, it was not to be. I did meet the highly charming and always hilarious Janet Reid, whose blog I enjoy a lot. (Will it ever not seem weird to say “OH MY GOD I LOVE YOUR BLOG”? Oh, internets!) I have added Janet’s comment that I looked cool to my arsenal of celebrity compliments I fall back on when I’m having a lousy day.

Besides the free books and bags and pens (and one random Pocky), it was just nice to be in a giant convention center, surrounded by people who really care about books and literature and writing and writers. I am pretty lucky that a lot of people in my life love reading (and often writing), but within big groups of people I don’t know this is rarely the case.

Ink… is currently over 25k, which means somehow I’m nearly halfway finished. I’m not sure what I’m tackling after. Considering I have a lot of ideas in the pipeline, for once this doesn’t concern me.