Hello everyone
My novel is finished, 82.000words. It has been read and reread so many times and edited to within an inch of its life and has now finally been sent out into the big wide agency world to fend for itself.
It took me three days to write a cover letter and nearly half a trees worth of paper before I was finally satisfied. The synopsis was relatively easy and took two tries; the first detailed everything I wanted to say, while the edited version was stripped down to the bare bones AND I got it down to a single page.
I chose my agent carefully. After referring to THE ARTISTS AND WRITERS YEARBOOK and hundreds of agencies on line, I selected the five I considered to be right for me and my genre before whittling it down to the last two. The one I chose; MADELEINE MILBURN, said they read everything that is sent to them; so blowing a kiss to my MSS I hit the send button and wished it good luck.
I received an acknowledgement within the hour, which I thought was very nice; it was only a standard thanks for submitting, but at least I know they got it, but I'm now going to have a nail biting 12 week wait, which takes us up to February to find out if its been accepted.
I have now started my second novel; it was the only way to stop me worrying about the first one, although I must admit, it's never far from my mind. I see books on the shelves of Waterstones and imagine my book sitting there proudly on the shelf for all to see. 12 weeks is a long time; three months and as Christmas will soon be upon us and everything will grind to a halt, I'm sure it will take longer, but as they say, patience is a virtue, it also drives you crazy.
That's about it for now; good luck to anyone who has sent their MSS out into the big wide world.
