Hooray for false hopes!
This morning I got an email from one of the agents who asked for my stuff at the writer's conference. She wanted a two page summary of my work, which I sent her. She just wrote back asking for the first ten pages of my novel.
I'm of two minds about this. On one hand, the primary hand, she opened up by pointing out that epic fantasy has been largely hedged out by vampire porn. (She didn't call it vampire porn, but 'urban fantasy featuring vampires, werewolves, and other creatures' is vampire porn, and we know that.) On the other hand, having the very first agent I approach ask me for a sample of my work, instead of giving me the 'I'm sorry, that isn't suitable for...' rejection letter is pretty awesome. On the other hand, maybe getting the first ten pages of anything where the summary wasn't a rambling pile of steaming garbage is par for the course for her. And on the same hand as the first and third one, people do not get agents on their very first try, it just doesn't ever happen. But on the other hand, there are always exceptions...
So yeah. I'd -just- gotten over having a heart attack every single time I got a new email, and now we're back to it again. I'm fully expecting a rejection, not because I don't think the novel is good or that my writing is good (it is, and it is), but because getting published is a matter of finding the right person at the right time, and for all that to come together on my very first attempt is asking an awful lot of Lady Luck.
But even so, I'm having a very hard time keeping my hopes to an acceptable level. I'm expecting a rejection, but it's going to be a punch in the gut when I get it.
I liked it better when the greatest drama in my writing life was how sick I was at revising and re-revising my damn novel. :P
I'm of two minds about this. On one hand, the primary hand, she opened up by pointing out that epic fantasy has been largely hedged out by vampire porn. (She didn't call it vampire porn, but 'urban fantasy featuring vampires, werewolves, and other creatures' is vampire porn, and we know that.) On the other hand, having the very first agent I approach ask me for a sample of my work, instead of giving me the 'I'm sorry, that isn't suitable for...' rejection letter is pretty awesome. On the other hand, maybe getting the first ten pages of anything where the summary wasn't a rambling pile of steaming garbage is par for the course for her. And on the same hand as the first and third one, people do not get agents on their very first try, it just doesn't ever happen. But on the other hand, there are always exceptions...
So yeah. I'd -just- gotten over having a heart attack every single time I got a new email, and now we're back to it again. I'm fully expecting a rejection, not because I don't think the novel is good or that my writing is good (it is, and it is), but because getting published is a matter of finding the right person at the right time, and for all that to come together on my very first attempt is asking an awful lot of Lady Luck.
But even so, I'm having a very hard time keeping my hopes to an acceptable level. I'm expecting a rejection, but it's going to be a punch in the gut when I get it.
I liked it better when the greatest drama in my writing life was how sick I was at revising and re-revising my damn novel. :P