An-tiss-i-paaaaaay-shun, it’s making me wait. Keeping me way-yay-yay-yay-yay-ay-tin.

Waiting is like trying to slurp rock hard ice cream through a straw. You know it’s gonna be good when it’s finally in your mouth. But it’s melting too slowly. Sigh.

My little Surfer Chick is in the water without a life jacket! Smart, Savvy Agent loved the revision, gave her a push and forced her to swim on her own. She’s sitting in the choppy waves of Totally Awesome Editor Chick’s inbox as we speak.

Keep your fingers crossed!

I got an e-mail the other day from an assistant to an editor I subbed to a YEAR AND TWO MONTHS ago, saying “we’re quite impressed by” the manuscript and “is it still available?” Wheeee!

I’d given up hope. I’d told 

  just a few weeks ago that I was in mourning, that it hurts so badly to have to write off a submission, sure that you’ll never hear back on it. But I did hear! I did, I did! Just when I’d given up hope.

So now on to the next phase of stressing because the assistant didn’t say they were offering me a contract. My read is that it was more like a preemptive inquiry, just to see if they should even take the time to fully consider it. 

So I guess I’ll refrain from sending them my list of possible illustrators for now, right? ; ) 

In other news, I just completed the ninth revision of a picture book this weekend and sent it to my groupies for crit. (Okay, so they’re not MY groupies. It’s not like they follow me around or anything. More like I beg them to let me hang out with them so I can soak up all their wisdom.) 

This is one of those frustrating picture books in rhyme that seemed like a great idea before I started the first draft. But then I wrote it, and it deteriorated into a sort of horrifying child against the sea kind of thing. So by draft number four, the little girl had become a anthropomorphized chicken. (Okay, so I can almost hear you saying this is not a good idea.) By draft number seven, there was lots of chicken humor and a new ending, but still a chicken who got trapped out in the water. I had to come up with a way to make the chicken willingly go in the water and take matters into her own hands. Smart, Savvy Agent liked draft number eight. But I still had a couple of peeps with the rhymes in some of the stanzas. So I plucked, and pruned, and preened and fussed and pecked. And I think my little chick is fully prepared to head out into that wide, wide ocean of submission. 

I’ll get back to you when she comes up for air.

When good news happens I tend to share it and when bad news happens I tend to not allow myself to whine for too long and I’m usually over it before I’d end up posting it here. But I’m going to because I want to remind you just how up and down this business can be. And also how there are so many factors that go into acquiring a book that sometimes it doesn’t matter if you sell every editor in a house on the book, there are still things that can step in the way of a deal.

You might remember a few weeks ago when Really Large House had to pass on a book they wanted because they also do the licensed books for a popular movie that vaguely had a similar subject as my book. Okay, we got over that quickly and immediately (as in that same day) sent out the book to other houses. Late that same afternoon, we’d received phone calls from 3 different (wonderful all three) houses stating they had interest. Within a couple of days, one of the houses was checking with a primo illustrator to see if he would do the illustration. Well, that took some time so we had to put the other houses on hold for the time being. What else could we do but wait on an answer from Incredible Artist. The general impression was that even if he said no, that same house had a second and third choice so we expected an eventual contract.

Cut to yesterday. In the end, Incredible Artist said he loves the book, loves the writing but can’t see himself illustrating it. Which is fine. There are lots of things I can’t see myself writing about. So I understand completely. But the downside was, since we have (or had) so much interest in the book, this Lovely, Amazing Imprint and Editor said that they didn’t feel good going with their second or third choices. Which is fine because we would have wanted them to put the contract in place this time before giving them time to check with the second or third choices.

So now we go back to the other houses, equally Lovely and Amazing houses and editors, and see if they’re still interested. They might have cooled since we made them wait. I don’t really see any other way we could have handled it because of who the first house was offering as illustrator. We had to wait for his answer. And so, though I *think* the door is still open — slightly — you just never know in this business. I think this book will sell eventually. I just hope it’s before I grow cynical about the process. 🙂

Got tagged by the wonderful thatgirlygirl.

10 wonderful “S” things:

1. summer
2. snow
3. singing really really loud
4. slushees
5. sharpened pencils
6. shower gel
7. soap
8. strawberries
9. sex (I mean, come on, how was I NOT going to put that?)
10. sisters

5 terrible “S” things:

1. stubble
2. snakes
3. snide remarks
4. slobber
5. stupid rejections : )