Finishing a manuscript is a lot like having a baby. There are months when it (manuscript/baby, follow me, people) is inside you, giving you heartburn, aching to get out. Then there’s the actual labor. Sometimes it’s painful, sometimes it makes you scream at your husband (unless you’re Katie Holmes), and sometimes you need to monitor your blood pressure. But at some point, after all that hard work, it comes out of you, fully-cooked. That part makes you cry.
You are so proud, so monumentally overwhelmed by what you have created, so flipping scared that you now need to take care of it. That you are now fully responsible for what it is to become.
The good thing about fully-cooked babies is that they don’t require agents. Unless you do that whole Toddlers and Tiaras thing, and then you’re just cuh-razy and should stop reading this blog stat and get yourself to a shrink. On the other hand, fully-cooked manuscripts do.
And that’s where we meet up with our flaxen-haired heroine. With a fully-cooked manuscript and no agent. Yet. Must remain confident. Must remain confident.
ON GRACE is done. Written. Edited. And on its merry way to the in-boxes of agents across our fair land. (Have I mentioned, any dear agent reading this, how good looking and intelligent you are?) I have heard the agent-acquisition process is grueling, frustrating, and can lead to gnashing of teeth. Unless of course one of ‘em likes your manuscript. And then it’s peachy. Bring on the peachy.
ON GRACE is about Grace May, who, on the verge of 40, longs to rediscover the intelligent and interesting woman deeply buried under the suffocating layers of mother and wife. It embraces themes that resonate with every woman who owns at least one pair of Spanx: fidelity, friendship, and finding oneself at 40.
Can I take it as a sign that the waitress was named Grace at the restaurant we went to Sunday night for my belated 80,000-word party that my husband and three boys threw for me? Okay, I will. And how about that I keep hearing the Natasha Bedingfield song “Unwritten” with that “Today is where your book begins” line? Okay, I’ll take that one as a sign, too. Thanks.
Anyway, watch this space for news about that gorgeous, creative, insightful, astute agent who decides to represent me. I’ll fill you in just as soon as I can. In the meantime, any words of advice?
Leave A Comment