September: Submission Stories

September. The waning days of summer. (Usually very nice in Oregon, as we await the start of our winter rains.) Plus, the one word which brings joy to every parents' heart: SCHOOL.

What was that you say you heard? A champagne cork popping? You imaginative soul, you.

Anyway, I would like to greet this new month with a brief rundown of what has turned out to be a very exciting month of August. There was, of course, the Willamette Writers conference and all its good energy, followed by the heady days of WriteOnCon. Which spilled over into Queryland, where I now have four agents reading my complete manuscript.

Yes, you read that right. Four, quatre, quattro, fier, and whatever the number four is in all other languages. (Shi or yon in Japanese.)

I don't usually blog about the ups and downs of querying. Rejections are shared only with my wife and my good Scottish friend, Glen Livet. But now I have increasing confidence in the fact that four industry veterans see some promise in my story. I am trying to settle in to that period of waiting (and trying not to check my e-mail every four seconds.) Now that the manuscript's in a queue on someone's e-reader there's really not much else I can do except focus on my WIP, which is about 2/3s complete. It's all very strange and discombobulating.

I must say one other thing, and that's to give a huge shout-out to my very good friend, Matthew MacNish. My fortunes have risen ever since Matt featured my query on his blog and perused it with his eagle eye. Almost two dozen of his followers chimed in, and the current query incarnation is vastly improved because of all their input.

So, as September slides along, please cross your fingers for me. I totally believe in the power of positive thinking and the collective energy of the blogging community. (And as soon as I have any good news, y'all will be the first to know. I promise.)