Saturday, February 25, 2012

Where I've Been

A while ago I posted about a semi-blogging hiatus and mentioned writerly things afoot.  I also said that when I returned I hoped to have news.  Well, I don't really have the news I wanted to have (yet!) but I have some things I'd like to share.  Wanna hear?

Okay, so here's where I've been.  Some of it's been writerly, some has not.  But all of it has kept me very busy:

  1. My MBA class was a bit more demanding than I would like.  I have one more week though (and just one more paper!) before I am done with it and have my MBA with a marketing emphasis. W00T!!! It's been a long time coming, I'm telling you.
  2. Lent began last Wednesday.  I work in a Catholic Church (one of my many jobs) and Easter is the busiest time of year - worse than Christmas.  Lent is the time that musicians prepare for Easter.  There's only a handful of days in the next 40 days, in fact, that I am not at some type of music rehearsal. As the music director of eight choirs for Easter, I had to be totally prepared for Lent.  Organizing music, ordering it, making sure I had the right binders for everyone, etc. really took a chunk of time this year.  But now rehearsals have started and I am getting into the routine of it all. I only mention these first two things because they impact how difficult it was to deal with the next items:
  3. Now here's what you want to know: On February 1st, I received a request to revise from a MAJOR AGENT.  I mean, like, DREAM AGENT.  I was floored.  And the revision notes totally resonated with me.  I immediately embraced them and saw how much better my story would be with those changes.  I started working on them right away. But then...
  4. The very next day, I got an offer from a small press for a 3 book deal.  I was floored.  I hadn't even submitted to them originally.  They requested my manuscript via an online contest I had entered.  And then, really??  A 3 book deal???  WOWSERS!!!  
All of this put me in a crazy position.  I still had four fulls out with agents and I really connected with MAJOR AGENT's notes.  By the time I got the 3 book deal, I no longer liked my book as it was.  But here I was stuck between a sure thing and a not-so-sure but potentially better thing.  The small press is new, but it has had some buzz and one of the agents with my full said she believed it is real up and coming. (That same agent offered me an R&R as well, by the way.)  And after my revisions were completed, I knew that MAJOR AGENT might not take me.  But she has sent me quite a few emails in the last few weeks and has always been very open and honest and wonderful and how could I not want to work with her????

So I did the hardest thing I've ever done in my writer life.  I turned down the publishing contract.  And I have spent the last few weeks pounding out the revisions.  If MAJOR AGENT doesn't sign me on, I still have the other R&R.  And I only started querying in January.  I feel confident I made the right choice and my story is only stronger for it.  

Now my revisions are done and I am returning to you, my bloggey buddies.  I've missed being part of the blogger world and am so glad to be back. 

What's been going on with you?
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