Yay!!!
I’m not usually one for multiple exclamation points, or even one, but this week’s news definitely calls for it.
I’ve been offered representation by a literary agency in New York!
I’m so happy, and I couldn’t be more excited. The agent I mentioned in my previous post, Victoria Skurnick at Levine Greenberg Rostan, loved the new version that I sent her about a month ago in May. She said I had fixed the problems she identified, and she wants to represent me! Like I said: yay.
It was not easy getting the MS past those final hurdles. I passed it to my editor friend Susan, who turned out to be the most amazing, talented book editor I could have possibly hoped for. I should have shown her so much sooner – except that maybe the early drafts were so bad she might not have been able to help me…
As it was, Susan was able to redline all the spots that Victoria was talking about – all the places where I was still telling and not showing, all the over-explanations, and so on. “Resist the Urge to Explain,” she noted, writing “RUE” in red every time I did it. I was rueful indeed! But it was exactly what I needed.
I also changed the ending (again! see earlier post about endings) so that both endings were happy and more satisfying. I think it makes it a more commercial novel, and it turns out Victoria loved the new ending. She actually used the word “brilliant” in her offer, which was wonderful to hear.
As of today, I have not formally, finally accepted the offer as there are terms of the client agreement to deal with. I’ve read the draft agreement and there are some issues that I can see, so I’ll probably have to do a back-and-forth over the next few days to get those ironed out – more on that in my next post.
I’ll also be reaching out to the four client references that Victoria volunteered to me, to see what they say about working with her.
But considering I’m up to about 50 rejections at this point, I’m not about to turn her down. And yes, the champagne is already chilling.
CJ Connolly 