It was a good mail day! I got a congratulations card from my Aunt Ardie for selling US and its two sequels. *beam* It's got a Thoreau quote on the front: "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined." I liked that. :) Ardie says, "You and Thoreau apparently live by the same philosophy." *beam*

There was also a very nice letter from Jennifer Jackson, welcoming me to the fold. :) I hadn't expected that, although when I saw the envelope, I went 'ah!' and wasn't surprised. :) Still, it's really nice! *laugh* A very good mail day! :)

Eeeeexcellent. The Ginormous Manuscript Package got delivered to Jennifer's address this morning, so presumably she'll have a chance to pick it up sometime after the holiday weekend, and that's good. I'm working on typing in the edits to HoS, and I've got about, um, a quarter, of the TB manuscript edited. Well, a quarter of the half that's written, so it's like an eighth, but don't be picky. I haven't gotten to the slash and burn part of the editing yet. Stupid rewrites. (Stupid orcs.)

I was a good Kit, and went to the RWA meeting, which was actually pretty fun. I only stayed an hour, which was longer than I intended to, but there were a lot of people there with a lot of works-in-progress to talk about, so it took longer than I expected. Ted was very patient and waited for me. I have an awfully nice husband. He also made me a mushroom swissburger for dinner. You can't beat that, I tell you.

It's been a productive day, as far as writing goes. I've gotten about 60 pages of the HoS edits typed in, and... yeah. Good day. Cat exploded! :)

Ye gods. I have just put together a 785 page package to send to Jennifer. For those of you who ever might need to know: the 8 5/8thx11.25x4 inch mailing boxes that you can buy at Office Depot will hold 800 pages of manuscript. Well, they'll hold 785; I'm taking the other 15 pages on faith.

This thing weighs a *ton*. And it's only two books! I need to do some rewrites on the third one before I send it! Ye gods! Ye gods and little *fishes*.

If I ever write a single book that's too big to fit into one of these boxes, shoot me.

HAH! Real Live Preacher is publishing a book! I'm *thrilled*: the guy is a beautiful writer and I've been waiting since I started reading his blog to hear that he'd gotten a book deal. Hah! Go Preacher!

I just had a wonderful conversation with Jessica Wulf, the contest coordinator for the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, whom I called to tell that I'd sold my first book(s!) and who just glowed with happiness even over the phone. She's a really *wonderful* woman, and it keeps stunning me to think, "Next year I won't be able to submit to that contest!" When I went to the RMFW conference last year, the last thing she said to me, on the way out, was, "I hope you won't be able to enter the contest next year!" And, well, *this* year I was able to, and I'm glad, because I won and because my manuscript is at Tor now (and now my AGENT is going to CHECK UP ON IT), but that I won't be able to next year just blows me away and makes me amazingly happy--and it made Jessie happy, too!

I would like very much indeed to sell ANGLES to Tor. That'd be a great success story for the RMFW, and I'd love to be able to deliver that news to Jessie. :) :) :)

I left Jennifer Jackson email last night saying I'd be up and functional around 10:30am her time if she wanted to give me a call. She did, and we talked for an hour, so now I know lots and *lots* of things.

They don't charge mailing fees, they do take the payments directly from the publisher and then cut the author a check, which contractually is done within 10 business days although she said Christmas always goofs things up. The only time, though, she said, that checks don't get cut that fast is if there are foreign payments involved and sometimes it takes a long time for those to get cleared.

They don't work with a written author/agent contract, but each of the contracts they negotiate states that this contract is made with the Donald Maass agency and delineates the rights therein, and that works for me, I think. She said Don's policy is that if a relationship is having problems, then to talk it out and if a satisfactory answer can't be reached then to part amicably, and, yeah, I can work with that.

They do editing. (She said her edits for Jim's fantasy novel were: "Throw out the first hundred pages.") Um. Oh! I did ask about earning out advances. She said they're called basket verses separate royalties, and basket royalties are the oens where you have to earn out the whole advance before you get royalties and separate are where, well, you don't. :) So she'll be talking to Mary-Theresa about separate, which she said she does normally anyway but she made a note to specifically do it because I'd asked about it. And she's going to try to get me more money, which, well, hey, rock on. :)

I told her about the various projects I had in the hopper, and I'm sending her the complete manuscripts for Angles and US and I told her I'd send her the synopsis for HoS but I was going to hold off a few weeks on sending her the ms until I'd done the rewrites on it that I wanted.

*laugh* And while we were talking she asked if I had a website, and I said yeah, cemurphy.net, and she went and looked and said, "Ack! I had competition!? Did I *win*?!" Which was, y'know, very human and funny and cool. :) I told her that the other agents were aware I'd been talking to other people, and that I'd be contacting them as soon as I got off the phone to tell them I'd opted for representation elsewhere (I have to do that; what I really did when I got off the phone was send her the synopsis for HoS and tell everybody I knew that I'd gotten an agent, and then tell Ted, who'd just gotten up, all about the phone call).

It was a really, really good conversation. I liked her a great deal--and not just because she said she liked my writing! *laugh*--and I feel really solid about having her as my agent. She said--this was cool! She said that my name had actually come up in conversation yesterday with Anna Genoese! That Anna'd mentioned me and Jennifer went 'oh wow, she just contacted me'. Isn't that cool? Hee hee hee!

(I am so not a calm, cool, collected author-type, am I? *snort* :))

So there you have it. I might post some more later, but for right now, I've got an agent, I've got a book deal, I've got an editor, and I'll be hearing about the contract later today or tomorrow, I expect. More details when I have 'em!

So this is what Today Hath Wrought:

Two of the three agents I've contacted offered me representation. The third, who is my first choice, hasn't yet gotten back in contact with me, and given that it's now after 7pm on the East Coast, I'm assuming it'll be tomorrow before she does. Given, though, the 4 hour time difference, I'll give it all until noon my time tomorrow before a decision gets made. I hope I hear from her before then. If not, I was very pleased with both the other agents I spoke with, so overall, I'm not feeling at a loss.

Last week one of the mailing lists I'm on had a posting for an open call for epic fantasy novels with strong female protagonists, a la KUSHIEL'S DART. The editor, who is looking for novels to pitch to Tor, and who is herself working on spec--she's not a Tor editor yet, but if she finds things they want to buy, she might grow up to be--asked for synopses of such novels, with the intention of requesting the first 3 chapters from authors on the strength of the synopses. (And then, on the strength of the opening chapters, she'll ask for full manuscripts.) Sarah pointed the posting out to me, and I took one of my novel ideas and shook it up a bit to fit the requested parameters, wrote up a synopsis, and sent it off. I got email back today requesting the first 3 chapters, so I'm going to work on those until they're done, and send 'em off. The idea I've ended up with is *much* more twisted (and, in my ever so humble opinion, *interesting*) than the original one I started out with, so I'm really glad Sarah pointed this out to me.

And Sarah also got a first-3 request on the synopsis *she* wrote up and sent in. We're just that cool!

That's about it for now, I think. :)

Whew! Okay! I have talked to Mary-Theresa, and this is what I now know:

It's looking like mid-2005 for URBAN SHAMAN's publication. It could be a little earlier, could be a little later, but probably somewhere in the July-September range. Then the manuscripts for the second and third books will be due somewhere around March and December of 2005. I ought to get a revision letter for US around Christmas time, so it's not looming over my head or anything; she'll want the revisions for US around June, so yeah, that's the basic schedule I'm looking at.

US is *not*, snif, the first contemporary that they've bought. Laura Anne Gilman will be having a contemporary come out in July-ish, and Laura Resnick will have something coming out... later. :) In 2004, but I forget when. However, that puts me in some pretty damned good company, if you ask me! Wow!

I mentioned my friend Jim Butcher, which caused her to say, "Oh, I *love* his books!" and I said, "Oh good! He offered cover quotes!" and she said, "Great!" So that was cool. Hee hee hee! And, hm, I plugged Ursula's artwork and said I didn't know how they did cover art, but if they were interested in author suggestions, she was a terrific artist, and she told me to email me Ursula's website/portfolio URL, so I've done that.

And last, Jennifer Jackson did in fact contact her and so contract details will be worked out there, if Ms. Jackson takes me on as a client. I expect I'll know these things within the next 72 hours or so.

*frantic running around* I haven't heard from Luna yet today. However, I *have* heard from all three agents I contacted this morning.

One is the afore-mentioned Jennifer Jackson, to whom I am sending the S&3 and we'll talk more tomorrow after she reads it. She's calling Matrice to tell her that she's looking at the book proposal. This is okay with me, because she's my first choice as an agent.

Two is Michelle Grajkowski, who is the agent who currently has RIGHT ANGLES TO FAERYLAND. I'm going to talk to her tomorrow morning.

Three is Jessica Faust, whom I emailed because 1. she's coming to Writer's Weekend next summer and 2. Sarah met her recently and liked her very much. She was *very* personable on the phone and I liked her a lot, although she's not, both from what the website suggests and what she herself said, the best fit for me as an agent.

As Angie said: I guess selling a book is indeed the best way to get an agent. :)

So that's where all that is. I've sent the S&3s to Jennifer and Jessica and asked Michelle if she wanted one. I also emailed Jennifer a short letter on my career goals and what I was looking for in an agent (which I'd sent to the other two as well, but I contacted them through email and had called Jennifer this morning, what with not having her email address), and, well, so now we see what happens next. :)

Oh, to hell with it. I've been trying to keep a lid on this on my blog because I don't have *that* many details, but Christ, I've told practically everybody I know already, and I have no idea exactly when I'm going to talk to the editor again (sometime today, hopefully this morning) and so I'm just going to post because I can't STAND it anymore. :)

Luna Books, Harlequin's new fantasy imprint which is launching in January, called me Friday afternoon and offered me a 3-book deal for URBAN SHAMAN and the next two books in the series.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I swear to God, my brain flatlined. I thought she was calling to talk to me about multiple submissions, because I'd called on the 5th or 6th or so to say that another house had requested the manuscript and I wanted to know if it was okay with Luna to multiply submit. So she says to me, "What's new and exciting?" and I said, "Oh, not much, I just made chocolate chip cookies, that's about as exciting as it gets around here right now, how're you?" And she was fine, calling from her cell phone because the office phones were down and the repairman had been there and said he couldn't do anything until Monday at least, and I allowed as how repairmen were always saying things like that, and she apologized for not getting back to me sooner, but she'd been at a convention and then on vacation and then out sick, and since *I* wasn't worried about the multiple submission thing anymore (Tor doesn't take them from unpublished/unagented authors), I said it was okay and I hoped she was feeling better.

Then she said, "Well, I hope you won't be multiply submitting this book, because I have some good news --I hope it's good news! -- for you: we'd like to make you an offer for URBAN SHAMAN and the next two books in the series...."

And my brain went BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

I said, "I guess I won't be submitting it anywhere else!" and "Thank you!" and rather a lot of other idiocies, I'm afraid, and she was *very* nice and told me that everyone was like this when they got a first book offer, and that I should take the weekend to think about it and we'd talk more on Monday.

That's *all* I know right now. I don't have a contract in hand yet, so obviously something horrible could blow up and it could all go wrong, but I'm not *anticipating* that. The first thing I did...

Well, okay, the first thing I did was shriek, laugh, kick my feet and gibber insanely for about six hours. :) I was shaking too hard to dial a phone, and Ted very helpfully called my parents and let me shriek at them, and eventually we all went out to dinner and there was more gibbering. *Lots* of gibbering.

After that, though, I emailed Jim and said WHAT DO I DO NOW, and he gave me lots of very helpful advice, and this morning I called Jennifer Jackson (who happens to be Jim's agent) to leave a message and I've emailed the Luna editor to tell her I'm pretty much talk_ok all day, and I've emailed work to ask if it's okay to take the day off, or at least the morning, because I'm useless. :)

And that is all I know right now. I will post more when I have it.

Tor doesn't accept multiple submissions unless you're 1. published or 2. an agent. So Anna invited me to send the manuscript to her if Luna passes on it, but I hope I won't have the opportunity. :)

Ok, I have called the editor who has US to ask if she's okay with multiple submissions. However, she's out of the office until 'next' Thursday. From her voice mail, I think that 'next' is the 6th, rather than the 13th, so I left her voice mail and hopefully I'll hear from her Thursday or Friday. If not, I'll give her another call Monday.

Now I'm dithering about whether I ought to respond to Anna's email now and explain what's up, or if I should wait to hear from the other house. Hm. I think I'll probably email.

Good grief. Never rains but it pours. I just got email from Anna at Tor requesting the complete manuscript for URBAN SHAMAN. Which is at another house right now, which means I have to figure out what proper ettiquette is, now.

Glargh. Two rejection letters. Both from Marvel. Thank God. I think I would've just died if I'd gotten two rejection letters from, say, Luna and Tor today. o.o

It's NaNoWriMo! And, true to the NNWM spirit, I am writing pure crap! However, I've written 3867 words of pure crap in the last 2 days, which is a whole lot more than I've written in quite some time, and it can be fixed later.

nanowrimo wordcount: 3,867
ytd wordcount: 217,200