My editor emailed me last week to inform me that she had finished reviewing my manuscript. Although I was very excited to see her suggestions, I held off looking at them for a couple of days. This was partly due to my being on holiday, but mainly because I was petrified to see what she thought.
As it turns out, my numerous rounds of editing beforehand made for a relatively smooth
edit on her end. Other than the odd "right word, wrong spelling" (eg. manner vs. manor), most of my errors were the incorrect use of dashes.
Now, my real work begins. Now it's time to see if I can find a literary agent who will represent my work.
At the time of this posting, I have queried 3 agents and compiled a list of others I would also like to approach. I'm using a magical website called Query Tracker that makes tracking down agents and their manuscript wishlists much easier. This allows me to focus my time and energy on creating customized query letters.
I saw a statistic somewhere that an author queries an average of 100 agents before being picked up, so I have quite a distance to go. Still, what's meant to be is what's meant to be.
While waiting to accumulate a collection of rejections, I will continue working on Book 2. I've written a whopping 5,000 words so far, but I've got the whole story planned out. Winnie, it's your time to shine, baby girl.
If you have an agent, how many queries did you have to send before being picked up?
Keep at it!