The Waiting Game

This is an exciting time. Also a scary time. Nerve wracking, even. After months of being crazy busy, now all I can do is wait.

Chrissie Warren: Pirate Hunter is going out to publishers this week. Fingers crossed.

I finished the latest revision about a week ago, then wrote synopses for two sequels. Not that I have to slavishly follow them when it comes time to write them. The purpose is to give an editor something he or she can get excited about and take to the publisher to offer us more money, which I think is just a great idea.

So it's all been sent off to Eddie the Agent, who start sending it to publishers this week.

I've been here before, so I'm not getting my hopes too high. Chance was out there for two years. One publisher had it in the system for nine months. This was a big house, so my then-agent gave it to them exclusively. I actually did two rewrites for them to address different issues they had. The book made it to their final meeting, the one where they decide, this is what we're putting out next year. That was very exciting. Then it just died and I never did find out why they decided to pass on it. At that point my then-agent sort of gave up, It went out to a few more houses, but I could tell from his e-mails he was no longer interested. He'd taken what he thought was his best shot, it came up short, and he fell out of love with it.

So I'm going to stop talking about the possibility that Chrissie will be the one that finally breaks through. It's good. I'm confident in that. I'm satisfied I've done my best. Now it's really out of my hands. The next time I mention how Chrissie is doing, it'll be to say the book (or books!) have been sold or are no longer in play. Certainly I hope it's the former.

And of course, I have Scurvy Dogs! to finish, There's a about seven weeks of school left, and those kids are going to get the whole story. That's a promise. It's a good story that I'm excited to work on, and it'll give me something to do while I wait.