I can finally talk about this.

[agilebrit]

Long story short, I have a contract from WordFire Press for my first (and only, to date) novel.

The contract is super author-friendly (it's only five pages long! It's in plain English! It's not a rights grab!), and if the timeline works out (and we're going to do our best to make sure it does), the novel will be out in time for me to hand a copy of it to Jim Butcher at Salt Lake ComicCon in September and tell him "thank you."

Comments

[splinteredstar]

Oh, wow, congrats!

[agilebrit]

Thanks! I am super excited. :)

[sarillia]

Congratulations! I'm so happy for you!

[agilebrit]

Thank you! <3

[inevitableentresol]

Congratulations!

[agilebrit]

Thanks! \o/

[00ts]

Wow, that's awesome. Way to go!! If I may ask, did you ever see yourself actually making it when you started? How do you think you stuck with it?

[agilebrit]

Well, to be fair, I'm not sure I've "made it" just yet. This is a fairly giant leap, however.

Understand that I am not a natural novelist. The short story/novelette is the length that's chosen me, not the other way around. This thing was an utter fluke, and I'm still not quite sure how it got written. If I manage to get two more under my belt and actually published, then I might think I've "made it."

And, honestly, it's just... psychotic persistence, as Jim Butcher called it. Never give up, never surrender. I have 31 shorts out making the rounds right now, and I've got nearly 120 rejections on my year so far. You have to believe that someone, somewhere, will love these stories as much as you do, despite all evidence to the contrary.

"A saint is just a sinner who keeps getting up." I kept getting up.

[00ts]

WOW so I read this as you as you posted it but am evidently going to reply a month later?! I'm so sorry there's no excuse. :(

For whatever it's worth, I really appreciate this response. It reminds me of something a favorite author of mine has said, which is pretty cool.

To be perfectly honest, I was asking the question more or less for my own motivation. Your straightforward reply was a good knock on the head--makes me think that aside from persistence, I've more with actually /doing/ the work than talking about it. (Aha I'm completely ordinary.)

But just keeping going at it, eh? Well, I can try. Thank you once again for everything, hope your book deal is still going smoothly.