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Monday, August 23, 2010

The Agony and the Ecstasy

Okay, ecstasy first.

Last Wednesday, or actually the wee hours of Thursday morning, I came across a contest: Janet Reid, Literary Agent: A writing contest that will knock your sox clean off!  It was a writing challenge that was kind of quirky and looked like fun so I gave it a shot.

The results were posted on Saturday: 101 Things I Learned in Contest School aka We have a winner! There were 165 entries. The post opened with Janet’s comments on certain lines or clever references she particularly liked. There were over twenty mentioned. I didn’t really have any great expectations but hope springs eternal. Alas, no mention of my entry. Then she got to the heading, These entries made the final cut:   And there…the very first name…was mine!!!   No, I didn’t make the top three finalists but I just got the biggest kick out of having been noticed at all. I mean, this is an agent! A for real agent!  And my little 100 word impromptu entry made the final cut.

I was so pumped I unwrote another 755 words from my overweight novel.

Oh, the agony? I have to go back and scratch off all those 4th grade football games from my calendar. My grandson fractured his finger in Sunday’s game and will most likely be out for the season.  (Hey! This is important stuff here!!!)

Unwriting progress: From 150,000 words down to 118,459.

I'm currently enjoying: A Murder Hatched by Donna Andrews

Quote of the day: All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt.  Charles M. Schulz

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like Janet Reid's blog. Her responses to some query letters are outright hilarious. Congrats! on seeing your name on her list. BTW, she rejected my query letter without the funny comments.

Stephen Tremp

Maria Zannini said...

That's fantastic! Just to get her attention says a lot about your work.

Congrats, Linda!

Linda Leszczuk said...

Stephen, I haven't had a chance to query Janet yet. We'll have to see if I rate a funny comment on my rejection.

Maria, Thanks. Probably silly to get jazzed over a mention, but I really did.