the e-postle: Agent ready
After 22 years, a rewritten, polished draft of my novel (the e-postle) is complete. Three hundred pages, 86,669 words. I’m calling the pages “agent ready,” knowing that I would rewrite this thing forever…if given the chance. At this point in my creative writing life, the words, plot, catalyst, transformations, climax, and conclusion are the best I know how to write.
Therefore, it’s time to search for a literary agent! :-)
l started the first draft of the first chapter in 2000. Based upon those words, The Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing admitted me into its MFA in Writing program. Two decades later, I returned to this story in the Covid lockdown. I’ve been writing non-stop nightly since the start of the pandemic. Oh, I may have missed a couple nights each year for illness or exhaustion, but I clocked in 97% of the time…my trusty steed Freckles by my side. ;)
I expect to have a query letter and synopsis ready for a literary agent search at the start of 2023.
I’ve been rewriting and re-envisioning the manuscript with the guidance of fellow Spalding MFAer, Charlotte Rains-Dixon (The Bonne Chance Bakery, Emma Jean's Bad Behavior).
Before this, I was one of 15 competitively-chosen writers to participate in WKU’s Winter Writing Workshop. Novelist Silas House (Lark Ascending, Southernmost) instructed the writers on dialogue, point of view, setting, et cetera. In the workshop, Silas gave me valuable advice that impacted the manuscript, and I appreciated his input a great deal.
And not long before the WKU workshop, I removed 20,000 words in reaction to a novel writing workshop at The Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing.
These past few years have seen a lot of…time travel. I’ve been rereading the packet cover letters from my MFA mentors, especially by my two mentors who worked with me so closely on the manuscript’s creation: Julie Brickman (What Birds Can Only Whisper, Two Deserts: Stories) and Roy Hoffman (The Promise of the Pelican, Come Landfall).
The story unfolds over three days in December, 2006 and is split between two locations: London, England and Nashville, Tennessee. A more complete blurb is coming…as soon as I write it! :)