The Value of Encouragement

I received some encouragement from my agent yesterday. Technically, it was from his assistant, Mary. I have learned over time that he speaks through her half of the time, so I'll take it.

Soon after I completed the final draft of the Paleopeople manuscript, my agent sent it out to his closest and most trusted editors. I assume this. That was back in November. I've been on pins and needles since. That manuscript took two years to complete, and my future as a writer hangs in the balance. Yes, I sold my first book (the Avery McShane adventure) to Bloomsbury, but that won't be published until February 2012, and Paleopeople is an epic that could be big.

It is hard to concentrate on writing when you're dedicating so much thought to something other than what you're currently writing. All I have been able to think about is Paleopeople. It consumes me. It paralyzes me. Despite this malady, I continue writing, kinda. I submitted the first draft of the Achilles Wept manuscript last month. It's a thriller and the target audience is older. It is a new genre for me. Encouraging news part one is that they are reading it now.

After submitting Achilles Wept, I turned to an old project I had started originally called The Journey to Iguazu, which I recently re-named The Pirates of Xingu. Believe me when I say that neither title will survive. Anyway, I just couldn't get into it. I kept on fretting and wondering about Paleopeople. So I started yet another project called Yankee Go Home. It is historical fiction about the roots of anti-American sentiment in Latin America - a collection of short stories following the life of Chicho as he participates in and witnesses the many instances of U.S. intervention in the region. It all starts in 1928, with the Banana Massacre in Colombia. Some of you may recognize event from Cien Anos de Soledad, the classic by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I did my research, figured out where I was going with the project, wrote the first short story, and submitted it to my agent.

Encouragement part two is that they seem to like it - at least that first short story. Mary wrote that "(we) think you might really have something there.  Our advice is to just keep writing at this point." I cannot tell you what a shot in the arm this is. I wish I could get a dose of it every day. I'd put out a book a month, which would really throw a wrench in my agent's slow moving gears (the whole business is slower than molasses, not just my agent). You see, whereas I think that I'm moving slowly and not putting out enough work, they see it differently. Mary finished the email with, "You are so prolific it is hard to keep up." 


I know what she meant with that last comment. They don't really have the time to read everything I'm submitting and still keep up with their other clients. Sort of a veiled "slow it down, will ya?" But I'm going to take it as encouragement (part three), and keep on writing - prolifically.