The Life of a Writer

Two years ago this month I was fortunate enough to attend the BYU Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers workshop. While there, I met a literary agent with a name hard to pronounce and even harder to spell. I talked to him a few times and I was so impressed that I knew I wanted to try to get him to represent my work.

He gave a blanket invitation to every workshop attendee to send him a manuscript that he would personally read instead of sending it into his slush pile. I asked him how long his invitation would stand. He remarked that he would like to see the manuscript within a year or two.

As you can see, it has been two years. During the last two years I have only finished the first draft of the novel I had planned on sending him. Life--the loss of Greg's business, a move and a new baby--got in the way. The manuscript wasn't ready and I wasn't ready to fix it.

But this week my thoughts have turned back to that manuscript and the agent I wanted to send it to. I talked to Greg, I asked my writer friends, I even pulled the manuscript out of a box. And then I got to work.

So you will excuse me if I don't have much to say. Right now I am focused on polishing the first three chapters so I can send them off by the end of the month, or sometime in August at the latest. I'm on a mission. I'll let you know if it succeeds.