Christy English

Getting The Call

Friday, November 21st, 2008 | Once It Is Sold, Selling Your Work, The Writing Life

As a writer who has spent ten years pursuing my art, getting the call from my agent that my book sold was the highlight not only of this year, but of my life to date.  It is hard to convey the significance of this. I am still trying to process the experience.  Everyone has a dream, whatever that dream might be. My dreams, like those of most people, have shifted somewhat over time. From a fasciantion with acting and theatre, I moved into writing fiction ten years ago. Writing novels is all I have wanted to do for the last ten years. I have written more than one complete novel, and now that I have sold one, I am delirious with joy.

As I try to reach for the language to express the feeling of accomplishment, I fail. Others have spoken to me of how lovely it must be to finally have the external validation of a sale, to know that others value my work. While this is true, it is not as large a factor as I thought it would be. I find that what gives me the greatest joy is knowing that my words will be read by those I do not know, that my characters’ stories will be told to those whom I will never meet. I feel at last as if I have fulfilled the next step in my mission: these stories have been entrusted to me, and now I see that they will finally go out into the world. Whether others receive them as warmly as I hope is beyond my control. (Yes, the thing about reaching one goal is beginning to hope for another: in this case, I hope to sell out my print run and have a second.) My book will be out in the world in little over a year, and I feel finally as if I have done my job.

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