Christy English

Two Amazing Moments in One Day

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 | Once It Is Sold, Selling Your Work, The Writing Life

I had the most amazing experience today. Last night, after working into the evening on my latest draft of THE QUEEN’S PAWN, I turned my computer off, my task completed. I sent the book back to Claire via email, thinking that it still might need another pass. I have learned throughout this process that when Claire asks a question, she has always found a problem that needs to be addressed, something that I never would have found on my own. My book will be world’s better for her input. I never knew how valuable an editor was until I met Claire.

At any rate, I went to my day job today preparing to receive an email from her, asking me to make a few more adjustments. Instead, she wrote and said “It’s done! Congratulations!”

After months of working with Claire on making this novel the best I possibly could, it was transcendent to hear her say that it was done. I knew without a doubt that if she said it was ready, it was. What a relief to trust my editor! She has more than earned that trust from the moment we sat down to lunch in the West Village to discuss the current concept of the book.

So Amazing Moment #1: My manuscript got locked!

Not a minute after I received Claire’s email I got a call from my agent, Margaret. She had called to congratulate me on locking the manuscript. But there was more…Claire had also made an offer on my next novel, TO BE QUEEN. (This book will be about Eleanor of Aquitaine’s early life and her time as Queen of France. Can you tell I am obsessed with this woman? Hopefully, after you’ve read my first book, you will be, too.)

Amazing Moment # 2: My Second Book Got Sold!

I was still stunned from the joy of locking THE QUEEN”S PAWN. I am stunned and thrilled at the sale of my second book. Things can seem to be moving so slowly, at an almost glacial pace, and then suddenly, in less than one hour, everything changes; things don’t just move, they soar. One of the many difficult things about publishing a novel is that it takes so much time. But then everything comes together, and I am reminded that I am on the right path. My work is going forward, into the future, hopefully to make a difference to my readers once they open the pages of my book. That’s my job: to transport my readers to another time and place, to allow them to experience the lives of my characters, to offer them a different way to view the world.

And now it looks like I will get to do it again. As hard as this work is, I still love it.

 

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