For ten months a literary agent dialogued with me about Avra's God. My query was the best he'd ever read. He couldn't believe another agent hadn't scooped me up while he was on vacation. Right. I was delirious, incredulous. The only other agents that showed any interest at all were scammers.
My characters were high schoolers. He had me do a rewrite and graduate them into college, then another to move them into their masters.' Finally, he said they were just too YA for his network, could I get them out of school all together? No, I couldn't.
I was disappointed when a formal rejection came in the mail, but how could I not be grateful for ten months of an agent telling me I really can write. From the amount of books flooding the marketplace and the abysmal quality of some that make it into print, believing you're a writer doesn't make it so.
The agent said I had great pacing. I had to go look "pacing" up in Sol Stein to find out what it was! He was wowed that I'm a Stein devotee. Go figure. It's not like you're born knowing how to construct a novel. Even though I majored in creative writing, there were no classes in novel writing.
The agent even paid a New York editor to critique my work. She said once I get over myself (evidently my synopsis overkilled on colorful similies--I promise I've laundered it since), I can write. Way cool.
I'm headed to Glorietta Christian Writers' Conference in October to hawk Avra's God, and I may go the Writers' Edge route. I prefer them because they won't advertise your book if they determine it's sub-par in quality. My philosophy is that I need to do everything I can to sell the book, but it's God who will get it into print if and when He chooses.
