At the advice of an industry professional, I cut 20,000 words from my novel. It's svelte and fast-paced, a much better read at 90,000 words. The executive editor of a large publisher who had the longer version requested the shorter revision. My manuscript is now under serious consideration. I'm, of course, very excited and hope she loves the revision.
In the meantime, I'm working on editing three fiction anthologies. Come see:
http://www.notreebooks.com/submissions
Agent news: After requesting two separate exclusives and a revision (see above), the agent who tied up my manuscript for 8 weeks (including rewrite time) said "no thank you" after her previous praise of "great potential." No reason given. She was very nice, so I won't grouse about it. She also sent it to her readers and they apparently liked it a lot. This kind of stuff happens all the time -- the almosts -- but the end result is that I have a KICK-ASS version of my novel manuscript and the biggest romance publisher in the world is considering it. So it was, after all, a positive experience and I am grateful that the agent asked me to cut 20,000 words. It was nice of her to take the time to like my work that much and ask others what they thought. I will also cut her a lot of slack because my manuscript landed in her office after the death of an associate and that, I am sure, affected her desire to take me on as a client. Sometimes, the timing of such events can affect a business and I wouldn't want her to take me on as a client when so much else is going on and she already has a full list. I can honestly say the manuscript has been honed to a fine perfection and is the best work I've ever done. I'm so proud of this manuscript and will keep riding on my comeback trail.
The waits are interminable, between submission and news related to it, but it's all part of the process, so I try to work on other things and be patient. Life is wonderful.
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