My new job

Yesterday I spent the day scavenging the Interwebs for literary agents that specialize in Fantasy works.  It turns out, to my delight, that there are a few out there.  This is great news, since my husband has tasked me with finishing SotO in prep for publishing rather than finishing other projects that are not nearly as complete.  I am one scene away from completing the first draft, which sounds impressive until you realize I wrote the manuscript in 2007.  Yeah, not so impressive after all.  But I'm getting there.

I started, per Husband's suggestion, by outlining the story in bullet points, scene by scene.  This gave me a great roadmap to see the story as an overall piece.  It also gave me the chance to skim through the whole story, which I haven't really done, and I found plenty of parts I fell in love with all over again.  I also found two scenes I really felt needed to be in the script before I could call it finished.  I wrote one of those scenes a couple of days ago, and time willing will write the other today.

Which leads me to yesterday.  Yesterday I was talking with one of my bloggers (I run a blog to pay the bills, or at least to try and help pay the bills), and in that conversation he gave me the name of his agent.  Thankfully I ran over to her site and read through her sales, her desired submissions, and her suggestions for writers looking to publish.  I've done this sort of research before, but never have I been this close before to being ready.  Yes, I know I still have two huge edits in front of me.  But I also have a nearly completed manuscript that I thoroughly enjoy reading, and think others will too.  And so I research.  I found that my blogger's agent wouldn't be the right one for me, but the links on her page led me great places, and so I bookmarked her blog for future reference. 

I realize now, that this needs to be my job.  I need to make it a job to work on this book until it's on a bookshelf, hopefully the bookshelf of the Borders down the street.  This won't be one of those jobs that actually pays, since I figure it will cost money to travel to conferences to flog my work.  But it if I want to call myself a novelist I have to do two things:  I have to write novels, plural, and I have to publish them.

So there it is, progress, and, interestingly enough, my new job.  I hired myself, gave myself the statement of work, and am already on the way toward reaching my goal.  It's a job that works on a project basis, so that means I have to continue to generate projects so that I can keep my job.  Fortunately, once I manage to get the first novel published, the second will be easier.  Right?  Right?