Agent Hunt

A 20-post collection

SABLE

For anyone in the crafting arena, or anyone who lives with someone in the crafting arena, also knows about SABLE. For those who don't know, it's an acronym for: Stash Above and Beyond Life Expectancy.

...I happen to have enough earring and beading shit to currently last me a lifetime. So I should very likely make myself sit down and spend an hour or a half hour making earrings for EGDB like I've been gassing about for forever and a week.

I need to take stock, of course. Figure out which pride earrings I haven't made doubles of yet, make those doubles, and come up with some designs for those 'gem' beads I found and bought a sampler of. Heheh.

Yeah, I have a problem.

And just one of my problems is: I need a bigger box for my jewellery shit. I want to learn about cold-wire crafting, because I think I could make pretty awesome things out of cheap-as-fuck wire... but that's probably going to mean two boxes and I really need to learn how to keep it simple, stoopid.

I need to get some stock made, so that I can put the shop up and maybe, just maybe... make a little money out of this deal. But spreading joy and happiness might also be as good. I can't do a lot to help people, but if my creativity can help someone be happier, I'm all about that.

I've learned not to expect much out of my endeavours.

I have scoured the current A2B's site for any hint of a timetable. I might just have to simultaneously submit to the last one on the list. The dreaded postal submission will take some extensive time to even get there. Plus two to three months, plus travel time back... you'd better believe I'm paying for tracking both ways. If this A2B hasn't got back to me by the time the postal agent gets back to me, I'll count it as a lost cause and go complain to AR&E.

But I'll be sending two book samples up by post, since Adapting is just as ready for the world as Kung Fu Zombies. Separately, of course. You don't send two potential books in one envelope. They're so very, very different that I might confuse my A2B.

Hopefully, two different envelopes and the Sample Shuffle should obfuscate one from the other that happens to be by the same name. Maybe. This is the agent who also represents one of my literary heroes, Lois McMaster Bujold... so she might just be sharp enough to spot my attempted duplicity and call me out on it.

But first, I have to get my shit together beyond the sample of Adapting.

So much to do

I'm still doing the read-through of Beauties, and aim to get to the halfway point before the end of the day. Each chapter takes fifteen minutes away from other things.

Other things like writing my Instant, or working on the first five hundred words of the new book, Rael. And I haven't even written the nut notes.

They'll evolve as time goes by.

I've always needed nut notes to keep things straight. As I introduce people, I'll take notes.

And everything is

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...dagnabbit

Good news: I have found a way to do an efficient read-through of Beauties before I send it off to my dear, dedicated Beta-readers.

Bad news: It sucks balls and takes an age to do.

The method? I get my computer to read my book to me and follow along. Chapter by chapter. I have to take the time to devote myself to this so that my Betas have more to enjoy and less to do. Y'all should be backup to make

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Yoiks and Away, I guess.

Before I wanted to write a draft of the very polite letter I sent to the most recent A2B, I thought I'd check in on their website to see what their responses were likely to be like in the first place.

if we are interested in discussing possible representation, we will contact you by email or phone—typically within 6 weeks.

The time limit has run out. They haven't contacted me. So...

I pick another A2B and try again. At least the

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Small Progress

It's the first of March, and that means that I have seven more days to live through whilst simultaneously fearing acceptance and rejection. Acceptance means I get money, but I also have the possibility of going on book tours and talking at conventions and meeting fans.

And I have social anxiety.

If I am rejected... well, I have to go through all this AGAIN, and with a different Agent-to-be. Or, as I've been starting to shorten it, A2B. Which means another three

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