Success x 4

The Fire in Fiction workshop was AWESOME yesterday. Insightful. Clever. Mind-blowing. All the things a workshop should be, rolled into one great day.

First success: I got my 10 seconds to shake Donald Maass' hand. I politely reminded him who I was and that the book we plotted together was in his email box. He asked me to briefly remind him what it was about. When I told him the basic premise, his eyes lit up. He said he remembered it and that he'd get to it ASAP. Very cool.

Now, he may very well have been blowing smoke. But it didn't look that way to me.

Second success: He also said to send the next 50 pages of what I'm working on, even though you're not suppose to send an agent another work if they already have one on submission. This is not a normal response, so I'm counting my blessings.

Third success: My brain was officially mush by the time I was done. It was a miracle I found my way home...oh, wait...I didn't. I actually got lost in Palo Alto. Oops. Told you. M-U-S-H.

Fourth and final success: I got home after a very long, very dark scenic route and checked my email. There, sitting nice, quiet and unread was a response from a query I sent out last week. I opened it. And it read, "Thanks for the query. Sounds great. Go ahead and send the whole novel as an attachment."

Overall, this was a great day. Getting lost, not so much. But I've got my foot in the door to this big publishing world...and I keep inching it in. :)