Hope Is a Thing of Dorkiness

We're heading into good sunset season again.

Once again I'm reminded how lucky I am to be able to witness this from our front porch. Last night was a hot night, unusual for us. At about 10:30 I went and sat on the patio. Heat lightning flickered around the valley and the moon swam silver through black clouds. It felt lovely and peaceful.

I might be refilling the well for a while here. I feel considerably less depleted today, however.

I also managed to finish a big chunk of a project for the day job yesterday, so that made a huge difference.

And I sent The Body Gift off to the agent. No, not *my* agent, but my potential agent. The one I'd really like to work with. She's responsive, positive, really good at what she does and she likes me. When she finally rejected Obsidian, she asked me to "please, please query again." She's the one who called The Body Gift a stellar idea (stellar/sterling - I got mixed up. forgive me). I'd emailed her last week to find out her reading schedule and see if there was a good time to read it. She wanted me to send it right away, so she can read it before National (eep).

So I sent it yesterday morning. With a little "Here it is!" And I sat there and stared at my screen, sifting through all the things I wanted to add. Wanting to pour all my hopefulness and excitement onto this little email, which adds or changes nothing. And she knows how I feel anyway. Every agent knows how writers feel when we send our manuscripts.

Finally I typed, "I know this is silly to say, but I really hope you love it."

I know - I'm a dork.

But she replied later in the day, saying "Me too!"

Which is sweet of her. And it reminds me, should remind all of us of something that we forget. The agents really want to love our stuff. Every time they read our pages, they are also full of hope. Hope and anticipation that this will be something they can love and champion and hopefully sell for enough money that their 15% will buy more than a week's worth of groceries.

We take turns waiting on each other. They wait while we write. We wait while they read. Each of us hoping the other will come through.

Hope feels like such a silly thing, where cynicism feels so wise and mature.

But hope is what keeps us going.