Updates

I apologize in advance that this particular post is going to be a little me-centric. That's sort of inevitable, since all the posts about our family are written through my personal filter, but this week has been a particularly stressful one for me, and that stress (even if it was good stress) occupied a lot of my thinking this week.

Many of you know that I'm a writer (or aspire to be one): I've written articles for LDS church magazines, published some academic articles, write regularly at the Segullah blog, and so forth. But what I've really longed to do, since I was old enough to realize it was an option, is write books.

I wrote a lot of fiction in junior high and high school, less in college, and almost none in graduate school. A few years ago, I picked up writing again. I wrote a middle grade novel that didn't go anywhere (but taught me a lot) and then I wrote a historical fantasy young adult novel.

This one is finally starting to go somewhere. It might not ever get published, but it has gotten me one step closer to publishing--finding an agent. If you're not familiar with book publishing, let me just say that anymore, if you want to publish a book with a major publisher, you have to have an agent to submit your work. And finding an agent is a little like finding a job in a super-competitive market: you send a cover letter describing your book and your qualifications (with sample pages, if the agent asks for them) to an agent. If they're interested, they'll ask for more pages to consider. If not, they'll pass. And a typical agent (even a new agent) receives about 200 queries a week, from statistics I've seen. (And maybe takes on 5 new clients in a year, unless he or she is new and actively building their list).

Like I said, it can be competitive. I've been lucky this round to have a lot of agents request to see more pages. And even luckier that an agent offered to represent me. Actually, more than one, which is what made this last week so stressful--I spoke on the phone with several different agents, considered their offers, researched their publishing track record, thought about our personalities seemed to fit (for the record, they were all a pleasure to talk to), and tried to make a decision. I'd told the original agent I'd have a decision by Friday, and I did, but it was probably the hardest decision I've ever had to make, because I was deciding between several good offers, but also making a major decision for any career I hope to have as a writer.

So that's where I am. It's not official yet, which is why I don't have a name, but I will be announcing it sometime this week on my writer blog, if you want to keep an eye out.

In other news, we've had a fun weekend with cousins: Sarah's oldest was in a swim meet this weekend here in town, so while the adults watched the swimmers, we hosted the girls at our house. The kids seemed to enjoy each other.

Last night was our ward Christmas party. Dan seemed happy enough to leave early with Oliver (to put him to bed), but I enjoyed watching the kids sing in the program and visiting with friends in the ward. As hard as it can be dealing with crowds sometimes, I do like these communal events because they remind me that we live in a bigger community.

Here's hoping for a relatively painless end of the semester--and a considerably less stressful week than last week!