BOUNCE

A bit of a break from the Crits for Water Awesome for a different sort of awesome. Remember that Jessica Lei’s random drawing is still happening (until April 10, 9am EST) and the Super Sekrit Giveaway #1 is, too (until April 15th, 9am EST).

SO. The other day I placed my head on my desk and breathed a big sigh of relief/contentedness. The teacher to my left laughed because Japanese people find my melodrama verra amusing. (It’s super contrary to their traditional stoicism.)

“What’s up?” he asked in Japanese.

“Uh…” I grappled for my iPhone and swiped through to my Japanese dictionary app. “I write books, and…”

“Wow, are you published?”

I shook my head with The Chuckle: a sound us writers release when confronted with that adorable naivety about the industry. I squinted to read the translation of my searched-for word. “But I have just decided which, er, book 代理人 (dairinin) to choose. And I’m so satisfied and glad!”

“Oh, that’s great! Congratulations!”

Dear readers, can you guess what 代理人 means? The wonderful thing about Japanese is that, even without having heard the word, you can guess its meaning based on the kanji. Here, I’ll explain:

代 – substitute, change, generation, fee
理 – logic, reason, justice, truth
人 – person

So, in other words:

“I have just decided which literary agent to choose. And I’m so satisfied and glad!”

That’s right, folks. I have an agent.

I HAVE AN AGENT.

Exclamation points of awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have a few more: !!!!!!!!!!!111!!!!!!!one!

This was my face throughout most of this process.

After a week of bouncing, eating lots of chocolate, sending angsty emails to friends, and insomnia, I accepted the offer of representation from Sara Megibow of Nelson Literary Agency. Our skype chat was amazing. She didn’t even blink when I was 10 minutes late (and groggy) from calculating the time difference wrong. But most important, she really gets Singular, is super passionate about it, and will do a fantastic job of representing and supporting me through my career.

Bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bouncebouncebouncebounce.

Post congratulations, of course, my coworker cocked his head. “So you’ll be published in a few months, then?”

The Chuckle escaped again. “No, definitely not a few months. But fingers crossed for the future.”

Fingers crossed.

EEEEEEEEEE I’m so happy!!!

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