Superfood of life

Now that an indie publishing house and three literary agents are reviewing We Are the Love Gods, I can officially say: I Have Momentum!

After spending a month revising my submission materials following the Algonkian Pitch Conference in New York, I sent requested materials to the editor and agent I'd pitched while there. Imagine my elation when the indie house editor immediately replied asking for my entire manuscript! I couldn't have been more thrilled when he wrote back:

"I kindly ask your patience while we review the manuscript. When we are seriously considering a book for publication, all main editors must weigh in." Woo-hoo!

Meanwhile, I connected with the editor-turned-agent whom I'd also pitched at the conference, and another agent who came as a referral from someone in the business. A third agent I'd pitched before the conference also asked for the manuscript. All three are reviewing Love Gods for possible representation.

And so the waiting begins!

Or does it? There is much work to do as I enter this publication preparation phase. I continue pitching agents to keep the pipeline active, an exhaustive process that involves tedious research and endless tailoring of submission materials -- not to mention repeated visits to Kinkos and the neighborhood post office to print and mail materials. (For a hilarious account of the obsessive redundancies required to move a book from obscurity to the public eye, check out Aranubha Sengupta's The Best Seller.)

And it's time to begin writing the second novel, a Love Gods follow up that leaves me excited and apprehensive. I've been mentally writing this newest book for the last year, so it'll be a charge to digitally dig in. Yet a second project will mean "going under" for long stretches at a time. This suits me just fine, but I can't say the same about some of my relationships, quite a few of which have fallen off, one by one, as I dedicate my energies to writing.

We writers learn who are genunine friends are, don't we? They are the people who love us unconditionally; who don't take personally our submersions into the underworld of creation; who don't demand our time to feel loved, confident that we love them regardless; who happily embrace us when we come up for air.

Genuine, loving relationships will always be there for me (and I, for them). And writing? It is the very superfood of life!