I was doing okay until about Wednesday. Then my nerves kicked in. Now I am writing this to give my mind something to do.
I don't know if I ever wrote out the entire story of the process of what I have been going through for the last nine months, so let's back up to last fall. I was getting ready to submit my manuscript to agents, and, of course, I was obnoxiously posting on Facebook that I was getting ready to submit my manuscript to agents. A friend of mine who has a son with CP emailed me like "Here. My niece works in the publishing industry. Here is her email." Did not know what she did. Did not know where she worked. Being that I like to be just so damn independent, I wanted to email the agents and see where that took me.
I emailed about fifteen agents. Not one of them wanted to see my full manuscript.
So, I'm like, "Alright, I will email this Nicole girl and ask her if she knows of any agents." She said she did. She also said she worked for a publishing company and asked to see my query letter. Okay. I sent her my query. She then asked to see my manuscript. Okay. I sent her my manuscript. She then asked to submit it to her editorial manager.
WHAT?!
No matter how independent you think you might be, a little help can go a long way.
My manuscript went all the way to the publisher. Although they really liked the concept, they said it needed work. They could not make me an offer, however, they gave Nicole permission to help me and said we could resubmit when we were done. So, every week for the past six months, Nicole would work on a chapter, sent it to me, I would change whatever, and we would go on to the next chapter. We did this for 32 chapters.
We resubmitted it last Thursday. Part of me is like "They have to take it. We worked on it for so long. It is a THOUSAND times better, all thanks to Nicole." But part of me remembers them saying no guarantees, and that keeps playing in my mind. Like I said, I was doing good until Wednesday. I had friends come last weekend. We hung out, went shopping, went to the mall (about that later), got cheesecake and frozen yogurt. But now I am getting nervous again.
So about the mall. One of my staff and I went to the mall and a guy who was awesome awesome awesome waited on us. He talked to me, joked with me, and treated me like normal. So my friends Angie and Kelly were like go back and tell him. Kelly showed me this video. Since I always complain about how people don't get it and how they don't talk to me, I felt like I had to go.
This is what I said.
Hey I don't mean to be awkward or anything. I just want to tell you that I appreciate how you talked to me the other day. Most people don't talk to me directly, or don't talk to me at all, and I am trying to do a lot of disability awareness to change that. I even have a book about it coming out. I just wanted to come back and tell you you really made my day because you talked to me, and joked with me, and treated me like anybody else. I really, really, appreciated that. You are awesome.
My friends were saying the worst he could do was be like okay, cool, thank you, see you later. And that really was what I was expecting. This is not me. I don't usually go up and talk to people I don't know, let alone tell them what I told him. To my surprise, we had a fifteen minute conversation where at the mention of my book, he whipped out a piece of paper, wrote down his number, stuck it on my DynaVox, and told me to text him when my book comes out. I was shocked! Completely shocked! Maybe we will be friends. Maybe we won't. Who knows? I'm just glad I did it!
Stay tuned to see if I go absolutely insane with waiting!
P
I don't know if I ever wrote out the entire story of the process of what I have been going through for the last nine months, so let's back up to last fall. I was getting ready to submit my manuscript to agents, and, of course, I was obnoxiously posting on Facebook that I was getting ready to submit my manuscript to agents. A friend of mine who has a son with CP emailed me like "Here. My niece works in the publishing industry. Here is her email." Did not know what she did. Did not know where she worked. Being that I like to be just so damn independent, I wanted to email the agents and see where that took me.
I emailed about fifteen agents. Not one of them wanted to see my full manuscript.
So, I'm like, "Alright, I will email this Nicole girl and ask her if she knows of any agents." She said she did. She also said she worked for a publishing company and asked to see my query letter. Okay. I sent her my query. She then asked to see my manuscript. Okay. I sent her my manuscript. She then asked to submit it to her editorial manager.
WHAT?!
No matter how independent you think you might be, a little help can go a long way.
My manuscript went all the way to the publisher. Although they really liked the concept, they said it needed work. They could not make me an offer, however, they gave Nicole permission to help me and said we could resubmit when we were done. So, every week for the past six months, Nicole would work on a chapter, sent it to me, I would change whatever, and we would go on to the next chapter. We did this for 32 chapters.
We resubmitted it last Thursday. Part of me is like "They have to take it. We worked on it for so long. It is a THOUSAND times better, all thanks to Nicole." But part of me remembers them saying no guarantees, and that keeps playing in my mind. Like I said, I was doing good until Wednesday. I had friends come last weekend. We hung out, went shopping, went to the mall (about that later), got cheesecake and frozen yogurt. But now I am getting nervous again.
So about the mall. One of my staff and I went to the mall and a guy who was awesome awesome awesome waited on us. He talked to me, joked with me, and treated me like normal. So my friends Angie and Kelly were like go back and tell him. Kelly showed me this video. Since I always complain about how people don't get it and how they don't talk to me, I felt like I had to go.
This is what I said.
Hey I don't mean to be awkward or anything. I just want to tell you that I appreciate how you talked to me the other day. Most people don't talk to me directly, or don't talk to me at all, and I am trying to do a lot of disability awareness to change that. I even have a book about it coming out. I just wanted to come back and tell you you really made my day because you talked to me, and joked with me, and treated me like anybody else. I really, really, appreciated that. You are awesome.
My friends were saying the worst he could do was be like okay, cool, thank you, see you later. And that really was what I was expecting. This is not me. I don't usually go up and talk to people I don't know, let alone tell them what I told him. To my surprise, we had a fifteen minute conversation where at the mention of my book, he whipped out a piece of paper, wrote down his number, stuck it on my DynaVox, and told me to text him when my book comes out. I was shocked! Completely shocked! Maybe we will be friends. Maybe we won't. Who knows? I'm just glad I did it!
Stay tuned to see if I go absolutely insane with waiting!
P
