Renegade Writman

Some time ago, I wrote an interesting (in my opinion) novel titled 'Renegade Writman'. Through various fits and starts, I eventually managed to get the entire book into someone's hands. I'm not going to mention the name of the publishing house out of some mortal fear that doing so will queer the deal, but the people who have it put out some extremely talented authors. I would consider myself lucky indeed to be counted amongst that august host.

The steps to get to the point of someone looking at a full manuscript is torturous. It involves query letters, synopses, trickling the book out bit by bit. Each and every step carries with it a 'yes/no', and any step could be your last. Kind of like Pitfall, only without alligators. Well, okay, maybe there's alligators. But you get my point. It's difficult. Exceedingly so, especially in this age, when we're surrounded by JK Rowlings and Stephanie Meyers. But get there I did.

And then, nothing.

So much nothing, in point of fact, that I gave up hope. I'd come to the conclusion that they weren't interested and that somehow, their disinterest got lost in the mail. It took some getting over, because come on ... that's the closest I'd ever gotten. I'd been like Icarus, except without the flamey melty wings made of out wax (which, by the way, strikes me as not very aerodynamic). I got on with my life, such as it was. I wrote a sequel because it was time to write a sequel but that's what writers do. We write.

And then?

They got back in touch.

I was told the book was still on the editor's desk, that he was going to look at it and wham! All of a sudden I was back in the game and stupidly excited with it. I wrote a third book in the series in about two months. I was told to bide, and to be patient.

And so I did. I bided my time. I was the essence of patience.

I am nothing if not patient. I'd waited a year and a half to get that 'wait' email, I could wait longer still. I email my contact every few months, gently gently testing the waters. No sense in poking the shark, as it were, while it digests everything around it.

Well, as you all know, I recently self-published Foreign Devil on Kindle and I thought to myself, I've got to step up. So I've emailed them again. I've hit them with three barrels (my shotgun is special like that). I've told them that;

1. the second novel, For Everyone or No One is ready to roll and is awesome
2. the third novel, Shattered Censure, is even more better and cooler still (we're talking COOL)
3. I know precisely how and when and why the series ends.

Hopefully they'll get back to me and say 'We're terribly sorry, the answer is, of course, yes'.

In the meantime:

Go here, here and here