A Novel Idea

There’s no denying it – today marks the last day of the four-week period I promised an agent an exclusive look at the “full.”  I’ve reminded myself that my email, months ago, noting that she hadn’t yet responded to my original submission prompted a quick reply and apologies.   She then read the manuscript and suggested that if I did a revision, she’d welcome another look.  So I’ll email her a reminder tomorrow with the hope that, once again, she simply hasn’t had the time to read the manuscript. Regardless, I’m freed to send the “full” to others now.

It’s also possible, of course, that she has read the 200-plus pages and is putting off breaking the news that she’s passing on the book.  She’s a kind, gracious woman who surely recognizes the time I’ve invested in a re-do; perhaps she has no idea that I celebrate how much that revision has enriched the work.  I’m grateful for her nudge, whether she agrees to represent this book or not.  I’d just as soon she send a rejection sooner rather than later, if necessary.

Hmmm.  Negate that.   It’s plain old counterproductive to go there – you know, imagining rejection.  Everything I’ve been reading in recent years attests to the power of positive thinking… and imaging… and speaking.  I do believe that thoughts are things… and negative, fear-based ones corrupt the best of outcomes.

Things get a bit more complicated, however, when one chills with friends who happen to be seriously psychic.  A week or so ago I was talking on the phone with one who does this kind of thing for a living.  We were chatting about something fairly inconsequential when mid-sentence, she stopped and said,  “Somebody’s reading your manuscript right now.  Is the agent petite with brown hair?”

“That would be no, and no,” I told her.  “I know she’s a blonde.  And I’m fairly certain she’s tall and lanky.”  (So there.)

This friend was undeterred.  “Well, the woman is definitely petite and brown-haired and she can’t believe she’s been asked to read the whole thing because typically she doesn’t buy into the paranormal as valid or real.  She loves your writing, but she doesn’t want to change her mind about mediumship.”

Swell.  Could be the assistant, I told myself.  She was the reader who only read the first 75 pages, even though another reader, who wrote, “Think Tuck Everlasting and Bless Me, Ultima, with a bit of The Babysitter’s Club and you have [this book]” insisted that one has to finish the book to” get it.”  Could be anybody, really.  Could be this verdict will be reversed by the agent herself, I offered.

This is when my pal, my buddy, my GF, added,  “A guide here is saying you have to keep sending it out.”  (Thanks for that.)

I hung on to the concept of malleable futures.  Any reputable psychic will tell you that there are many ways our wills and others’ can alter an initial vision of what’s to come.  And I wondered aloud if she herself isn’t too invested in an image she has received more than once of two women in California (assistants? agents?  booksellers? grocery clerks?) enthused about the book.

The skeptical reader is surely saying,  “What the….?  You believe in that crap?”

And all I’ll reply at the moment is:  Seeing is believing… and this friend has been successfully prescient enough times – from telling my daughter she’d change jobs and host a radio show in a matter of months at a time when she was immersed in running a company she created for General Mills to… well, trust me, the instances are mind-boggling.  More medium than prophesier, she’d be the first to tell you, however, that she’s not always right.    So stay tuned.  Bottom line:  This A.M., first thing, a doe and her twin fawns ambled by within five feet of me.  That’s really all the soul-stirring happiness I need today.  I hope your day holds a share of such happiness for you, too.

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