Hey! I have an agent. An AGENT. I’m like a famous person, with an agent. I still feel a bit weird saying it: I have an agent. She’s an agent, and she’s mine. ALL MINE (although, technically, I share her with other authors, so yeah, she’s not ‘all mine’, spoilsports).

Here is how I acquired an agent:

a large butterfly net and a small phial of chloroform.

JOKING.

Many years ago, back when I was a mere slip of a lass, I decided I wanted to be a writer. I wrote a story entitled ‘The Adventures of Penny, Jenny, Sam and Ritzy the Dog’ (it seems that I was heavily influenced by Enid Blyton and her extensive oeuvre) which I gave to my mum, neatly written out, on five sheets of paper. Yes, FIVE WHOLE SHEETS. It was EPIC.

I asked her to send it to a publisher to be published. I believed, back then, that you merely had to request a publisher to publish something, and they would, and smile whilst doing so, and then send you lots of cash. My mum obviously knew better, because she didn’t send TAPJSRD (catchy) to a publisher, and it never got published, and has been lost FOREVER (criminal).

Many years later, when I was older, and wiser, and more bitter, and very twisted, I wrote some words which I thought could be published as a picture book for preschool children, but had no idea how to go about sorting that out, even though by then, I’d written other stuff, and had even managed to get a MA in Creative Writing (which was great but woefully cannot guarantee you instant publication and fame/fortune etc, bastards). The words sat on my hard drive and waited. And waited.

I did stuff, namely: had a baby, moved around a lot, wrote a blog, did some more stuff, tried to write creatively in my spare time, failed a bit at everything, then managed to rally, and did more stuff.

Then one day, as I was deleting old files off my computer, I found the picture book words. I read them. And laughed. ‘Ooh, this is good,’ I thought. ‘Did I really write this? Wow.’

Still, I had no idea what to do with it. Self publish? Maybe. I have used that route with some of my other work. But a picture book? Won’t I, y’know, need pictures?

Then, a tweet caught my eye. An agent was looking for submissions. You could email them your work. Anything for children, but more significantly, picture books. The words. No pictures necessary.

So I emailed her.

Tried to forget about it. I’m no stranger when it comes to sending submissions to agents/publishers. I know the process. Mostly, you get nothing back. Sometimes, you get an impersonal reply. Occasionally, you get a personal reply. Very occasionally, you get a lovely rejection letter, with plenty of encouraging praise, but blighted with that dreaded phrase, ‘I just don’t feel we are able to represent your work effectively’, or variations of. No problem. I can take it. I’m a writer – I’m BADASS.

Almost six weeks later, I had an email from the agent. I really like your story, she said. Do you have any more?

Oh! Well, yes. Yes I did have more. But they were rough drafts, not fit for reading. I dithered. Why? I don’t know. Hesitancy is the bitch of self-doubt. Luckily, I was recovering from flu, and too addled to really surrender to my insecurities. I stayed up late one evening and feverishly rewrote two stories, and emailed them to the agent.

Two days later. Another email. She really, really likes them. She wants to talk to me on the phone. When is convenient to call?

The following day, I talk to a real, live agent. I talk about myself. I talk about my writing. I talk about my blog, my social media experience, my stories, my dreams. At the end of the conversation, she says she wants to represent me. I accept. I tell her I’m really happy. When we hang up, I do a victory dance around my living room. There may also have been convivial whooping.

That was back in April and we’ve been working since then on polishing my stories so that some proper publishing types will really like them too, and publish them with a smile, and then send me lots of cash.

I guess what I’m trying to convey through this blog is that… you never know. And if you never try, you’ll never get what you want. Is that cheesily life-affirming enough? I didn’t think I’d end up penning picture books for children, but now that opportunity is in my grasp, I’m totally fine with it. It excites me. I want it to work out.

Oh, and if you were wondering, the most thrilling thing that Penny, Jenny, Sam and Ritzy the Dog got up to was eating coconuts on a desert island before sailing home. EPIC ADVENTURE. I promise the picture books are better. Promise with all my heart and soul.

And you’ll have to wait to read about the picture books. That’s for another time.

*convivial whooping*