After so much hard work and frustration, I’m finally beginning to see some forward momentum in this whole writing thing.

I have an agent, and I’m so excited to be partners with her. I am now represented by Cherry Weiner of the Cherry Weiner Literary Agency. I met her at the Writers for New Orleans conference. We hit it off, and when I and the opportunity to pitch to her, she requested my manuscript.

I sent it off to her with great trepidation and high hopes. She received it, but let me know that she was making her way through the stack of manuscripts and that it would take some time before she reached mine.

In the meantime, I received some wonderful news. I finaled in three contests: “Where the Magic Begins,” “Launching a Star,” and “Put Your Heart in a Book.” I actually entered one each month over the summer while I continued working on my manuscripts, but as it turned out, the finalists for all three contests were all announced around the same time.

At the end of October, I received an email from Cherry asking me to call her. My heart was pounding. Did it mean what I hoped it meant?

I contacted her, and she very quickly offered to represent me as my agent. I was absolutely thrilled. I’ve been floating a few feet off the earth ever since then. I was thinking that my family would need to tether me down, but then NaNoWriMo hit and it brought me rushing back to reality. For those of you who do not know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write 50,000 words in one month. It’s been a challenging goal to meet. I did well the first week, but life has been getting in the way lately and I’m not achieving my daily word count.

But I digress. On to my newest big news…

I received a really wonderful email this morning. My manuscript received first place in the “Where the Magic Begins” contest!

Yes, that squeal of delight you heard this morning at around 7:30 AM was me reading that I had won.

I know that I’ll be knocked on my big ole’ butt pretty soon when something really bad happens, but in the meantime, I’m enjoying these moments of success.

So, in the words of Jonathan Coulton, I feel fantastic !!!