Interest!

Alert! Alert! An agent has shown interest in my work, and requested that I send her the first 50-100 pages of my manuscript. Being that this was only my second query ever, when I arrived home last night to see the return envelope sitting on my desk I fully expected outright rejection. On opening it, I was excited to see that this rejection was at least signed by the agent herself, and on further inspection I realized that it was not a rejection at all, but a request to see more of my work. Miriam Altshuler, I knew I liked you. Of course, this is by no means a positive indication of what is to come. My 99 pages and the $12 it cost to mail them may all be returned to me without any chance of representation, but I can't tell you how cool it feels to write "Requested Material" on that envelope. Like a secret code that means "push me to the front of the line people - Miriam is expecting me." Even if nothing comes of it, this request to read more is an indication to me that the very idea of my book is enough to elicit interest, and that it is not a silly piece of nonfiction that only myself would be interested in, as is often my fear as I lay awake at night grinding my teeth together thinking "hey, I'm not supposed to grind my teeth. All those horrible things the dentist told me would happen. Oh, why didn't I just buy that mouthguard - it wasn't that expensive. I just kept thinking about all the postage I was going to have to cough up and I thought 'I can stop grinding my teeth whenever I want,' and now look at me, lying awake in lock-jaw position just asking for dentures. Four and a half years of braces down the toilet."