I finally figured out who my main character was for this, and I’ve started over from the beginning because Sophie-Katrine Pathescarte is a far different character from either Alice or Sarah. There will still be a race, a disaster, a secretly-mailed letter, and mayhem, but that will come a bit later and a bit differently than in the original draft.

I “found” the character and the story when this blurb popped into my head during a drive a couple of weeks ago.

Sophie-Katrine Pathescarte has a secret that could end her perfect, high-society engagement, ruin her entire family…and save the kingdom.

And for this version, I’ve made a nice start tonight:

1,646 / 90,000 (1.8%)

Minor progress, but I had my First Readers review chapter one to see if they agreed that this was on the right track and — yay! — they did! A few good notes thrown in and now I’m into chapter two. I think I’ll hit Existing Stuff by the end of this chapter and then wordcount should tick along much faster for a few thousand words.

4,075 / 90,000 (4.5%)

I’m aware this is a bit of step back, but it’s actually a MASSIVE step forward, ’cause this is so working now!  Yay!  Thank you Linnea Sinclair who introduced me to the concept of “leapfrog plotting!”  I see a lot less hair-pulling in my outlining future :)

3,716 / 90,000 (4.1%)

In case anyone missed the piercing squeeing last week, I now have an agent!

And since he’s going to be at World Fantasy along with several other people I know or have met or would like to meet, I’ve decided to go.

So today was all about getting that put together — getting vacation time approved, reserving the hotel room, buying the membership, booking the flight… argh, this is going to cost me, BUT I think it will be worth it to have the experience and for the networking and just to be around all the pros in the field in which I want to succeed.

Earlier this week, I received an offer of representation which I’ve accepted. Michael Kabongo of the OnyxHawke Agency will be handling my literary interests, beginning with SanClare Black.