I’ve been keeping a secret. Sort of—I told a large group of my writer friends and a handful of family, but it’s still totally secret otherwise!! I’ve decided it’s now safe to make it public as I’ve passed the stage of thinking it was all a huge hallucination.

Writers get really antsy when good things happen, and I’ve fallen victim to it too. We’re a superstitious lot. If we hear someone published after they stood on their head before each writing session, then we try it just to see. If we hear that Brussels sprouts spark creativity then we pile on the helpings and choke down the world’s worst vegetable (unless you’re my parents who think those little green balls are made of awesome). When something good happens we always attribute it to luck, a massive trick we’ve pulled, or a mistake that will be corrected shortly.

Which is how I’ve felt all year, as I got good news piled on, and it seems that even at the end of 2013, my good luck had not yet run out. I’d just started the agent search this fall for my newest novel Identity (which won the Daphne. Yes, I still can’t believe it—I’m sure I got lucky, pulled some massive trick, or a mistake was made). Looking for agents is truly frightening, especially with all the horror stories, so when a podcast about agents aired on Hide and Create I diligently did my homework and prepared to learn more and become a savvier query master.

The agent interviewed was Rebecca Strauss from DeFiore and Company and I fell in love instantly, but writer/agent love often goes unrequited as I was slowly finding out. Every time she spoke, I had that weird feeling of “Oh my gosh, that’s her! That’s my agent!” So I shot off a query right after the podcast. This was around Thanksgiving. She responded a few weeks later wanting a full. And I did sent off my latest version that’d I’d sent to the RWA Golden Heart contest. Then I instantly had sending-the-full-request remorse where I realize all my mistakes. For one, my newest version didn’t have my name anywhere on the document since I’d prepared it for a contest. Shoot. I should have remembered that. Oh, and I stressed over the fact she graduated from Duke with an English major—which meant she’d instantly cast me aside for all my spelling/grammar errors.

I had no reason to worry, since three days later she wrote me back to ask if she could call me to discuss representation. We set the date for December 18th.

Now, I’m a huge believer in signs, and this was a big one. If dates have energy surrounding them, then this one is special. On December 18th 7 years ago I had my son. On that day I suffered a rare type of nerve damage/paralysis, that took me months to recover from. I’d been working on learning to write better and overcome my problems with dyslexia, but that was the date I’d made a commitment to myself to write with the intent to eventually publish. Because if I could so something as huge as learn to walk again, I could learn to write better.

The phone call went awesome and we worked out all the details. So now I can officially say I’m represented by Rebecca Strauss at DeFiore and Company!

I’m so excited to get this novel out the door and shop it around to publishers.