Bad, Bad Girl

Forgive me, blog, for I have sinned. It has been WAY too long since my last entry.
Unfortunately, I have little new to report despite the long delay in posting. Last weekend I was swamped with general life crap - baby proofing, errands, running 19 miles, etc. The weekend before that we were in L.A., which was a good - albeit extremely busy - trip. Little has changed in the book world. I haven't had any time to work on the newest novel, and I've only had one update since my last posting re: The Book Collector.
Another agency requested a partial, which is great. I now have two partials out and one full, and I'm desperately hoping that one of those leads turns into something. There are now 4 outstanding agencies, all of which are most likely not going to respond at this point. It has been two months since I sent out this batch of query letters, and here are the stats (including all agencies):
4 no's based on query letter (including KW and JB)
4 no responses
1 reject on full after resubmission (JM)
1 reject on full with possibility of resubmission
1 reject on partial with possibility of resubmission
2 partials pending
1 full pending

That's a total of 14 query letters with 3 possibilities left (and the 4 that I haven't heard from). So technically only 7 rejections, so not too terrible over all I guess. Fingers crossed that something pans out... Otherwise it's on to edits and resubmissions I suppose.
Meanwhile, Jack is now pulling himself up to standing! He's getting so big - it's amazing the changes in the last month alone. Of course, I'm up for worst mother of the year after this morning, when Jack flopped onto his face and landed directly on a sharp piece of plastic (I was sitting right there, trying to put a box back together that he'd just broken, and he fell over for no apparent reason). Now he has a big scrape on his little nose and I feel just awful :(
The marathon is only one month away, thank god. I suppose I should be nervous but I just want the damn thing over with. I'm currently trying to figure out how to fit in the 20 miler (our last long run) on the weekend we go to Boston. S and J are being very uncooperative in the scheduling department and it's stressing me out. There's always SOMETHING to worry about. Work is work - tedious and a constant looming presence I could certainly do without. But no agent, so no quitting. At least not until the end of the year, when I hope to reevaluate things (including our budget) and figure out my plan for 2011.
Amen.

This Just In!

Finally, after not hearing anything for what seems like forever, I have an update. Last week I got a rejection from one of the agents who had requested a partial, which might be more devastating if she'd been someone I was super excited about. She was an agent who was recommended to me by two friends, so there was a connection there, but she didn't love the book and I certainly don't want to be represented by someone who doesn't "get" my writing. She gave me relatively positive feedback (she liked my writing and thought the book had potential) but when she suggested I add a ghost into the story, I knew she wasn't the right agent for me. She did say I can resubmit if I revise, so at least the door isn't totally closed.
I spent the weekend feeling rather down on myself. I'm swamped at work, and Sarah essentially told me she doesn't love my book and thinks I'm not trying as hard as I could. I appreciate her honesty (and to be frank, I pretty much already knew how she felt about the book) but it stung, of course. Did I put 100% of my effort into this book? Probably not, but it's hard to do that when I don't even know if anyone will ever want to represent me. If I already had an agent or this was my second novel or something, I think it would be a little different for me. Plus, in case no one else has noticed, I've been a tad busy this year...raising a child, working, training for a marathon, etc. So if I haven't given this novel my all, it's not because I'm lazy.
Then this afternoon I got an email from one of the two remaining agents who has the partial, and - praise be to jesus - she requested the full. I am just hoping and praying and wishing with all that I have that this agent wants to represent me! She's actually someone I queried with my last novel on the recommendation of KW, and while her roster isn't huge at this point, I think she has a lot of potential. I would be beyond thrilled for this agent to represent me. I have no idea how long it will take to hear back (it took about 5 weeks to hear on the partial, so I'm not expecting a speedy response). In the meantime, I'm really hoping the other agent with the partial requests the full as well. There are also 5 agents I have not had responses from, but I'm not really expecting them at this point.
I have also started working on the new novel, and I'm really hopeful that this one will go well. If I could get an agent at this point, I would definitely quit my job and put Jack in day care a few hours a week so I could really devote myself to writing. Pray for me!