How it's going

The short version is, sloooooowwwly.



For those of you following the epic saga that is me trying to get Masks published, we are working on step three of a five-step sequence. The full sequence goes like this:



1. Write book. So far, so good on that one. I’ve written three complete drafts of Masks, and have extensive notes on a fourth—basically, I’m ready to go to work as soon as I get anything like approval.



2. Get agent. Check and check. I am officially represented by Angela Rinaldi and Spencer Humphrey, two very fine agents indeed.



3. Get publishing deal. Still working on that one. Spencer has reported some promising developments that I’m not supposed to be talking about on Facebook. We’re talking to people, including the infamous editor Fred X (name chosen at random—I don’t use real names online until I actually have something in hand) mentioned on my MySpace blog, and others too. But we probably won’t hear anything until January, since much of the publishing industry takes much of December off.



4. Publish book. This is on hold until step three is finished, of course.



5. Win undying fame and fortune. Well … I’ll get back to you.

So now you know. If you’d like to help get Masks off the ground, your best method is to invite friends to join this page—the more people it’s got, the better it looks to Fred X and company. It looks like the trailer may not get posted until January thanks to some delays in the art, but the mystery plushie’s coming along, so that should be entertaining.



And for the record, this note is good news, not bad. While I would have been deliriously happy to have a contract in hand by year’s end, Spencer has done a phenomenal job of getting Masks where it needs to be, and the book has come much farther than I would have expected. If you’d told me when I was writing Masks in high school that someday I’d be taking meetings about it with editors at the biggest publishing companies on earth, I would have asked you what you were smoking and suggested you lay off.




As one of my favorite authors is fond of pointing out, most people who have story ideas never write anything, most who write never finish, and most who finish never submit. Doing all that and getting this much attention is pretty darn impressive. I’ve gotten some good feedback, and I’m putting it to good use, so the only real downer in this entry is that I get to spend Christmas and New Year’s with relatives asking me every five minutes why my book isn’t published yet. Then again, if I had a contract in hand this late in the year, they’d all want to know why I hadn’t brought them free signed copies, so maybe this works out better.




Happy random winter celebrations to all, and may your secret identities remain intact for another year!