Monday, February 06, 2006

A Great First Day!

We arrived in Winter Park in time to get our reserved lockers at the ski area base, drive into town and pick up our reserved rental skis, boot, and poles, and then take that equipment back out to the ski area and put it in the lockers. Then we unloaded the van and waited for our daughters and their husbands (and our grandson) to arrive.

Last night was an early night since everybody was fatigued from their travels and the unaccustomed high altitude.

Today we skied! I’m typing this before dinner time. We will take our meal here at the lodge dining room and then return to our quarters for games, or a movie (depending on how energetic everyone is).

Ski conditions could hardly be better. This area has had FEET of snow in the last month, and about 18 inches in the last week. Last night we got a slight dusting, but there’s plenty of powder to last for a LONG time. The forecast for all this week is clear skies and sunshine. Conditions should remain just about perfect.

I just checked my email and have another rejection from another agent. This one is quite disappointing as I have a lot of regard for her. It’s Kirsten Nelson (the Nelson Literary Agency), the lady who seems to speak “common sense” in her web info and her blog. If I thought I could change her mind I’d try, but that’s a hopeless cause. Guess I’ll just start snail-mail querying after this trip and see if anybody will take a shot at pitching this book of mine. There are lots of agents, and as they all say, “It just takes one!”

I won’t be able to post every day, but will try to keep you informed of our snowy adventures when I can. Michelle, sorry about all your heat. I’ll eat some snow and think about you!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorry to hear that you had a rejection, John :-(

I got a request for a partial from an agent yesterday, and I owe that in part to Kristen's post "State of the Chick Lit Nation" (you & I met through the comments on that post, right?). My queries, up until then, had identified my novel as "chick lit," but now I've changed that to the more general "commercial women's fiction." This isn't misleading -- my novel has a chick litty voice but lacks a lot of the other elements of chick lit (not set in NY, not a single clothing brand mentioned in the whole book!) (and my protagonist is a dog catcher, kinda tom boyish).

Anyway, I think that by positioning my novel as commercial fiction instead of chicklit, at least I won't have the door slammed shut right off the bat. Seems to be borne out as out of 3 queries I emailed after changing, I got one request back . . .

(I only wish I'd read Kristen's post *before* I'd queried *her* with chicklit in the subject line!)

Did Kristen tell you why she passed?

kenju said...

Sorry to hear about the rejection, John, but it has happened to many people many times and when they persevered, they finally found an agent who believed in them. So keep on keeping on, and enjoy the ski trip!

Monica said...

Enjoy your trip...been hard to get around to blogs the last week...trying to make up for lost time.

Anonymous said...

I also thought you might have a chance with Kristen. But don't you worry - when your book is published everyone will be sorry they did not take the time to read it. And they won't be allowed you as all your blogger friends would be like a protective circle around you at book signings.

Dont eat snow. Send snow in refrigerated containers. Urgent.

Anonymous said...

Thank you very much for going away and diverting your appliance conspiracy to me. Thank you very much KENJU for writing about. You both appear in my latest post.

*grin*

Valkyrie said...

I'm also friggin jealous of your current snow situation. Skiing...aaah, that would be good. I went skiing 15 years ago..why so long ago you ask...? Because we went on a family vacation to Sun Valley, Idaho to ski...that long ago...We live in Africa, so it's not really a yearly trip! :) I'm a friend of Michelle's by the way.