Third Time’s The Charm?

You know, back in the days before I was published, I would go to conventions and sit in on the workshops and listen to the authors gush about their editors and their agents and how they’d been with them since the beginning of their careers and how they wouldn’t be anywhere without them. Editor X or Agent Y took a chance on them and everything clicked and was wonderful.

And that’s a tad tongue-in-cheek, obviously – not all the stories are fairy tales, but still.

It sounded awesome. I mean, who wouldn’t want a partnership like that? And sure, editors all work differently – some hold your hand, some don’t. Some do in-depth editing and some stand back and give vague direction and let the author do their thing. It can be hard to find the right rhythm.

I’ll admit I’ve had a rather interesting run with the whole New York publishing gig. Two years ago, I got my first agent (Nov 2009). By January of 2010 I had a 3 book deal with Pocket and got my first editor, who I adored. (And still do. Mwah!) By August of 2010, my agent became ill and left the agency. Whereby I got my next agent from the same agency. (Whom I adore. Mwah!). By October of 2010, before my first book even came out, my editor left the publisher to pursue other work in the publishing industry. I had a new editor assigned to me in December 2010. Who went out on maternity leave in August of 2011 and is no longer coming back.

So now I have just been assigned my third editor (Adam Wilson, y’all. Whee!) It’s such a small world here because back when Brush of Darkness was out on submission, Adam was working for an imprint of Harlequin and made an offer on it. But he recently accepted a position with Simon & Schuster, and when he discovered my  editor was not coming back, he remembered my work and was kind enough to ask for me.

As an author, I cannot begin to tell you what a relief this is. Being orphaned once was bad enough, but twice within the same 12 month period is sort of mind-shattering. Just as I started getting used to how one editor worked, the rug was snatched out from under me. It’s hard to keep a positive attitude about your creative work when you essentially get dumped on someone who isn’t familiar with you. A forced partnership, if you will. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t. (And to be blunt, in this case, it didn’t.) And if you didn’t know this entire huge mess of a story, it might look like I’m some sort of diva simply because my editors drop like flies. But circumstances are odd and often beyond my control.

So to have Adam specifically go out of his way to snap me up means a lot. He’s already familiar with my writing voice and the basic storyline. (Hell, he even tweets with my alter ego @phintheunicorn sometimes…even well before any of this.) For me, this is an excellent premise to a new working relationship and one I am very much looking forward to.