Two days before my one-on-one critique appointment with the editor from Tyndale House Publishers, I received her initial comments on my first ten pages. Here were some of her good comments:

• Very gripping beginning!
• Overall good showing and not telling
• I don’t have a lot of critiques on your writing techniques. I think you write thriller content really well and your suspense is gripping.

Of course there were some suggestions. So the day of my critique appointment, I was expecting to dig deeper.

We were able to come up with an easy way to clarify a couple things, like opening place and the age of the main character. With a smile on her face, she said what I wrote had terrified her! I wish I could have recorded the meeting – She said more nice things than I ever thought would come up in a critique appointment!

Talking about the actual critique only took up fifteen of the thirty minute appointment, so I went on to ask her how to present my book idea to agents and editors. That led to talking about themes and then to other writing topics.

A couple minutes before the end of our time, I said I enjoyed talking with her so much that I wished I could talk with her for another hour! She said that she did too, and went on to say that I could reach out to her any time to talk or ask questions!

How did I get so lucky?

Immediately after that appointment, I went into my fifteen minute one-on-one pitch appointment with Donald Maass.

He actually got excited about my idea! He said I had a good angle, I nailed a strong theme, and he liked how my story seems to start small but opens up.

Then when he was right in the middle of a sentence, I got kicked out of the virtual meeting room due to our scheduled time being up. I asked the moderators if there was a way I could reach out to him to ask if he would like to continue the conversation sometime. They went to ask, came back and said he wanted me to come right back!

After talking for ten additional minutes, he asked for my full manuscript! He gave me his direct agent email address, not the agency query one, and told me what to title my email so he spots it.

AGAIN, how did I get so lucky?

I know all of this doesn’t mean Donald Maass is going to represent me – I mean, look at the statistics! But goodness, I’m getting a once-in-a-lifetime chance at feedback! From both of them!!

AHHHHHH! HAPPY DANCE!!

I had these opportunities because I registered to attend the Realm Makers annual writers conference virtually. I’ll try to mention all the other wonderful things about that conference in another post – Otherwise this one would be too long 😏

Has anything ever encouraged you more than you thought it would? What “impossibly” good thing has happened in your life, big or small?

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