It was a little more than a year ago when my literary agency made it official and dropped me from their list.

I won’t lie, that hurt.

I won’t lie, I saw it coming. Emails went unanswered manuscripts went unread and in general I seemed to be more and more of an afterthought so the eventual move was hardly surprising. I am not naming names and I am not here to trash talk anyone or make a big public angry rant. The Author/Agent relations is a relation and now all of them work out, people have the be compatible just as with romantic entanglements there comes a time when it is better to walk away than to stay in one that is unhealthy and counter-productive. For those who are still with that agent and that agency I wish you all the best.

So, what has happened to me in the intervening twelve months?

I mentioned that ‘manuscripts went unread’ well that referred to a strange little novel I wrote where I combined Science-Fiction with Film Noir. I am certainly not the first person to that, there a plenty of novels exploring that blending of genres but what is different in mine are the exact sub-genres I braided together. Noir has two major branches, the ‘Hard Boiled’ school of police and private detectives and the ‘dark underbelly’ of society. That second branch is represented by works such as ‘Double Indemnity’ and ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice’ and it is the flavor I wanted to work with, merging it with colonial science-fiction about humanity as it struggles to survive on alien worlds.

I took that SF/Noir manuscript that had languished unread and found a publisher that produced books of both SF and crime narrative and submitted it. The book sold. First time, first publisher I submitted it to. I just completed the edits to the manuscript and my editor has submitted to the house’s production department. Vulcan’s Forge is expected to hit the shelves next March.

The manuscript that started the relationship with my former agent is showing promise as well. A major house that specializes in military SF, which is what that manuscript is, just alerted me that the work had been pulled of ‘closer examination.’ Of course they may still pass on the book but it’s more activity that it had been getting.

On the short story front I made it to ‘Finalist’ for the Writers of the Future Contest. That’s in the top eight slots out of thousands that had entered. I did not win, but it felt good that my odd little AI/Ghost story made it so far.

The point of all this?

If you’re queries are bouncing off agencies, do not despair. There are more paths in that just that one. Keep writing, keep plugging, and remember never ever self-reject