Sometimes life is mean, cruel, or just flat-out unfair. Other times, things happen that make you feel like hard work pays off. Working independently with a wonderful literary agent to workshop my query has paid dividends, and then some.

For the longest time, I thought hard work, research, and a refusal to quit lead to success as a fiction writer. It was only when I started reaching out to others in the industry that my work began to shine. In my most recent meeting to workshop my query letter, she commented that she thought I finally cracked the code on my query letter and predicted that I would start seeing success in my querying. It only two weeks after that statement for her to be proven correct. It gave me great satisfaction to be able to let her know her prediction rang true.

Working in that limited capacity with an industry veteran was motivating because it gave me a taste of what the process will be like to collaborate with an agent on my writing when I do find the agent right for me. I relished the process and loved working with someone who is as big a nerd as I am about the intricacies of written language in this arm form of fiction.