This is when it stopped feeling real...

That agents liked my book was in itself a dream come true, but was no guarantee that publishers would feel the same.  Obviously I was hoping they would, but again, this was uncharted territory for me.  I'd no idea what their response would be, how long this next part would take, and whether I'd sit in another slushpile for days, weeks, months even, waiting my turn.

This is where you SO need an agent.  After the polishing, pitching your book to people who'd otherwise never see it.  Loads of these other people, as it happens - worldwide.  What followed was the most exciting, unbelievable, surreal experience.  There were offers from foreign territories before the UK - something I vaguely knew happened but hadn't even thought about.  Juliet's calls and emails with the latest updates.  Then the call that began 'Are you sitting down...'

I was so lucky - not a day goes by that I don't think that.  What could have been the most nerve-racking wait of my life happened at lightning speed and despite the best efforts of the taxi driver who was determined to leave me at the wrong end of London that morning, my book has found a wonderful publisher.  It's a cliché, but this is the dream I've held on to, from when I first started reading those fantastic stories about writers who wrote a book and found an agent and got published, just like that.

And it's taken a few years but now, it's happened to me, too:

http://thebookseller.com/news/pan-mac-wins-auction-howells-thriller.html

               

For me, the next chapter is just starting.  There's editing, the next book to write and wonderful people to work with, but amazing though it seems, it is happening.  I will forever keep the emails that flew between Juliet and myself over those completely mad weeks, just to remind myself - it's real!
But my point is this.  Those dream-come-true stories you find online sometimes, aren't made up.  Publishing is full of people who want to find books they feel passionate about - I know this because I've met a few of them.  And okay, for most of us, it doesn't happen overnight.  As an unpublished writer faced with rejections, sometimes it's hard, really hard, to keep the faith.  But the best things are so worth waiting for - if you keep writing and keep believing, you never know, one day, it might happen to you...