Christmas Wish List (Barbara's First Blog of Christmas)

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7:55AM.  My fingers hovered over the keyboard waiting.  Tension hunched my shoulders and adrenaline rattled my arms.  I felt like a horse in the starting gate of the Kentucky Derby.

All I want for Christmas is an agent, and for one lucky writer, The Knight Agency wants to grant that wish.  To enter, I had to be one of the first 125 people to post a comment on their blog starting at 8:00AM.

I refreshed the window every few seconds, waiting for the entry blog to appear at 8.  I set my cell phone alarm, so I wouldn't miss the time.  At 8, the blog appeared. I scrolled to the Comments link, amazed to find that no comments had posted yet.  Did I really have a chance?

By the time the comment window popped up, sixteen comments showed up on the blog.  Don't panic, just type.

I typed it short and sweet and hit publish.

Oh no!  An error!  (Basically, too many people clicking on Publish Comment at the same time.)

I hit the back button, prepared to type again.  There were already 93 comments.  Yikes!  An even shorter, to the point post.  I hit publish and it went through as number ... 143.

Deflated, I started to put my laptop away, but I couldn't stop checking the totals.  Plus, hope still bloomed since one lucky non-winner gets a chance to submit their first chapter for a critique.  It could be me, right?  I keep going back to the website.  Curiosity beckons me like a wrapped present under the tree.

And I learn that this morning's response overwhelmed Deidre Knight and her staff, and one more person will get a shot at sending Diedre a query today.  Someone drawn from non-winners posting before 8:30.  My post went in at 8:02, so maybe ...

Of course, I'll pursue the more normal routes, but Santa, really, all I want for Christmas is an agent!

Comments

Susan M. Boyer said…
I can SO relate! Good luck with Deidre. Here's hoping you get your Christmas wish. :)

But in the midst of the hunt, don't forget to practice your Karaoke routine... :)
November 30, 2010 at 12:07 PM
Barbara V. Evers said…
You'll have to rip the microphone out of my hand ... You'll probably want to, too!
November 30, 2010 at 12:11 PM
Nicole Zoltack said…
My comment was too late, too. :( Oh well. *crosses fingers that we're picked to send Deidre a query*
November 30, 2010 at 12:27 PM
Bob Strother said…
You'll get one, sooner or later, hopefully real soon.
November 30, 2010 at 1:31 PM
Henry said…
Barbara, have you learned nothing from all of your experience with technology? Next time, type your message in advance in Notepad or something, copy it, then wait for 8:00 AM. Paste it in the comment box then publish the comment. If you get an error, just paste and publish again. Think of all those precious seconds you wasted typing when you could have let technology do the work for you!
November 30, 2010 at 5:02 PM
Barbara V. Evers said…
Henry, it was the stupid letters I had to type to verify I wasn't a spammer.
November 30, 2010 at 8:26 PM
Terri and Leslie said…
I was wondering the same thing as Henry! I thought, you typed the whole thing twice???
November 30, 2010 at 10:03 PM
Barbara V. Evers said…
Nope. The problem was there are 3 different fields to fill in. So copy paste only worked for one.
December 3, 2010 at 12:22 PM
Valerie said…
I tried to get into the same contest. No luck.
December 9, 2010 at 8:41 AM
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