Speed-Dating-With-Deidre

Sometimes the stars take over and steer you the right way.

I joined RWA’s FF&P loop in November. Two days later, someone posted a message about TKA’s Speed-Dating-With-Deidre contest. Wow. The Knight Agency was high on my list of top ten literary agencies. I didn’t think I had a snowball’s chance of being one of the first one hundred and twenty-five, but I gave it a whirl, thinking, faint hearts and all that.

I had reason to be pessimistic. Up to then, I’d only won two things: a book and a guinea pig. And really, the rodent had been a bit of a cheat. Mom had signed the permission slip for Miss Fitzgerald’s Win-Mugsy-the-Class-Guinea-Pig-Contest completely unaware that I was the only kid that had picked up that particular permission slip.

When I realized I'd made it - I was one of the first 125 to leave a comment, I just sat there for awhile, marvelling. Then the work began. As I passed through each gate - down to 30, down to 10, and Holy Crap, down to 3 - I worked harder than I'd ever done in my life. I took a weed-whacker to Hedi, pruning and tightening her until she was as lean as I knew how to make her. The deadline loomed. I hit send, and thought, so be it.

The morning I got The Email, I was in a rush to get out of the house and was just checking because well, that's what  you do, when you're in a contest. You check almost every 5 minutes, just in case. I opened it and everything around me - my husband coming from the garage with the keys in his hand, the dog by my feet, the sun streaking light on the flowers by my monitor - they all faded away. It was just the email, and me, and the moment.

So, it begins. There's work waiting for me up ahead. More lessons for life. More learning to do.

I feel so blessed.