life changes

is this....a HIGMA??

As usual, it’s been too long since I’ve updated my newsletter! I make no promises that will change anytime soon haha.

As you may have guessed by the title…lots has happened since November. Last time I sent an update, I had just finished my first draft of SophieWIP. Since then, that book has been revised, gotten a title, gone through the query trenches, come out the other side, and is OFFICIALLY ON SUBMISSION AS OF YESTERDAY!

If that seems fast…well. It’s because it is.

I would be remiss if I didn’t share the honest truth—my “How I Got My Agent” story is full of luck, privilege, and the help of a lot of really, really good people. In a lot of ways, I’m hesitant to share it, because I don’t want to seem like I’m bragging or tone-deaf to the fact that I am, in many ways, what the publishing world refers to as a 'unicorn'. But at the same time, I worked hard for this. Like, REALLY hard. And I think I deserve to be a little proud, with the caveat that my hard work is only part of the picture.

With that said, let me back up a little.

I started writing the very first version of the book that got me an agent in 2022. I had just had my second baby, and I was, in a very literal and not-cute way, spiraling. If you’ve never had postpartum depression (or any kind of depression, really), it’s hard to explain what it feels like. But for me, it felt like I was suffocating. All the expectations of motherhood and honestly, just being a human, sucked the oxygen right out of my lungs, and I couldn’t breathe. I was desperate to be something other than a milk-machine, a snack-maker, a dish-washer, a toy-picker-upper.

So I started writing.

At first, it was manic. It was an obsession. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t think about anything else. It was the one thing that made me feel like a full human again.

I finished the first draft. I made a plan to self-publish; I had a title. An editor. It was listed on Amazon, even.

And then, I got pregnant again (not on purpose lol) and my mental health tanked even more.

So I pulled the book. I knew I needed to get my life together, so I faded out of social media for a little while. I started antidepressants. I started therapy. Things started to feel…okay, actually. I was still terrified of having a third baby; of suffocating all over again. But then she arrived, and I felt…good. Happy. And I started to wonder if maybe I could actually be both a mom and a functional human being with hobbies.

So I started writing again. And this time, I got serious—I learned about plotting and developing a hooky concept and querying literary agents. I joined a Discord where I met some of my best friends and my critique partners. I wrote and revised and rewrote and cried and then did it all again. I finished a first draft and then a second and I wanted to give up a lot of times but I didn’t.

Even when I wanted to quit, I just. Kept. Taking. The. Next. Step.

And then, finally, after 10-ish months (or 3-ish years, depending on how you look at it), the book was done.

As fate would have it, I finished the book in early February on the exact weekend that I went on a writing retreat with a few of my best girls/writer friends. Sending my first query with all of them in the room cheering for me is a CORE memory.

I think I sent 6? 8? queries that first round. Just to test the waters. And I’m the type of person who likes to set my expectations low and be surprised—so when I got my first full request 2 days later, I was floored.

I sent a few more queries. Got a few rejections.

The next day, I got another full request.

And then two more the week after that.

At this point, I knew my package and pages were working, so I just decided to go full send. I think I blacked out—every time I got a response, I just sent more queries. By the end of the first week, I think I had sent 30-50.

(This is where I have to credit the fact that I had quite a few [really smart and talented] people look at my query and my opening pages before I ever sent a single query. I would have flopped hard if I sent the first, second, or even fifth draft of my query letter!)

Rejections kept trickling in. I just kept sending out new queries with absolute manic energy. Like, for real. I couldn’t control myself haha.

And then, one day, there was a pitch event on BlueSky. I wasn’t going to participate, but I decided last minute to just throw my agent guide up for fun.

Later that day, a friend texted me—she had sent my pitch to her agent (unprompted by me), and her agent wanted to see my pages! I ran to BlueSky, and sure enough—that agent had replied asking me to query her. I already had a query out with another agent at that agency, so she did a little insider work, got her hands on my query, and then got back in touch the same day asking for the full.

I was SO excited. And SO grateful. (This is where I say again—this industry is so driven by luck and connections. Of course, if the agent didn’t like my pitch or my pages, she wouldn’t have requested more. But also, I’m fully aware and humbled by the fact that I had someone in my corner who stuck their neck out for me. You know who you are—thank you. I love you.)

At this point, I had five fulls out. It had only been about two and a half weeks. As you can imagine, I was losing my mind a little, but wasn’t expecting a response anytime soon.

Well, I was wrong.

The agent who had requested from my pitch read the entire book over the course of the next weekend. On Saturday night, I got an email.

The email.

She was so complimentary and kind, and I was absolutely dying. Screaming, crying, throwing up for real.

We had a call the next morning. It was three weeks exactly from the day I started querying. When I tell you, I was not expecting this to be my story…seriously. I’m still shook about it.

I asked for 2.5 weeks for my offer period, since I still had about 70 queries out at this point, 4 fulls, and she had offered on a weekend. The next week was a flood of rejections and step asides and more full requests—including a request from a one Mara Hollander. :)

I’m not going to lie—the offer period was BRUTAL for me mentally. I was getting FLOODED with a massive amount of rejections, while also getting full requests from some agents that made me go full-delusion-mode. It was hard for me to keep my head on straight, honestly. I was obviously excited, but also stressed. There’s a weird amount of pressure during the offer period that I don’t think people talk about that much.

My deadline crept closer, and my fulls were dwindling. Everyone had really nice things to say—but I got a lot of ‘I just don’t have a vision for this’. And then, on the last Saturday before my Tuesday deadline, I got another email asking for a call.

We met on Monday, and by the next day, I knew. Mara was my agent.

I got so lucky—both offering agents were so enthusiastic, lovely, and incredibly smart. They made the decision very difficult. But ultimately, I really vibed with Mara’s editorial vision. I knew she was going to challenge me and help me make this book and all my future books even better.

I have absolutely ADORED working with Mara so far—and meeting all her other authors! They’re such a funny, talented, diverse group of people. And I’m really proud to be represented by Azantian. All around, I’m just really lucky.

This is getting long, so I think I probably need to cut myself off!! But! Like I said, my book is officially on submission, and I am genuinely SO EXCITED. I am thrilled to have it off my desk finally and get back a little bit of brain space to start working on something new (and totally different!).

And just as a reminder for other querying authors—everything you want and need is coming to you at the perfect time. I still have to remind myself often that there is no ‘better’ or ‘worse’ path to an agent or a book deal. I know reading stories like this can often fan that ugly flame of comparison—it does for me, too. But really, truly, if I’ve learned anything over the past few years, it’s that things happen exactly as they should. God, or the universe, or whatever you believe in, has your back.

xoxo, Allie