I now have an agent. A literary agent. Someone who thinks my novel is good enough to sign me up and try to sell it. Someone who thinks my writing and characters and storyworld are good enough, in fact, to ask me to sketch out ideas for another two. Just in case a publisher might be interested in buying not only the one I’ve written, but a couple more I haven’t. (Apparently this can happen, even to new writers. Who knew?)

It’s difficult to describe just how seismic this feels. And how sudden. The Chronicle of the Writer is supposed to be a long, dusty, desolate journey, punctuated by rejection, fraught with self-doubt, seasoned with the salt of inky tears. You’re supposed to take at least a couple of years to write the thing, a few more to polish the manuscript and your courage, before you set forth into a hostile wilderness where no one reads your submission or returns your calls or – heaven forfend – wants to represent you. And I had already cheated; while the idea that became the book had been slowly developing in the back of my brain for several years, with occasional eureka moments as parts of the whole came clear, I only started properly writing it last April. I finished in October. Even though it was about as good as I thought I could make it without the services of a professional editor, when I sent it out in early January I still had the uneasy feeling of being way, way, way ahead of schedule.

So I was all set to get knocked back, as custom dictates, and indeed a few rejections had started to trickle in. But then I got a request for the full manuscript, and within a week the offer, from a publishing veteran no less. It all feels a bit miraculous. So now, of course, my innate superstition (which I claim not to have but which, let’s face it, we all have to some degree) is kicking in. Surely I can’t dodge my period in purgatory. Things can’t keep going quite so incredibly well. Can they?

Well, maybe they can. Because I’ve spent the weekend thinking about those other two books – setting out possible scenarios, core themes, central conflicts. Writing them up for my agent. Before, although I had created a world sufficiently complex and populated to generate many more stories, I had barely allowed myself to contemplate them. Now I’ve been given leave and licence to do just that. The stories are starting to take shape. Not only have I secured an agent; I have also, through some strange hoodoo, acquired agency.

Maybe I skipped a couple of steps to get here. So what? I’m looking at it this way – whatever time I don’t have to spend in the Slough of Submission, I get to spend writing. That can only be a good thing.