Alessandra Ranelli

heartbreaking moment.

And I'd had some people who said they'd like to see it after the Dragon's Pen pitch contest as well at Harrogate, where I got four yes votes.

So I sent it to them when I had earlier drafts.

But I think I hadn't quite figured it out at the time.

And it was actually your podcast was part of the aha moment that really changed things.

So in summary, I had

Halfway through querying, I had created about 30 agents.

I'd had four full requests, one near miss with this agent who I adore.

And things just weren't quite clicking and I wasn't able to figure it out.

So I said, okay, I'll take the 500 bucks I got for the Modern Love Essay.

And I decided to hire two editors just to look at the opening chapters because that agent had given me feedback that there were some character inconsistencies and I was looking and I could not see them.

And I just wanted to be honest about this with the listeners.

I do not think you need to hire an editor, but I hired one.

Her name was Sarah DeSouza.

She was amazing.

And I hired two.

One did nothing.

It was like, this is good and fix some grammar maybe.

What she did was interrogate the opening chapters with the relentless curiosity of a toddler and pointed out that the book was supposed to be modern with a golden age feel.

And because the setting is so old fashioned and there are no phones.