By the end of May, I was panicking and wondering if I still had an agent. No word back from her after my panicky nudges, casually worded to make it sound like I was not panicking. I even pretended to worry that I’d addressed previous emails incorrectly and just needed confirmation that she’d received them. She’d responded so gratifyingly quickly when I first wrote, saying she looked forward to reading my books and would be in touch.
I’d not used her for the last two books, as my publisher had been happy to work directly – but since that publisher had gone into liquidation I was floundering without an agent. But had she given up on me? And did I deserve to not be given up on, after abandoning her in the interest of earning a few more pennies? Were we, in essence, having a lover’s tiff? I send one more email to her, saying that because I am a writer of principles, I will await her response before submitting to anyone else. Then I immediately submit to 17 agents and small publishers I find online.