A ray of sunshine even in the gloomiest moments

A very good agent at Zachary, Shuster and Harmsworth wrote last Tuesday (not the Tuesday of this week) and asked for my full manuscript after reading the first three chapters. On Friday she wrote me saying she loved it so far, needed contact numbers, and wanted to know if it was out to other agents--it is. She said she would contact me in the beginning of this week. Yesterday she emailed me and said she decided against offering representation--she said it was a hard decision and it would probably end up being "the one that got away." I was so pissed off I began querying other agents even though it is out to quite a few and some have read partials and asked for the rest. Anyway, I've always wanted to get Writers House to read one of my novels, but they don't accept email queries and I'm too lazy to do it the other way. But I happened to see Dan Conaway's name. He read an old novel of mine when he was at HarperCollins as an executive editor. I put that in the address part of the query (they just delete anything that looks like an email query) and he replied and said he would like the whole thing and he's looking forward to reading it! Dan Conaway is like Gary Fisketjon except now he's on the other side of the aisle! Man I am pumped!

Thank you very much to all of you! And happy holidays, too!