How happy am I? Happier than this happycat inexplicably decorated with three cherry tomatoes.

I'm done whining about rejection (errrr... for now, give it a few weeks). Since Sunday, I've sent out three partials and two fulls! Oh happy, happy day.

Hrm, the only thing I'm regretting now is... how long it's been since I last looked at my manuscript. My first fifty pages are clean, sparkling, fresh. The next 2/3 of my manuscript is amaze-o as well (yes, I'm biased). HOWEVER, the last oh, 50-60 pages are...

I love the ending. It's a great resolution. But the battle at the end? It could use a little work. It very neatly, very quickly sweeps everything under the rug and leaves you wondering what the chicken just happened. It's kind of a tricky thing because I've read books with five chapters of showdown with the big baddie at the end and been like, woh-kay we know the protagonist is gonna get 'em, let's get this over with. But it's a fine line. There are those endings that wrap up so suddenly that they leave you pissed off that you wasted four hours reading for that kinda conclusion. Like a really good, long date followed by bad, really brief...erm. Anyway...

So hopefully... aforementioned agents like it anyway. In the meantime, before I send off any more queries, I'm going to beef up the last three or four chapters, which will probably  add maybe 5k to my manuscript. I don't want to get too heavy - it is young adult and it's good to keep things moving in the storyline - but I also don't want to piss off the reader, or leave them hanging.

Obviously... this is something I should have figured out before I sent out the fulls. Before I even queried (much less gave up on querying). But that's the problem with manuscripts - sometimes you look at them so long that it's hard to see the trees for the forest. Hopefully someone falls in love with it anyway. And if Agent Awesome says, gee I really love this, but the last few chapters leave a little something to be desired... I can tell her, you know what, I thought the same. I started a re-write of that very thing.  Otherwise, fix up time before I send the next batch of queries.

Have a wonderful Friday!