..news.

I’ve been avoiding posting for a couple weeks, as I await confirmation of a dozen things. But I realized that if I waited any longer, I’d be creating an impasse for myself – too much to divulge in a single post. Already things are piling up. So, here goes.

After four years and two novels sold, my agent and I have parted. This was based on his suggestion, for the simple reason that I had "outgrown his skill-set and ability to represent" me. This is probably due to me alternately sending him TV pilots, Westerns, comic book scripts, quirky religious novels, and boat-loads of historical fiction ideas.

This led me to an agent hunt. I remember seven years back, when I was half-way finished with the first draft of THE MASTER OF VERONA (then entitled IL VELTRO), I started querying agents. Only two responded. Only one said yes, and she proceeded over the next two years to try and sell MV as an Historical Romance novel (not that there’s anything wrong with that… except that it isn’t one). Then, by a chance introduction, I hired Michael Denneny to edit the manuscript, and he liked it well enough to agent it. He then sold it, and the sequel. I will forever be in his debt.

But for the last year he’s been hinting that it was time for me to find someone younger, hungrier, and with more connections. So I wrote to MJ Rose, who has been wonderful to me, as well as a few authors I have fallen into pleasantly semi-regular communication with, asking about ideas for agents. MJ wrote back with a half dozen names, but pointed to two at the top of her list, and even offered to make first contact for me.

There followed two weeks of cheerful, wary, blunt, and finally enthusiastic communications. A copy of MV was sent over. By the time it was half-read, there was an offer to represent me.

So I am now represented by Writer’s House. The same folk who agent Ken Follett, Nora Roberts, and Neil Gaiman, among many many others.

This has led to a change in direction for me, though not a drastic one. My new agent wants me to write something completely new, and also stand-alone. So into a drawer go FORTUNE’S FOOL and my other nascent novel, and back I go into research. I’ve got two possible ideas that I’m floating. I’ve written the prologue and first chapter of one, and today began intensive research for the second. Both take place in Italy, at least for a portion of the story, but both are earlier in their timeframes than the Mercutio series.

So it’s back to the blank page for me. That’s hardly the end of my news, by it will suffice for the nonce. More when the more is concrete, not floating on the heat vapors over my head.

DB