Early tomorrow morning with be the ninth time in as many weeks that I've faithfully published a new segment on The Miracle in July, my guerrilla publishing experiment. I'm busting my emotional chops every seven days in the name of achieving my bliss, but that's not all I've been doing. Oh, no. I've gotten lots more done.

Let's start with the big news, shall we?

I'm very excited to announce that boutique literary agency Baker's Mark has agreed to represent me in publishing The Miracle in July! Bernadette and Gretchen, the ladies of Baker's Mark, are eager fans of the MIJ who like the story, the format, and the boundaries I'm pushing. When I started publishing my story I had no specific plans to find an agent, and instead I concentrated on producing good content and readers to read it. I also didn't actually find Baker's Mark, in fact didn't know anything about them, until I met Bernadette at Beer and Blog, the weekly bloggers networking event I write for and help promote.

Not only am I very surprised to have agency representation even before I've finished Act One of MIJ, I am also sighing with relief! Knowing who will represent me in big stuff like publishing rights is one less thing I need to fret about. I sincerely believe Baker's Mark is a perfect match for my project. My assistant @MeaganKate and I sat down with Bernadette and Gretchen not long ago and while we all agreed that the MIJ, my interactive manifestation of destiny, is a hugely ambitious project, we also all agree that we're up for the challenge.

Editorial Note: I promoted @MeaganKate from Intern to Personal Assistant the day I said yes to Baker's Mark, of course — that girl is my good luck charm!

I'm also very pleased to say Apture, the multimedia tool I that makes my story so interactive, featured MIJ as Site of the Week. They also said this very nice thing about me: "There is no denying she has talent." Sweet! I've also been interviewed about my project on OurPdx and The Abundant Artist and received manymanymany private messages and tweets from esteemed friends and virtual strangers asking questions, giving suggestions, and offering to spread the word about my story.

In other news, I recently spent some time with talented local photographer @richburroughs who shot some promotional photos of me on gorgeous film at my home. (You can see a couple of digital shots on Flickr, here.) And in a few days @MeaganKate and I will be on Strange Love Live, a technology-focused podcast hosted by the lovely @CamiKaos, to talk about MIJ.

@MeaganKate and I have also made several major additions to The Miracle in July web site:

Donations to support me as I write the story can now be made on the site
A press page was added and embedded with a social media press release (complete with TwitPitch, links to the MIJ Flickr page and Friendfeed page, and preferred keywords)
A fan page was added and contains links to MIJ badges and desktop images
The images page is now an RSS feed from the MIJ Flickr page
The About the Story and About the Author pages were re-written
The Table of Contents was moved to the far right, out of the posting area
"Like this story? Please consider [donating]" was added to the bottom of posts

Whew! As you can see, a lot has happened in the two months I've been writing The Miracle in July. And thanks to this self-imposed, admittedly brutal schedule crafting weekly installments of a very important experience in my past, I have learned a lot, too, about myself and the life of being a writer. I am beginning to understand how to coax my muse into reaching each piece of the story's puzzle inside of me. I can see that I take care in choosing the words that stay in, and that I worry about the words I should leave out. I watch the struggle of picking out the perfect media elements to help my readers be there with me, be in that moment. I listen to hours of music for that inspirational hook a song's title brings to my words. And I dig into the digital records of my past, scour the pages for storytelling clues. And while I do all of this creating, I must also make lists of ways to introduce MIJ to new readers.

So, yes. I've been a very busy girl since I last wrote here, and boy am I looking forward to the end of Act One. When that happens I'm taking a short hiatus from posting and instead will be focusing a bit on re-writing Act One, into turning it into a beautiful eBook for downloading and into a manuscript for my new agents to show off.

I also have many other exciting things in the works — things I can't talk about just yet, but will just as soon as I can. In the meantime, I'm going to keep up with the type-ity type type. I'm going to keep following my bliss. It seems to be working in my favor so far. =)

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