Here’s the basic timeline –
Spring 2012 – I was approaching college graduation and after writing several feature and television screenplays for school, I knew I wanted to write a novel, the first type of storytelling I ever loved. And was still really intimidated by.
May 2012 – I graduated, and I landed a general meeting at a management company. After pitching several feature and TV ideas, I told them I also had an idea for a young adult novel. I decided to pursue this.
July 2012-January 2013 – I moved home to Massachusetts and wrote the first draft of Red Queen, which I passed on to the manager I had been working with back in Los Angeles. He was no longer working as a manager but passed the manuscript on to New Leaf Literary, who he had worked with in the past. Agent Suzie Townsend reached out after reading the manuscript, and we discussed doing a first round of edits.
February 2013 – After going through a round of edits with Suzie, she signed me as her client.
April 2013 – Two weeks of submission, manuscript sold to HarperTeen at HarperCollins in a 3 book deal, film option sold to Universal Pictures
EDITS EDITS EDITS (I believe I went through 3 serious drafts of Red Queen, and ended up cutting about 40-50k words from the first draft to the final)
February 2015 – publication!