Question: Imagine a hypothetical author wrote a hypothetical novel in which one of the main characters is named “Linnea.” How would you, Dear Reader, pronounce this? Would you say

• LIN-nee-uh?
• Lin-EE-uh?
• or Lin-AY?

I thought it was obvious when I wrote the story, but it doesn’t seem to be obvious to a lot of my readers. That’s a problem for me. I felt like an idiot when I read Harry Potter the first time and thought there was a major character named “HER-mee-own” rather than the correct “Her-MY-oh-nee.”

Anyway, I am thiiiis close (imagine thumb and forefinger a quarter-inch apart) to renaming her Wendy or Maddie. Everybody knows how to pronounce those “normal” names. It’s just that in my head when I first thought of the story, she was Linnea pronounced to rhyme with Hooray.

What do you think? Should I keep Linnea or change her name to Wendy? Maddie?

Last month, my wonderful editor gave me the third round of her thoughts, and I made the final few changes she recommended to my manuscript. My first novel, Beautiful, is completely done. I’m proud of it, which is why I decided to use my real name as the author rather than a pseudonym. I believe many people will enjoy the story.

But there is a serpent in my garden of happiness post-first novel. You see, I’ve decided to go the route of traditional publishing. My personal serpent has a name: Querying Literary Agents.

Today I stroked the serpent’s head in an attempt to make friends: I emailed my first query. Then I sent another few, which were easier.

I don’t like this feeling that my immediate future depends on a gatekeeper who has way more applicants than available openings. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt! I disliked this feeling when I applied to university and also when I applied to medical school, I hated it when I applied for my residency in Internal Medicine, and I loathed this feeling of “please like me, please like me, please give me a chance” when I applied for my fellowship training in Cardiology…although each time it turned out great for me. And here we are again, hoping and praying that someone will request my manuscript.

What will my agent, whoever she turns out to be, get? She’ll get a professionally-polished manuscript (though I expect she’ll want to make changes, which will most likely be fine with me), a sequel that’s about halfway done, and a client writer (me!) who has shown himself willing to delete or rewrite entire chapters and characters. I’m easy to work with, I do what I promise by the deadline I promise, and I pay my bills. I’m about 15,000 words into a totally unrelated novel. I figure I have over twenty productive writing years left, and I have lots of ideas.

So…I’ll keep you informed. It’ll work out well, I feel!