Dreams and Other Round and Fragile Things

So I officially have an agent now for the middle grade novel that I've been working on. I can't really explain how excited I am (and how excited I am to be with this particular agent), so I'm not going to try.

Instead, I will tell you about my dreams. They've been about chickens. Specifically the next door neighbor's chickens.

The next door neighbors, who are absolutely divine, got chickens earlier this year. We don't notice them much, but the dogs do. Big Dog is pretty sure they are evil chickens. Don't get me wrong, Big Dog is 75 lbs worth of tough (ha!). He eats McNuggets for breakfast (whenever it is an option). But the living, breathing, moving McNuggets next door have left him feeling a bit upset. When they cackle, he howls and asks if he can come inside.

So anyway, the divine neighbors brought us a bunch of eggs. And we put them in the fridge. And every time I go to sleep, I dream that the eggs hatch and I suddenly have half a dozen chickens of my own to raise. Even in the dream, this isn't easy. We have lots and lots of coyotes in these parts, and lots of other things that would happily eat chickens (including, probably, Medium Dog and Small Dog). And then there is the fact that I don't cook much, so I use about two eggs a year. And in my dream, the eggs keep coming and keep hatching. And finally, I am forced to build a chicken coop fortress out of cinderblocks and cement to keep the chickens safe from the coyotes, and also to keep Big Dog safe from the chickens.

I should probably mention that the divine neighbors don't have a rooster, so realistically these eggs aren't going to hatch. Unless the rumors about parthenogenetic chickens are true....

But all of this is my roundabout way of saying that I have an agent for my middle-grade novel. And sometimes my dreams do come true, just hopefully not the one about the chickens.