Previously published on Blogger. transferred to rochereau.uk for the first time
Dear —
If I knew your name, I wouldn’t be writing like this to you, in public. But we haven’t yet met. We’re still two lonely hearts, so to speak, seeking one another.
I did write to an agent last year: one whose web page says
I am willing to be seduced, amazed, charmed, or moved. What I really want is for you to share your enthusiasm with me, your passion…to invite me along on a journey…tell me something you, and you alone, know…to open my eyes to a truth that will enable me to see the world in a different way. And, of course, to do so with beautiful writing.
So I took great care in following her “submission guidelines”; prepared myself for our first date. I ended my email saying. “There is no hurry and I have no plans to talk to other agencies.” That was six months ago, surely long enough. I’m beginning to suspect she wasn’t seduced, amazed or charmed. She certainly wasn’t moved, not even enough to send an acknowledgement. I hereby declare myself fancy-free; and ready to hear from you.
Some might call me naïve. “You have to endure many rejections,” they say (these imaginary advisers, so experienced, so wise). “It’s a numbers game. Write to agents by the hundred. One day, someone will respond.” That’s like proposing marriage to all the girls, taking the first one who says “yes”. But let’s stop that silly analogy. I’m just an author. You are my agent, dear —, though neither of us knows it yet. You are the one who knows the ropes. It’s not for me to send junk mail to unwilling in-trays.
I’ll be like Noel Coward, who flung his letters from the window, trusting passers-by to post them in a pillar-box; or a shipwrecked mariner, entrusting his desperation to a bottle cast in the wide ocean. Let it wash up one day on some sympathetic shore. After all, as a blogger, this is what I do, metaphorically, every time I post something on this site, as I’ve said elsewhere.[298]
Not only that, but using this means I’ve rediscovered a long-lost step-brother and had news of a friend last seen fifty years ago, now sadly passed on.
And a man I wrote about here actually had been a shipwrecked mariner who did send a letter in a bottle. A boy in New Zealand found it on a beach and sent it back to him, stained and tattered. We had discussed me helping him write an autobiography.
I digress, dear—. Meandering is part of what I do. I’ll write more another time, explain my project, tell you what I’m looking for in an agent.
Comments:
Bryan: I love when publishers and agents give guidelines like that. “Amaze me! Thrill me! I’m willing to be seduced!” Umm, okay then. Aren’t we all? The person who isn’t interested in being thrilled or seduced should find the nearest deep hole and an obliging friend to shovel the dirt over them. After all, what’s the point then?It reminds of restaurants and stores I’ve worked at. They show you these orientation videos where someone invariably says, “Customers are our number one priority!” Is that right!? No kidding? They seem to think this is a profound piece of wisdom when it’s just a gross overstatement of the obvious.Likewise, such a passionate thirst for good work certainly SOUNDS laudable, and it’s certainly expressed well at any rate, but what is the poor writer supposed to DO with that information? Curl up like a potato bug of self-doubt? We all hope our work is “seductive.” And any agent worth their salt should be looking for seductive work. How is this news to anyone? And these are the people we’re entrusting to evaluate our writing? Uggghhhh…..
Vincent: The magic of the internet is that you only need to put part of my quote into google and you discover who my non-responsive agent is: Sarah Jane Freymann. I blush to recall that those words took me in at the time. Curling up like a potato bug of self-doubt is something I can do very easily. Now I shall try “potato bug of self-doubt”, put it in Google, or even Google images. We shall see …
Bryan: A Google search for just “potato bug” might be more enlightening, if you don’t have the little critters in England, of if you have a different name for them. They’re small multi-pedal bugs with hard shells. When they’re poked or prodded or made to feel threatened, they curl up into a hard impervious little pellet as a defense mechanism. Somehow this struck me as an apt description of how a writer feels when some lunatic is pelting them with demands to be “Amazed! Mystified! Light an ever-lasting fire in my soul that can never be quenched! Show the blinding face of God Almighty in words that capture the very core essence of the universe itself! Set off a billion microscopic fireworks in my heart all at once! Write the very last words I want to read before I die in an ocean of velvet bliss!!!!” But hey, no pressure or anything.
Brian Spaeth: “I am willing to be seduced, amazed, charmed, or moved…”. This sounds terribly familiar, and I am fairly certain that I also sent my manuscript to this person a while ago. I recall having sent out well over 100 “queries”(as they are called) to prospective agents and publishers. I spent a considerable amount of time & energy learning how to craft a proper query (which I do not regret, btw). All to no avail, however. At almost every site that I visited, I kept seeing references to something called “Chick-Lit”, as well as various categories such as “Para-normal Romance”, “Sword & Sorcery, “Steam Punk”, and endless permutations of vampire-themed pot-boilers. For some reason, I did NOT descend into suicidal depression… perhaps realizing that things have always been this way—only now it’s easier to see them thanks to the internet. Working on a new short story about a sword-wielding, female hipster-vampire with para-normal abilities who is struggling to work out her relationship with her sorcerer/punk/boyfriend.
a wayfarer’s notes 