Fact is, my manuscript has found an agent in New York! (I am allowing myself one chaste exclamation point.) Yesterday, it happened.
I admit I'd been hovering by the phone all day the day I expected his call, as I blogged about previously. So yesterday, in a more resilient frame of mind, I went into my office, and there was a message from him on the office voicemail. (Note to self: check the frigging voicemail more regularly.) He had called, just as he said he would--but he had called on the number I put on the submission, rather than the two I put in the email saying I'd be available. Perfectly reasonable, of course.
So I called him back. The young man who answered his phone seemed unsurprised. He even pronounced my name correctly. (Always a positive sign, I find.) He put Philip on the line and bingo. The most charming conversation, on his end.
He's an established, successful agent who said some amazingly kind things about the writing, aggregations of nouns and adjectives that I will cherish forever, no matter what happens.
Fiction is indeed hard to sell these days, but he'll have a shot. And I only have to address one little area, a small item that previous readers have raised questions about, in fact. Addressing that will be my task for today. It has to do with a psychic who wandered into the Santa Fe section of the book, pretty much as a plot device. Psychics can be uncannily accurate once in a while, he mentioned (a story resides within that simple concept, I suspect), but it's more difficult to make it work in fiction.
OK. I accept that.
When I began this blog's recent thread, I thought I would be chronicling a long and sorrowful process of sending out queries and receiving rejections. In contrast, this acceptance feels like a coup de fou--the kind of lightning bolt of good fortune (in the French case, love at first sight) that one dreams about. I feel better, knowing I still have work to do. Also knowing that I have two other ideas for books worth pursuing. And a manuscript from the past that may actually have a life, now that I understand something about the structure of a novel.
A thirty plus year apprenticeship--but it's still an apprenticeship, because gaining representation from an agent doesn't mean publication is guaranteed. It never did, and especially not now, but it gives one a fighting chance.
The last time an agent accepted a manuscript of mine, we received 23 elegantly phrased and complimentary rejections. That was twenty-seven years ago, give or take. Tough business, writing. Takes perseverance, I'm told.
Showing posts with label literary agent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label literary agent. Show all posts
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Labrahund or Dachsador
Yesterday I received an email from the agent who had agreed to read my manuscript. He said it was "fascinating and beautifully written..." Let's pause a moment to savor those words. They taste delicious, I have to admit.
After that, however, he mentioned that he hasn't had a great deal of success selling fiction recently, but that he'd like to talk to me anyway, tomorrow. He wondered when I might be available to talk.
All day and all night, I wanted to say. And did, actually, at least the first part (except for a lunch connected to my job).
So you know what's happened, right? He hasn't called. It's 5:22PM in New York and he hasn't called. I feel like a girl with a crush, jumping every time the phone rings. Trust me, it has been a long time since I felt like that.
So back to the delicious words and their delicately phrased "but":
Fiction has been trending--as the phrase goes--downhill ever since 9/11. I think it's true for all fiction, but I know it's true for literary fiction. I can understand why, too. The 21st century slapped our faces hard that day, and most of us have been fleeing ever since. The financial meltdown of 2008 only pushed the accelerator.
No doubt, this accounts for the fictional popularity of broomsticks, vampires and a thousand non-fiction examinations of the Middle East and Islam.
Realistic fiction dealing with women's lives has a market--five million Americans belong to reading groups, I'm told--but many of the books have tunneled a new genre: past chick lit to Mom Lit. Check out Katherine Center for a particularly well written variety of the latter--and she works, too: she blogs, videoblogs, Facebooks, all the new ways writers need to labor on behalf of their careers. Plus, as goes with the territory, she has young children. I am agog with admiration.
(My poor manuscript might be called ambivalent mom lit or scared mom lit...)
What's that got to do with the dog reference in my title above? Well, I was thinking of a dog I saw once, that I now know was a Bassador, not the ones mentioned above. That is it had a black Lab head and body and Basset hound legs--an animal that was neither one thing nor the other, but a very nice creature all the same. Rather like the email from that terribly kind literary agent, I thought.
After that, however, he mentioned that he hasn't had a great deal of success selling fiction recently, but that he'd like to talk to me anyway, tomorrow. He wondered when I might be available to talk.
All day and all night, I wanted to say. And did, actually, at least the first part (except for a lunch connected to my job).
So you know what's happened, right? He hasn't called. It's 5:22PM in New York and he hasn't called. I feel like a girl with a crush, jumping every time the phone rings. Trust me, it has been a long time since I felt like that.
So back to the delicious words and their delicately phrased "but":
Fiction has been trending--as the phrase goes--downhill ever since 9/11. I think it's true for all fiction, but I know it's true for literary fiction. I can understand why, too. The 21st century slapped our faces hard that day, and most of us have been fleeing ever since. The financial meltdown of 2008 only pushed the accelerator.
No doubt, this accounts for the fictional popularity of broomsticks, vampires and a thousand non-fiction examinations of the Middle East and Islam.
Realistic fiction dealing with women's lives has a market--five million Americans belong to reading groups, I'm told--but many of the books have tunneled a new genre: past chick lit to Mom Lit. Check out Katherine Center for a particularly well written variety of the latter--and she works, too: she blogs, videoblogs, Facebooks, all the new ways writers need to labor on behalf of their careers. Plus, as goes with the territory, she has young children. I am agog with admiration.
(My poor manuscript might be called ambivalent mom lit or scared mom lit...)
What's that got to do with the dog reference in my title above? Well, I was thinking of a dog I saw once, that I now know was a Bassador, not the ones mentioned above. That is it had a black Lab head and body and Basset hound legs--an animal that was neither one thing nor the other, but a very nice creature all the same. Rather like the email from that terribly kind literary agent, I thought.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Out of the Drawer
At least temporarily, the MS is out of the drawer and winging pixelly through cyberspace toward the electronic reader of an actual literary agent in New York. Upon his request, in fact, very kind and most appreciated, following a query with pages to his editorial assistant. Oh, one other thing--the crucial thing I think in such matters--the query was accompanied by a note to the agent from someone he knew, a client, in fact, with whom I'd actually met the man in New York a number of years ago.
How does it actually feel--the using of a personal connection to request this access? Like a stroke of undeserved good fortune, mainly. More precisely, it feels like watching a crack appear in a door you're sure can open even though it bears the smooth, knobless surface appearance of magic portals in a childhood fantasy.
As that may also convey, it feels vaguely dream-like. When he agreed to look at the whole thing, I did a quick re-read myself. Not much one can do in those circumstances. Trying to tweak what seem to be especially clunky sentences can merely throw paragraphs out of whack. But it's a fairly irresistible temptation, after all. The real danger is that you will find something major that just screams to be changed, after which the whole edifice will crumble. (Don't re-read is what I guess I'm saying.) Anyway, I hope I did resist all of the above. Or much of it.
I don't in fact have high hopes for success in the larger sense of publication from this. My story has not so much as one vampire or rogue virus, and it involves no elaborate government conspiracies. It's just people in a family--mother, daughter and grandmother--who have been lying to each other about some very important matters for many years.
The agent who will read this has a long and distinguished career, with much commercial literary success. I am honored to have my MS read by such a person, whatever happens.
How does it actually feel--the using of a personal connection to request this access? Like a stroke of undeserved good fortune, mainly. More precisely, it feels like watching a crack appear in a door you're sure can open even though it bears the smooth, knobless surface appearance of magic portals in a childhood fantasy.
As that may also convey, it feels vaguely dream-like. When he agreed to look at the whole thing, I did a quick re-read myself. Not much one can do in those circumstances. Trying to tweak what seem to be especially clunky sentences can merely throw paragraphs out of whack. But it's a fairly irresistible temptation, after all. The real danger is that you will find something major that just screams to be changed, after which the whole edifice will crumble. (Don't re-read is what I guess I'm saying.) Anyway, I hope I did resist all of the above. Or much of it.
I don't in fact have high hopes for success in the larger sense of publication from this. My story has not so much as one vampire or rogue virus, and it involves no elaborate government conspiracies. It's just people in a family--mother, daughter and grandmother--who have been lying to each other about some very important matters for many years.
The agent who will read this has a long and distinguished career, with much commercial literary success. I am honored to have my MS read by such a person, whatever happens.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The story of pages
It seems to me that millions of people are right now at 1:05 AM all over the world busy tapping away on keyboards, many of them hoping the taps will eventually emerge from the world of pixels and lodge between the boards of a hardbound book. Yes. Book.
Most of the tappers, I suspect, have day jobs.
Some have tapped through stacks of what would be real paper if it sat on your desk, or on the floor by your chair, instead of residing in vitals behind this screen. Some have thumbed their way through chapters under the ledge of the conference table on a BlackBerry, hoping one obsession will be taken for another more closely related to that day job. Some just jot down character insights on the backs of used envelopes, and then lose them.
This blog is for all of them--for us. That's the short form of what I'm trying to say.
First my day job--herding cats. I will admit to poaching the image as everyone can easily see, but it does the descriptive job so well. I have a herd of largely feral cats, scattered in neighborhoods around the country where they are for the most part well fed and housed. Some pretend to domestication. For many years, in fact, some have given excellent impressions of perfect domesticity and agreeableness. All things change, however, and now they are roaming the backalleys and snarling over the tiniest disruptions. Feline menopause, perhaps. Why not? It becomes worse the closer we get to our annual meeting.
And I have just completed a 350 page manuscript of a literary novel that I have to launch into the equally irksome world of unsolicited book submission.
The first thing I've learned about that is that I should have been blogging and networking all those years instead of trying to make my characters and language perfectly reflect the situation they find themselves in, as they attempt to make their lives different and better.
There will be posts to come about the process of novel submission, to agents, to editors, as my little stack of pages exits the screen, then the door, on its way to a better fate, I pray, than the nearest rubbish bin or storage closet. Come along with me on that journey. We can help each other. If we don't who will?
Most of the tappers, I suspect, have day jobs.
Some have tapped through stacks of what would be real paper if it sat on your desk, or on the floor by your chair, instead of residing in vitals behind this screen. Some have thumbed their way through chapters under the ledge of the conference table on a BlackBerry, hoping one obsession will be taken for another more closely related to that day job. Some just jot down character insights on the backs of used envelopes, and then lose them.
This blog is for all of them--for us. That's the short form of what I'm trying to say.
First my day job--herding cats. I will admit to poaching the image as everyone can easily see, but it does the descriptive job so well. I have a herd of largely feral cats, scattered in neighborhoods around the country where they are for the most part well fed and housed. Some pretend to domestication. For many years, in fact, some have given excellent impressions of perfect domesticity and agreeableness. All things change, however, and now they are roaming the backalleys and snarling over the tiniest disruptions. Feline menopause, perhaps. Why not? It becomes worse the closer we get to our annual meeting.
And I have just completed a 350 page manuscript of a literary novel that I have to launch into the equally irksome world of unsolicited book submission.
The first thing I've learned about that is that I should have been blogging and networking all those years instead of trying to make my characters and language perfectly reflect the situation they find themselves in, as they attempt to make their lives different and better.
There will be posts to come about the process of novel submission, to agents, to editors, as my little stack of pages exits the screen, then the door, on its way to a better fate, I pray, than the nearest rubbish bin or storage closet. Come along with me on that journey. We can help each other. If we don't who will?
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