Vanity and pride are my downfall. I’ve always been more concerned about folks’ impression of me than getting an honest take on my monstrous little creations. I’m halfway through life; if I want to see my name on the spine of a bound book, I can’t indulge myself anymore.
That doesn’t stop me from feeling more than a little apprehensive about exposing this stuff to friends and acquaintances.
What if people point and laugh?
I promise daily updates and not a week later I’ve made myself a liar. I don’t reckon many folks are reading this blog yet, so now might not be the worst time to go silent. But I do want my words – my promises – to mean something.
Family was here this week, which early on meant vacuuming, sweeping, and frantically scrubbing down an apartment that looked worse the more we worked and the more we looked. Finishing was a relief, and the visit itself with the folks was a delight.
Tomorrow, I’ll be back.
“Retroactive continuity (often shortened to retcon) is the alteration of previously established facts in a fictional work.” – definition of retcon courtesy wikipedia
Once Witch of the Colonies is sold, edited and printed I will not edit the book in any significant ways. I won’t. I just don’t trust older versions of myself to have a better perspective on the work. A different one, sure, but that’s all.
One significant disadvantage to this approach? I feel pressure to be sure I’ve set things up properly for the two novels that’ll follow.
Outside my window on this crisp Chicago morning, I can see a worker in a brown Carhartt jacket halfway up a shiny ladder, head and shoulders lost in the shadow of the apartment building’s green awning.
I’ve got my six Tier 1 agents, though only one of this bunch wants an exclusive look. I’ll mail that office today or tomorrow, and mail the other five when the window of exclusivity ends. In the interim, I’ll split my energy between new writing and revisions to Witch of the Colonies.
I can see the workman coming down now. Turns out he’s the guy who owns the building.
“Is this manuscript in the best possible shape? Do I believe it is ready to sell, or am I just testing the waters? Is it completed?”
The folks over at the Irene Goodman Literary Agency have one of the sharper looking web sites in the industry, and are generous enough to offer would-be authors guidelines for crafting an effective submission. They’re the source for the quote above. Good questions! I’ve been asking myself the same things for months. Yes, of course, I think the manuscript is ready, or I wouldn’t be tracking down you slick-talking agency types. Saleable, even! But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be better…
How do I find a good agent?
That’s where I start, and it stops me cold. How do I define ‘good’? I know very little about the business of publishing novels. Any judgement I make is going to be so poorly informed as to be useless; I’m reminded of Peter Griffin pooh-poohing the Godfather movies.
The answer, I think, is that ‘good’ here is a badly chosen word. I don’t need the Platonic ideal of an agent; I need someone who has certain areas of expertise that I lack. I need an agent who understands the science fiction/fantasy marketplace. Ideally, this person would have experience leveraging content across multiple platforms, including print, gaming and video. I want to make sure the first Abigail Moore novel sings, so access to talented editorial staff is important. I’ve never been much impressed by celebrity, but a list of well-known authors associated with this agency would be reassuring. A history of success winning big contracts is nice, but entirely optional.
Hey! I think I just found my criteria!
Saturday: Identify final SIX Tier 1 agents. Document agent requirements.
Sunday: Print/pull together necessary documents.
Monday: Mail first THREE Tier 1 agents. Provide 1 week exclusivity window.
+1 week: Mail second THREE Tier 1 agents. Provide 1 week exclusivity window.
+2 weeks: Identify new tier of agents, rinse, repeat.
Sifting through listings of agents, I’m as unsure how to differentiate between them as I was when figuring out where to go to college. The cautionary words about agents provided by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America are illuminating, and there are plenty of other sites out there sharing negative opinions on agents.
The question for me remains: how do I find a good agent?
“Finished is better. Finished is good.” – Pierre St. Jacques
I spent a couple days researching how I could coax WordPress into giving me exactly what I what, and – yeah – everything is certainly doable. But I don’t want to be bothered learning a scripting language, and my html skills have never been more than rudimentary. I hear Ani DiFranco singing “Buildings and bridges / Were made to bend / In the wind” and I think: I should stay focused on writing.