The Act of Searching for a Literary Agent

Decisions...decisions....

There are few activities that make me want to claw my eyes out with a spork, but a couple immediately come to mind:

1. Having to explain the special theory of relativity to Sarah Palin.

2. Having Sarah Palin explain the special theory of relativity to me.

3. The natural desire that most people have to claw their eyes out with a spork that comes naturally any way.

4. Having to search for a literary agent to represent my novels.

As much fun as the first three might be to explore, I’m going to talk about number 4 right now because, well, that’s really the one I wanted to talk about when I started writing this post. Now, that can be a problem for me whenever I start a post, because I might start with a desire to talk about literary agents, and next thing you know, I’m discussing cute fuzzy bunnies. You know, the cute little ones that are always jumping around, stealing your wallet and…wait, I wanted to talk about literary agents. That’s right. Back to my original subject.

You see, I’ve been looking for a literary agent for about as long as I’ve been able to write. I’ve had one of those weird writing careers that most other writers can’t relate to because they’ve either a) Already got a successful writing career and really don’t care one iota what I have to say about anything, or b) they just don’t seem to understand how everything went so bad.

Years ago, and I’m talking back in the prehistoric days, when you had to actually use your telephone to connect to the Internet. No, let’s go all out on this one. I’m talking about the days when you hooked up your modem to your telephone and there was no Internet because Al Gore hadn’t invented it yet. Yes, that long ago. Anyway, back then, when we were still using stone tools to build Deloreans that would travel back in time, I had a somewhat growing writing career where I wrote lots of interesting stuff and these strange people called “editors” would accidentally mail me checks after publishing those stories in their magazines. Some of my stories actually became series of short stories where people would get out pen and paper, write me nice little letters about how my character was obviously being handled incorrectly because in Issue #17, the hero had used the Quantum Destabilizer Unit on him, which meant that in Issue #43, there was no way that he could have phased into the neutramatter universe to chase after the Viscuous Ant Man, one of his mortal enemies. And then they would put a stamp on that letter and go back to reading their next issue of Peter Parker the Spectactular Spiderman, which was “so much more superior than that crappy story you keep publishing in that magazine that must be run by some deranged lunatic.”

Anyway, my point is, at one point I had a bit of a writing career. And then I contacted an agent, who read one of my science fiction novels and LOVED IT, saying she wanted to represent me and was planning to use my writing to make herself us rich. And then she got into some kind of accident involving a head injury (this isn’t a joke here), disappeared for a couple of years, and then came back and no longer recognized my name. So when I contacted her, after realizing she was looking for clients again, she asked me to send her a current copy of whatever I had recently written. So I did. And then she contacted me again, asking me to send her a copy of whatever I had recently written. So I wrote her and told her I already did. So she contacted me again, asking me to send her a copy of whatever I had recently written. After about the fourth time, I got the hint. I probably wasn’t going to be represented by her because I was in some kind of Twilight Zone of continuous emails about sending a manuscript that was getting tired of being sent through the ether.

So, I’ve been looking for an agent ever since. And for some reason, even though I’ve written 12 or 13 novels (depends on if we count the erotic novel, involving the midget, the monkey and the same sex trees that were in love with each other), I can’t seem to get past the query letter stage with any of these agents. It’s like the whole world moved on without me, and I don’t seem to live in it any more. I send out my stuff, but it’s not even making a dent these days. Some of my latest writing is phenomenal (just ask my mommy), but I can’t even get an agent to read any of it.

So, Oprah, please tell me what to do? Oh wait, this isn’t that show, is it? So, um, imaginary reader who I keep writing these blog posts imagining you exist, please tell me what to do? Should I give up writing? Join the Army? Marry Peggy Sue? Return all of those diet Dr Pepper cans to the supermarket for their redeemable values?

I’m so confused and unsure of where to turn….

"Did somebody call for a cute, fuzzy bunny?"