It’s a bummer, but I think it’s a true bummer, so with that in mind, when was the last time you had fresh eyes look at any of your existing manuscripts? (Yes, that’s also an offer, if you want it.)

Filamena –

The last time I looked at the manuscripts? The last one, a novel about talking dogs (seriously), I looked at… maybe two years ago? I almost had an agent hooked on that one, actually. I’ve given up on selling it. Not sure why. Maybe it’s not what I want out there, initially? I’m not happy with it, ultimately, and not sure if I want to take the time to rework it.

Funny thing about agents is, several actual authors recommend hooking an agent on you, not the fiction (Stephen King’s On Writing notoriously suggests this, with a fake-query letter contained within that sells the writer more than his 80-pages-of-so-far-unfinished-novelization).

I’m likelier to move forward looking for an agent with the two screenplays I’ve got sitting around. I’ve had eyes on them recently, and I know they’re solid. I’ve had lots of good compliments on them from people who should know what’s marketable, so, we’ll see.

The novel thing, I dunno. I’m probably going to have to buckle down and bang out one of my pre-existing ideas, and even then I might just skip the agent process, try to secure a deal, and then hook an agent on the promise of a deal.

We should get together at some point to banter about this stuff.

– c

Second, in the writing world, they say no one does anything serious before 30, so you’re good.

If you wanna chat some time about agents and ‘the process’ some time, I’d be happy to chat you up. I don’t have an agent, my book(s) aren’t ready for that yet, but I’ve been reading. I read about 25 agent blogs in the week (some more than others) and while I don’t have any personal anecdotes, I can talk to you all day about what -they- say they want. The one thing I’m going to tell you upfront, and you won’t want to hear, is that you can’t pitch fiction before it’s written. It just doesn’t work that way with novels according to everything I’ve read, (unless you’re a previous best seller, and you already have an agent if that’s the case.)

It’s a bummer, but I think it’s a true bummer, so with that in mind, when was the last time you had fresh eyes look at any of your existing manuscripts? (Yes, that’s also an offer, if you want it.)

Hit me up some time, we can talk.