Agent See

Not for the first time, and perhaps not for the last, Ax is out with a positively tantalizing agent.  At the moment, the other two who had it have provided their rejections, which was expected given genre and other limitations, but I wasn’t going to not-query these agents who, in person, said I should.  I have two more priority queries I NEED to get out, as well as several requeries now that the revision is complete and I do have a long weekend staring me in the face (now if someone would just clean my house:  bliss!).

Most of the time, when my work is in an agent’s hands, I find it impossible to “feel” the situation – to get anxious about the waiting, to be truly aware and concerned about a professional READING my WRITING.  In part, this is due to the fact that you just can’t know *when* someone is actually looking at your MSS.  In part, it’s also due to one of my first full requests falling into the hands of an agent (I met in PERSON, who requested the story with some excitement, mind you) who never responded to my two requests to confirm she had received the manuscript (I sent twice) and never spoke to the submission at all.  I gave her my due diligence, but if that was her way of doing business with those she eagerly responded to in person, all I could think was (a) good riddance to bad representation, and (b) woe betide the poor souls querying this person cold.  I can’t imagine how she ever chooses anything to represent at all, but that’s decidedly her problem.

And she may have cured me of that brand of nervousness authors aspiring to publication are meant to be riddled with – so it’s not as if she was completely useless.  Just not in her stated role.

It used to feel like handing someone naked pictures of myself to look at, having my work read.  One suspects it’s a good thing not to hold onto that feeling forever, though I imagine many authors always have it, at least to some degree.  It probably helps that I feel more like a conduit than a creator – I sometimes quite relish killing off my little darlings, and I have to admit to sometimes finding my work so good I find *myself* insufferable about it.  Heh.  Certainly, I’ve been mistaken on that point in the past (or I would never have revised), but beneath the willingness to educate myself in how best to sell my product, there’s always been that confidence that the product is eminently sellable.

And … this new year, this new job, this time in my life of change and expectations:  I’m really ready to give up the comfort and safety of being an unpublished author.  It’s time Ax gets out there, and it’s time the WIP goes somewhere, too.  I am working on these fronts, and as presentable (as far as the publishing industry is concerned) as I’ll ever be, and Clovis’ life, his story, *must* be read now.  Enough of the coy sense of vulnerabilty that – GASP! – someone might be reading my writing.  Enough of the illusions that I was the exception to all the rules of first-time author-dom.  I’ve learned those, and have assets to spare.

It’s time, at last, to become a debut author.

And to get that stupid house clean …