For some reason I’ve got myself into this Blogging from A-Z challenge. I wasn’t sure what to write about but then I remembered something that annoyed me today, something that comes up quite often in my many hours spent on Twitter/Facebook. I suppose it all comes under the umbrella of Writers on Social Media. With this in mind, my first post is A for Agent.
Twitter, and social media in general, is great for writers, nobody disputes that. Writing can be really lonely and now we can connect to other writers, readers too. There’s also the matter of procrastination. One minute you’re deep in the psyche of one of your characters, the next you’ve wasted three hours looking at a wombat in a cup after watching clips on Youtube of TV shows you used to watch when you were seven. It feels more legitimate somehow when you’re chatting to other writers on Twitter, you can convince yourself that it’s proper research and you’re actually typing something on a keyboard which is writing, yes?
But please, writery types, don’t harrass agents on there, it just makes us all feel awkward. We watch you through our fingers as you ask them if they might have a chance to look at your manuscript, or even worse, you ask them if they received your manuscript, or even worse than that, you’ve already sent your manuscript and they’ve replied and you’re asking them questions about it. Or, which is even worse than that, you’re getting cross because they didn’t send you a handwritten reply, delivered to your door by a troop of dancing unicorns waving banners telling you how fantastic you are. Your manuscript is your baby and it is very special to you. But they see hundreds of them every day so when someone gives you a standard reply they were either really, really busy and wading through a gabillion other ‘babies’ that day, or, as is often the case with babies, they find your baby so unbearably ugly that they don’t want to set eyes on it ever again. Deal with it, move on, try somewhere else, make another baby. You’re making us look bad.
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Brilliant to see you doing the a-z challenge!! x
Thanks for your help 🙂
Sooo, it that secret agent?
Popped in from the AtoZ Challenge.
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You’re going to hate this…I met my agent at a party. No, I don’t think we should harass agents when they are relaxing or expect a free consultation if we happen to bump into a doctor near the buffet or expect our tyres to be pumped because we’ve smiled nicely at a car mechanic over the dips. Just as I don’t want the next thing someone says after discovering that I teach creative writing to be: ‘Give me your email address. I’ll send you the first 30,000 words…’ especially when they add ‘I haven’t spell checked it or anything. It’s just poured from my head.’ This is my job, I want to say but don’t. And yet there are times when I’ve said yes, ok I’ll read it. Just as my agent said to me. I think the message should be don’t network at non networking events. No hard sell over the salad because sometimes a party is just a party and not a promotional opportunity. And sometimes if you’re nice someone will be nice back.
It sounds like that happened naturally, it wasn’t a plan, it just happened.
Thanks for reading.
Well said.
Welcome to the challenge! I totally agree. I have seen people post things and I just think… OMG did you just do that? Did that happen?
Happy blogging.
They could at least try to make it subtle. I think they think they’ll stand out by being a bit cheeky. Either that or they’re just dim. And desperate.
I’m searching my conscience but I think it’s clean. My father was a doctor, my mother used to get soooo cross when people took him aside at parties to show him a mole on a thigh – or breast – that they wanted his opinion on 🙂
Oh yuck, you don’t want that over a vol au vent!
Welcome to the A to Z Challenge. I’m doing it this year for the first time. It’s fun seeing how many people who are interested in writing are doing it this year!
Yes, it’s just another form of procrastination 🙂
Don’t hold back, you ego bashing warrior, you’re so funny.