Agents and All That Jazz

Okay, just to keep off of Eliza's Bad-Boy List, I'll ask something I've been wondering about. Where do all of you stand these days on the matter of agents?

I had shed mine just before I submitted to MNW (after her sage advice that my novel was "too American" to be of interest to anyone in Europe). Roger Morris, if I recall, already had an agent at the time he signed with MNW. I believe that the prolific Ms. Whiteley acquired an agent somewhere after Three Things but before Light Reading. And I know that many of you have been through the whole agent grind on the way to where you are today.

For me, it's been loverly (my subconscious must have just now connected Elizas) not worrying about the whole agent issue, but it's also become clear to me that my trajectory, be it high or be it low, at Pan Macmillan is going to be within the thriller genre--which makes sense from their point of view, and also makes sense from a career point of view.

Unfortunately, I'm not a sensible writer, and so I have this pile of stuff in other genres, and I've realized the only way I'm going to get the rest of it out there is through an agent. Sigh.

Being me, of course, I can't even decide whether I need an agent in the US or in the UK. (And finding someone who wants both thrillers and dain-bramaged fantasy/sci-fi with literary pretensions isn't easy in either place.)

But what about the rest of you? Are you repped? Do you feel the need to be repped? Do you feel that the word 'repped' is an annoying neologism, and just the sort of thing you'd expect from someone who lives so close to Hollywood?

Hello

Hel-l0000!

Is there anyone there? Is everybody working very, very hard?

A passing thought

You know how musicians often have deals with the manufacturers of their instruments/microphones/sound equipment of choice, whereby they declare their love for said brand in exchange for money and free kit? ("So-and-so uses Whataracket drums!") Well, I wonder whether it would work for writers and our tools? To a certain extent it has been done - the late Douglas Adams was a big advocate of Apple Mac computers, while Moleskine claim that their notebooks were used by Hemingway (although there are some quibbles over the accuracy of this statement) - but never on the same scale as with musicians and instruments.

Saying that writers would never go for something as vulgar as a commercial endorsement simply doesn't stand up to scrutiny: for one thing, we don't all have the same personality and sense of what is and isn't appropriate, and secondly music is also a field in which artistic integrity often plays a large part in determining one's credibility (witness the contempt for major labels frequently displayed by indie bands), and that hasn't done the guitar endorsements any harm. Ultimately, as long as you don't turn into Krusty the Klown and start endorsing a load of random tat that you've never actually seen in person, never mind used, aren't these endorsements just word of mouth with benefits?

So what I propose (with tongue only partly in cheek), is that stationers and computer and software companies could run similar ads in the pages of, say, Writing Magazine or Writers' Forum, parading a particular author's fondness for their products; assuming they can find a willing author who does use their gear of course, and in exchange for money and free samples. I imagine there are plenty of authors who will be willing to skewer me if they lay eyes on this post, but I also believe that there will be a considerable number of others who think that there is a smidgen of method in my madness. And hey, there might be a computer company out there who likes my idea (a girl can dream), so just in case, I'll flutter my cyber-eyelashes at Advent and Microsoft in case they want to give me stuff. You never know.

The Gathering (part 4)

We seem to have a date, and, so far, a respectable seven (if we include Len. Come on, Len. Of course you can make it) - Aliya, Tim, Alis, Eliza, Matt, Len, Frances - for lunch on Friday 16th January. Of course, it will be lovely if more can make it. but I think seven makes it worth doing. Does everyone agree? And I suggest Len gets to choose the venue as his reward for joining us. You can't say fairer than that.

Buy one get one half price!

These were taken by my friend Gillian on her camera phone and messaged to me - thank you Gillian!




Location: WH Smith, Queen Street Station, Glasgow.

Face out and on special offer in a station - I think that's what they call the Holy Grail.

An eventful weekend

I was awoken by Ann in the early hours of Saturday morning, who informed me that our usually quiet square was full of fire engines & police. I asked if our own house was actually currently on fire and being told “no”, went back to sleep, thus missing the most exciting event in our neighbourhood’s recent history.

A neighbour of ours is a publisher who had recently taken on a novel entitled “the Jewel of Medina” by Sherry Jones – a novel that has been seen (wrongly in the view of most) as anti-Islamic. A group of terrorists had decided to fire-bomb his residence. The armed police had been staking out the house, which was empty at the time, and arrested the men concerned, but not before they had started a small fire. Fire engines were called and I was briefly woken up to be informed of the fact.

When I decided to post something on the subject, I thought that the interesting point was that a crime writer had slept through the only crime to be committed on his doorstep for some time. Which of course is true.

But actually the real point is this. We have spent hundreds of years winning the right to freedom of speech. All censorship is bad. Censorship by terror has to be resisted at all costs. It’s fine to sleep through a police raid; we can’t sleep through the loss of free speech.

When it all ends

This morning I completed the first draft of my WIP. It needs major surgery and it's definitely the proverbial sow's ear rather than the silk purse, but at least the skeleton of the story's there now, and anyway, how many first drafts aren't a bit grotty?

What I wanted to post about today, though, is the crisis of confidence I always have whenever I'm finishing up a book. From what I understand, a large proportion of writers really enjoy getting to the end of a piece, while others dislike endings because the prospect of parting with their characters saddens them. The ones I don't hear much about are the writers like me: the ones who hate endings because that's when their personal demons come out to play and tell them that the creation they just devoted X amount of time to reeks to high heaven.

Logically, I know it's an overreaction (as I said, what first draft doesn't need improvement?), and one that mars what should be a positive feeling of achievement, but am I the only one who experiences this end-of-draft malaise? Is anyone else troubled by the gremlin at such times?

Yet More Borderlands Pics

Underneath the disguises, from left to right, are my sister Amber, nephew Avi, and my niece Stephanie. As the picture she sent informs you, they are at the Barnes & Noble in Redlands, California (my home town, actually). She says:

"I am afraid the cover is a little blurry. Hope it still works. It is a great book. I am only 40 or 50 pages in, but am really grouchy when my job or my kids make me put it down."

My sister is an arbiter of local taste, so I'm happy to report that Brian is now big in Redlands.

If you're wondering what the heck Redlands is, read this wikipedia article. Or at least scroll all the way to the bottom looking at the pictures. There's some amazing gingerbread mansions there, built by the citrus barons in the early years of the 20th century.

Bet you didn't know there were such things as citrus barons, did you?