In gearing up for the long journey I’ll be taking with The Good Daughters, I have been reading up on agents, how to find them, what they do, etc. Apparently many literary agents blog. I find this strange, for some reason, but I suppose they are people just like anyone else. That’s the rumor, anyhow.
The three main ones I’m starting with are Jonathan Lyons, Nathan Bransford, and Miss Snark (recently retired from blogging, but all her archives are up). All three feature great info, great writing, and great humor — all things I need!
Of course, being overly opinionated, I felt compelled to leave a few comments here and there. Now I’m just hoping I didn’t piss off Jonathan Lyons with my explanation of why I reply to form rejections asking for more info, which is one of his pet peeves. (Reason: sheer hope!) He responded… firmly, but he didn’t block any of my additional comments. I’ll take that as a sign of no hard feelings.
I also won’t ever ask him for more info if he sends me a canned rejection.
(As expected, Andy “yelled” at me for not being more strategic — or just plain thoughtful — in my communication with a potential agent.)
After several days of scrolling so much that my index finger moves in my sleep and my contacts are drier than a camel’s butt, I have to say: I LOVE THIS!
I think getting geeked out by reading about the publishing industry is a pretty serious sign of delusion. And isn’t delusion a requirement for being a good writer? I’m on the right track!
One of my “finds” today was this long, poorly formatted interview with Dave Eggers (author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius — that’s the title, not a compliment). The interviewer is annoyingly pretentious, and the interviewee is overly defensive (though I too would have reacted poorly to the smarmy questions) but in spite of it all, I’m glad I read it, mostly for the addendum (so if you want to skip to the end, feel free).
Oh, and to understand the title of this post, just read this (short) post from Jonathan Lyons’ blog.
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yeah, people say it’s important to grow thicker skin, and not let rejection and criticism get us down. i’m def no strong enough to bounce back by myself, and rely heavily on the support of friends.
I think that’s what friends are there for. :)