WAE Network–Join Now!

Jeff Hermann (author and agent–you may have heard of his vital annuals “Guide to Book Publishers, Editors, and Literary Agents”) is starting a Writers, Authors, and Editors network called WAE network. It boasts that it is the first social network for writers, agents and editors and that it will be an opportunity to interact like never before.

Boy, am I curious!

If you sign up now (one of the first 1000–better hurry it is already at 262–you will get a free lifetime membership) you will receive an email when the site goes live. (Note: to get the free membership, I do believe you need to share this site with friends. Click on the envelope icon on the website and send a note to a friend. That should do the trick.)

Agent Session

To quote my husband, “Sometimes you have to pay $20 to reinforce what you already know.” Today was one such day.

I went to a few sessions at the Writers Guild’s workshop thingy today. I attended one on agents, presented by an agent (and no, as I had previously researched, she does not represent chick lit, romance, women’s fiction–damn). Basically, she reinforced a lot of what I had already discovered through my own research. I suppose the most important thing she reinforced for me was that query letters really are a personal thing and that sure, people come up with ‘formulas’ and expound on their virtues and fail-proof abilities…but you know what? if you are professional as well as yourself and prove that you have done your research, you might have a shot at catching their attention, formula or not. Ha!

The most interesting moment, other than doubting the map that had been sent with my registration (and yes, the map was read incorrectly) and entertaining the guy in the funny gold coloured car with my singing along to the radio, oh, and the fact that when I entered the lecture theatre I realised that I was somehow, once again, the person that was not like the others, was…the air of frustration, disappointment and even anger that began to brew when the audience began to realise what a slim chance they have of making it with an agent or a big publisher. For me, this was old news. I know how slim that shot is and I take it very seriously. Therefore, I don’t take it personally that my voice is not automatically the one that everyone wants to hear. For that fact, that what I have to say will interest everyone. That’s life. Suck it up. To combat the odds, I have been preparing for my one shot. I have been practicing, researching, learning, always learning. These folks, as I took it, not so much. I kind of felt bad for them–at the same time, I suppose it makes more room for me??? You could tell the agent was trying so hard not to crush their dreams, but well, it’s hard.

If it wasn’t hard, what would be the challenge and where would be the immense joy when you finally do succeed?

Dreams

I had a dream last night.

I had a dream that when I woke up this morning my hubby had found something on the Internet. It was an agent I had queried who put part of my first page on a website. Sort of a ‘how not to’ sort of a site. It had my title and everything. She had taken the first few sentences and put them in poem format and in that format it was this hideous string of adjectives and adverbs that went on and on. I was embarassed as it was a ‘before’ version of my first page that she had posted and there it was for all to see.

I guess all that talk about adjectives and adverbs on AgentQuery did me in. Or the fact that I got a rejection email from an agent I had almost forgotten I’d queried a few months back. And yes, I had sent her a ‘before’ query with my old first page that I now know wasn’t up to par.

It reminds me of the time in university English when the prof used an example of something I had written on the overhead. And not a good example. After trying so hard, it was very humiliating. (At least he didn’t use my name and had another student’s work up there as well.) So after that I said to hell with it and you know what happened? He thought I was plagarizing because suddenly my writing improved so much and so suddenly.

Moral of the story? Well, I guess it would be just let it flow when you write and don’t get your work put up on the Internet or an overhead as a ‘poor’ example if you can help it.