Courting Agency

So I finally got an agent to talk to me.  That doesn’t mean he’ll represent me, but he knows, at least a little of, who I am.  This didn’t come about through a web search and cold call.  He agreed to talk to me because we have a mutual friend.

This friend I have never met.  He contacted me after reading a blog post.  We subsequently talked by phone.  He emails me often.  He’s a real booster.  Turns out he’s a writer too.  Those of us who write need one another.

My friend doesn’t know my pseudonym.  In fact, most friends to whom I’ve revealed it have forgotten.  They grow weary of waiting until I break through.  Until they can say “I knew him when.”  Of what does breaking through consist?

Twenty of my short stories have been published.  My fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Write Well Award (Silver Pen Writers Association), and the Best of the Web Award.  I won the Danse Macabre 2009 prix d’écriture de Noël in Fiction, and third place in Calliope’s 20th Annual Fiction Contest (2014).  Where’s the confetti?  Where’s the champaign?

For any of that you need an agent for the Lowells speak only to the Cabots, and the Cabots speak only to God, so I’ve been told.  (Not by a Lowell or Cabot, for they do not speak to the un-agented.)  

Over the years I’ve sent many agent queries, for both fiction and non.  To get attention you have to have already made some serious money by your writing.  Or maybe, as in my case, you have a friend who’s willing to share.

You see, my Medusa novel, for sentimental reasons, has to be the first one published.  Will it make money?  Yes, I think so.  Even if it doesn’t it is the labor of my earlier life.  All authors, even Steven King, have a backstory of rejection.  Editors can be a thick-headed lot.

I’m dithering now whether to send said friendly agent my novel.  He said I should.  There’s got to be a word for this: getting so far that you hesitate to go further because the next step could be a break-through, or it could put you back at Go without collecting your $200.  If only I had an agent to handle the money part...