Agency

I’ve been spending a lot of time on literary agents’ pages.  One thing has become clear to me: to find an agent you’d better not have a regular job.  Well, unless that job is prominent, of course.  Professors, politicians, sports stars, actors—they can find agents with ease.  The rest of us, not so much.

As I’m sitting here soaking in the proletariat pool, I’m contemplating looking for an agent for a story collection.   One of the things I noticed when doing all my agent hunting was that a few of them handle story collections.  Some writers made livings on stories: Edgar Allan Poe, Jorge Luis Borges, and H. P. Lovecraft come to mind.

I’ve started reading collections of short stories again.  I really like the way a novel sucks you in and keeps you engaged for hours.  Our fractured lifestyles, however, often mean a collection of stories will get you through a compartmentalized day.

As a writer I have written four nonfiction books, six novels, and dozens and dozens of short stories.  Over twenty of these latter category have been published, and some of them were actually pretty good.  Maybe it’s time to repackage them and look for an agent.

The reality of a writing life, particularly when you’ve got a full-time job that really wants to be literally full time, is that your writing life—real life—has to scramble for the scraps of your day.  I’m on an agent’s page, focusing on my novel.  I see “story collection” and think, I’ll come back to it.  

Some fifty agents later, of course I’ve forgotten.  I suppose I can discount those who’ve rejected my novel anyway.  My stories sometimes get nominated for prizes (four so far) and some have occasionally won.  One thing they all have in common is that they’re metaphors for life.

My career didn’t turn out as planned.  I’ve been writing fiction some forty years now, ever since I was a teen.  I’m thinking maybe it’s time to step the game up a bit.  But for that, I’ll have to wait until after work.