Eccentric Flower:199907/Uselessness and agents

Regular readers have probably become aware by now that I think too much for my own good. So it may not surprise you to know that one of the worst things that can befall me is a day spent without doing any sort of constructive brain labor whatsoever - writing, programming, what-have-you.

I am not going to fuss about this head cold any longer, only point out that it caused me to waste today completely. And that makes me tense, angry, and sad.

I tried writing a short story. I tried working on a program. I even dragged out one of the many file folders that will one day, god willing, be a novel but is now only scraps and bits. Starting a novel is the easiest part of writing one, and yet I couldn't even get 2000 words together. (Never mind the fact that starting a new novel is the last thing I need to do at the moment.)

I hate being useless. I couldn't even read.

What did I do? I scanned and formatted twelve new verticals for these entries, I surfed the web, I checked my email every five minutes, and I snuffled and coughed a lot.

Meanwhile, in addition to the above, I am currently undergoing a lot of angst because of literary matters. (The rest of this is even emptier griping than the above, so if you don't want to hear it, you've been warned.)

The early returns on the Aedie novel are in and they're good. So: I may have actually written something I can send out and try to sell. It's the first time in ages that I've had hope for a piece I've written, of any length.

Hope is a wonderful thing. Now I remember why I don't have it more often.

See, now that I've passed the first hurdle, that second one I always forget about because I never get that far is looming nearby. And this one really does make me want to throw up my hands and forfeit the whole steeplechase. ('Scuse my mixed metaphor.)

I have to get an agent.

Getting an agent ... let's see ... what do I fear and loathe? Let me count the ways.

Okay, first you have to write query letters. Query letters, like cover letters on submissions, are the most useless things on earth. You have to say nothing and you have to say it politely. All a query letter ever really says is, "Hi, I've got a book, would you be interested in selling it for me?" So how come you can't say that? How come, when we have so many formal placeholder phrases that are basically meaningless, we can't just say "INSERT QUERY HERE"?

Query letters have to be printed because this is a field where electronic communications are considered below the salt. This ill-suits me. The only documents I want on paper are contracts or other things requiring my signature. And the book itself, of course - heh. But oh, how much simpler to query the agent electronically! Pity that won't happen.

Next there's the MS itself. Writer's Market notes that only about 25% of literary agents look at full manuscripts. This means that - even though the MS is complete - I will probably have to write an outline or a summary of the work.

I loathe summaries. First off, I don't write work that summarizes well, because I don't write action-packed, bang-bang-bang plot point books. You know what my summary of the Aedie novel is?

"A sixteen-year-old boy gets sent to an alien planet, as part of a 'student exchange' program which may or may not have sinister implications, and writes about life there as he experiences it."

Sounds kinda dull, doesn't it? Well, a point-by-point summary where I give away all the surprises without including any of the prose will sound even worse. How can anyone make an intelligent decision to sell a novel on the basis of something like that?

With any luck, they'll go for the first few pages instead. But many will want a summary.

Then - supposing those two problems are under the bridge - comes the crucial question.

I am trusting this agent with my manuscript. How do I know if the agent's any good? How do I know if she's even honest? How do I know she's not going to take my manuscript to Tahiti or usurp my money or something? Yes, I'm paranoid, but goodness, right now I have nothing. No security at all, except a copyright notice which is barely worth the electrons it's printed on (since I can't afford to sue someone for violating it).

The only real way to find out if an agent's worthwhile is to talk to other people the agent's represented. Unfortunately, says Writer's Market, that is information that agents are often loath to give out. Why, oh, why, am I not surprised?

I swear, I feel full-blown panic coming on. I finally have something good and I'm terrified of what I have to do next. I might as well be wearing a sign on my back that says Swindle Me.

I want to write books. I want other people to read them, and ideally I'd like them to make me a bit of money. I do not want to sell them. I don't want to sell myself either. That's not the writer's job, in my book. So I need an agent.

The problem is that right now I feel like I need an agent to help find me an agent.