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shalannaThis is important. No, really.
Even if you're one of my Followers who only Follows this journal because I rub you the wrong way and I make you angry . . . let's put that aside for a moment. I have two distant family members in crisis who need some positive energy and thoughts.
But first, since it's all about ME ME MEMEME, let's talk about THIS. (GRIN)
I got a couple of e-mail rejections from two agencies last week; one of them said they weren't taking on any more clients and were being very selective (they have a reputation for that, so it's a wonder they looked at my partial), and the other said we weren't a good fit because of style/prose issues (I agree that if she feels this way about it, we're not a good fit.) Okay, so that was a bit daunting. But. But! And again, BUT!
Today I got an e-mail request for the first fifty pages of LR. This agent was new to me when I heard about her on the Chick Lit list. I researched her and found she was open to new clients. But she only took snailmail queries. So that's what I did. Last week sometime. Sent the first page of the book along, as some websites have suggested, just to give her an idea of my prose style. I didn't want to waste time talking to someone who didn't like it, or thought that I am capable of majorly changing my voice (as opposed to the "voice of the novel," which is always different depending on which novel it is. All my main characters and all my novels' hearts have different voices. But that's a Craft of Prose post.) Okay, so I went on with the other twelve packages I was sending off.
Today I got e-mail from this agent asking for those first fifty pages!! Yay!!
That was fun to type, so I re-typed it. I duly fixed up a Word document with only those pages and sent it along.
She ALREADY replied, saying she got the attachment and it looks fine. And I didn't even ask her to! She also says it's flattering that I have heard good things about her agency and that she is on my "most wanted" list. *GRIN*
I wasn't lying, either. I have heard that she might be a powerful force in the industry. Or that she has connections. Either way, although she's not Donald Maass (yet), it would be great to connect with somebody who gets my work.
So . . . if we can lay aside our differences for a moment . . . I'd REALLY appreciate all positive thoughts, prayers, chants, etc. A mention in your litany of requests sometime today as we all rely on the Universe and its Power to take us safely through spacetime.
And I've found out from personal experience as a sulky teenager that if you pray for something BAD to happen to someone else, it doesn't . . . it usually zings you back for good measure in some minor way, too. So I'm not too worried about that part. ((GRIN))
Remember how I said I'd been futzing around with an agent search site and picked out a number of agents to send to? No? Well, I intended to mention that. It's a nice little website. Yay on whoever did it. You might go over there and find some new agencies that aren't already tired of hearing from you, the way I did (grin).
Okay, now for the serious requests.
My mother's cousin's wife has a bunch of health issues, but her lung infection and COPD are the ones that have been bringing her down for a month. She finally almost suffocated and they put her in the hospital on Tuesday. Well, nothing they gave her was working, and on Thursday the doctor said she wasn't any better and he was going to try another tactic. He started having the nurses give her an inhaler treatment every four hours. That's Ventolin or DuoNeb, that kind of stuff, plus a steroid. Well, that started making her heart pound. Last night she told my mom on the phone that her heart was pounding where she couldn't stand it, and that the last time they gave her a treatment she TOLD them that. Now, I am paranoid and always read those inserts, and when my mom first started on that stuff, I read the prescribing directions and they said never to overdose or overlap doses, as the molecules of thus-and-so could collect on the surface of the heart muscle and cause arrythmia and worse! So Mama has always been careful, and she has had some heart-pounding episodes (she blames this and diabetes for her left bundle branch block, too.) ANYway . . . so of course about three hours later we got a call from the lady's husband (Mama's cousin James), saying Jean, his wife to whom we had just talked, had just had a heart attack and been rushed to the ICU. !!! He came back from having some soup at the hospital cafeteria and was told he couldn't see her, that she was being rushed to ICU with a heart attack. She already has an artificial heart valve. At any rate, we talked to him at midnight and he'd gotten to see her, she was settled in, and they said that this morning they'd find out what/if so, how extensive/ damage had occurred. (sigh)
So please put in a good word for Jean Doss.
And for *my* cousin Steve's wife, Kristi Cary. She started her chemo for breast cancer two weeks ago and has already had to have a blood transfusion. Her hair fell out last week and it really affected her a lot more than she imagined. And she's on that drug that helps your red blood cells, but still can't feel too good. She had the gastric bypass two years ago (!!) and now she doesn't have the resources of twenty pounds she can afford to lose from not eating. Hers was an aggressive treatment plan. She needs some prayers, as well.
You see why I know it's so stooopid to pray that this lady wants to represent my book, or at LEAST look at the entire thing. But anyway, I thought I might as well sneak that one in along with these important ones.
When I get out there for my 15 mins of fame, I promise never to look as hangdog as James Frey did on his scold-appearance on Oprah, where he was soundly spanked. (Schadenfreude alert . . . sorry, I'll try to get over that.) Seriously, though . . . what would I have done in that situation? I bet I would have still tried to charm 'em all. I have that Irish blarney sometimes, and my dad's charm, and I probably would have tried to charm 'em even as I looked contrite. He just looked like a stoner who'd been caught with a wad of pot in his pocket in a Ziploc bag and was sitting in the principal's office. Shame on me for saying so. But anyhow, I wish he had put up some semblance of an explanation, other than, "I guess both . . . lying and making it up, and sorta forgetting the real way it went." (GRIN) My mother and my aunt were feeling so sorry for him--probably the "mom" reflex kicking in. Surely he'll make tons more money on the sales that result from the hoo-ha. And publishing will be struck with fear and will start doing some fact-checking and be VERY cautious about memoirs for about . . . oh, three months or so.
Then it'll go back to normal and they'll just keep their fingers crossed. Behind their backs! Well, what else CAN they do?
Even if you're one of my Followers who only Follows this journal because I rub you the wrong way and I make you angry . . . let's put that aside for a moment. I have two distant family members in crisis who need some positive energy and thoughts.
But first, since it's all about ME ME MEMEME, let's talk about THIS. (GRIN)
I got a couple of e-mail rejections from two agencies last week; one of them said they weren't taking on any more clients and were being very selective (they have a reputation for that, so it's a wonder they looked at my partial), and the other said we weren't a good fit because of style/prose issues (I agree that if she feels this way about it, we're not a good fit.) Okay, so that was a bit daunting. But. But! And again, BUT!
Today I got an e-mail request for the first fifty pages of LR. This agent was new to me when I heard about her on the Chick Lit list. I researched her and found she was open to new clients. But she only took snailmail queries. So that's what I did. Last week sometime. Sent the first page of the book along, as some websites have suggested, just to give her an idea of my prose style. I didn't want to waste time talking to someone who didn't like it, or thought that I am capable of majorly changing my voice (as opposed to the "voice of the novel," which is always different depending on which novel it is. All my main characters and all my novels' hearts have different voices. But that's a Craft of Prose post.) Okay, so I went on with the other twelve packages I was sending off.
Today I got e-mail from this agent asking for those first fifty pages!! Yay!!
That was fun to type, so I re-typed it. I duly fixed up a Word document with only those pages and sent it along.
She ALREADY replied, saying she got the attachment and it looks fine. And I didn't even ask her to! She also says it's flattering that I have heard good things about her agency and that she is on my "most wanted" list. *GRIN*
I wasn't lying, either. I have heard that she might be a powerful force in the industry. Or that she has connections. Either way, although she's not Donald Maass (yet), it would be great to connect with somebody who gets my work.
So . . . if we can lay aside our differences for a moment . . . I'd REALLY appreciate all positive thoughts, prayers, chants, etc. A mention in your litany of requests sometime today as we all rely on the Universe and its Power to take us safely through spacetime.
And I've found out from personal experience as a sulky teenager that if you pray for something BAD to happen to someone else, it doesn't . . . it usually zings you back for good measure in some minor way, too. So I'm not too worried about that part. ((GRIN))
Remember how I said I'd been futzing around with an agent search site and picked out a number of agents to send to? No? Well, I intended to mention that. It's a nice little website. Yay on whoever did it. You might go over there and find some new agencies that aren't already tired of hearing from you, the way I did (grin).
Okay, now for the serious requests.
My mother's cousin's wife has a bunch of health issues, but her lung infection and COPD are the ones that have been bringing her down for a month. She finally almost suffocated and they put her in the hospital on Tuesday. Well, nothing they gave her was working, and on Thursday the doctor said she wasn't any better and he was going to try another tactic. He started having the nurses give her an inhaler treatment every four hours. That's Ventolin or DuoNeb, that kind of stuff, plus a steroid. Well, that started making her heart pound. Last night she told my mom on the phone that her heart was pounding where she couldn't stand it, and that the last time they gave her a treatment she TOLD them that. Now, I am paranoid and always read those inserts, and when my mom first started on that stuff, I read the prescribing directions and they said never to overdose or overlap doses, as the molecules of thus-and-so could collect on the surface of the heart muscle and cause arrythmia and worse! So Mama has always been careful, and she has had some heart-pounding episodes (she blames this and diabetes for her left bundle branch block, too.) ANYway . . . so of course about three hours later we got a call from the lady's husband (Mama's cousin James), saying Jean, his wife to whom we had just talked, had just had a heart attack and been rushed to the ICU. !!! He came back from having some soup at the hospital cafeteria and was told he couldn't see her, that she was being rushed to ICU with a heart attack. She already has an artificial heart valve. At any rate, we talked to him at midnight and he'd gotten to see her, she was settled in, and they said that this morning they'd find out what/if so, how extensive/ damage had occurred. (sigh)
So please put in a good word for Jean Doss.
And for *my* cousin Steve's wife, Kristi Cary. She started her chemo for breast cancer two weeks ago and has already had to have a blood transfusion. Her hair fell out last week and it really affected her a lot more than she imagined. And she's on that drug that helps your red blood cells, but still can't feel too good. She had the gastric bypass two years ago (!!) and now she doesn't have the resources of twenty pounds she can afford to lose from not eating. Hers was an aggressive treatment plan. She needs some prayers, as well.
You see why I know it's so stooopid to pray that this lady wants to represent my book, or at LEAST look at the entire thing. But anyway, I thought I might as well sneak that one in along with these important ones.
When I get out there for my 15 mins of fame, I promise never to look as hangdog as James Frey did on his scold-appearance on Oprah, where he was soundly spanked. (Schadenfreude alert . . . sorry, I'll try to get over that.) Seriously, though . . . what would I have done in that situation? I bet I would have still tried to charm 'em all. I have that Irish blarney sometimes, and my dad's charm, and I probably would have tried to charm 'em even as I looked contrite. He just looked like a stoner who'd been caught with a wad of pot in his pocket in a Ziploc bag and was sitting in the principal's office. Shame on me for saying so. But anyhow, I wish he had put up some semblance of an explanation, other than, "I guess both . . . lying and making it up, and sorta forgetting the real way it went." (GRIN) My mother and my aunt were feeling so sorry for him--probably the "mom" reflex kicking in. Surely he'll make tons more money on the sales that result from the hoo-ha. And publishing will be struck with fear and will start doing some fact-checking and be VERY cautious about memoirs for about . . . oh, three months or so.
Then it'll go back to normal and they'll just keep their fingers crossed. Behind their backs! Well, what else CAN they do?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-01-28 03:27 pm (UTC)Prayers and Universal Consciousness Pleas
Date: 2006-01-28 05:44 pm (UTC)With love and concern,
Dennis
no subject
Date: 2006-01-28 06:34 pm (UTC)indeedy yes
no subject
Date: 2006-01-29 11:13 am (UTC)Frey is such a great big Mary Sue that my sympathy is deeply limited.
P.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-29 03:27 pm (UTC)