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shalannaReading this journal must be somewhat like reading "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, where the narrator slowly goes mad and incoherent. Or maybe it's a Poe. "Tell-Tale Heart." Perhaps even a _Naked Lunch_ or _Ulysses_. I chronicle my descents into the depths (I now have a Season Pass for the First Circle) and everyone gets to point fingers and laugh. Well, at least I serve the function of being entertaining.
Anyhow. So the agent did not call today as promised.
Yes, I know . . . she has active deals and clients, and she probably had forgotten this would be the first of the month *and* a holiday weekend when she said last Friday, "I'll call you next Friday." She most likely hasn't had time to look at my revision or at the openings of the other books. Perhaps she finds it daunting that I sent so much.
I may have misunderstood what she said--although I distinctly remember that I asked, "Will you definitely call on Friday?" and she replied, "Yes, because I'm asking you for changes, and therefore I feel I need to get back to you in a timely fashion." Still, she might've meant "Friday two weeks from now."
She wasn't obligated to call at all, yes, I know. It's just that I'm used to "business" business, in which you either get a call or an e-mail explanation or you get a call from someone else to reschedule. Most of the time, anyway. But because writers are basically at everyone else's mercy, perhaps this is not seen as necessary.
I waited all day to get the call, but somehow last night I began to feel that it wouldn't come. My guts are often right about that kind of thing.
Hubby said that when a business person misses an appointment to talk to HIM, he waits for a bit and then calls THAT person. In other words, because the call was expected around eleven, I should have called the agency number around two (in his worldview) and asked, "I had a phone appointment. Did I misunderstand the time? Or did something happen?"
But I told him that publishing is not like ANY other business. That such an action could be construed as "pushy," that I would then be thought difficult to work with, that it would be a deal-blower. I said that the earliest I could call would be Tuesday, and probably not even THEN. I should probably wait until next Friday and perhaps leave a message on the office voice mail "hoping everything's okay and that the files arrived safely." But even that perhaps would be seen as the action of a desperada.
I probably screwed up again, as usual.
Maybe I seemed too desperate. I did the revision as if I were doing it for a manager/client back when I worked at The Real Corporation-Type Place, and perhaps that made me look like a buffoon. What kind of idiot does *that*? Maybe I just give off vibrations of hopelessness. The family would put their cash on that one.
On the other hand, maybe she just said that she'd call again to get rid of me and still be "nice." Seems like an uncharacteristic time-wasting move. I don't have any way of knowing. I e-mailed her on Wednesday (which was pathetic enough) to say, "Are we still on for the phone conversation this Friday, September 1st, around lunchtime?" And to forward a link about YA fiction that I thought she might find interesting. No e-mail in answer. In fact, I never got the customary response from her saying that she'd received the files I sent her. So maybe she's hoping I will just go away. (It'd have been FAR kinder just to say, "Look, I've lost interest" or "Well, I've changed my mind." People have been fired by e-mail [Radio Shack just did a RIF that way, in fact], so it's certainly an option.)
I was just thinking--so MANY agents and even editors do this, have a million people on the string at any given time, too many to try to keep up with. Perhaps it's all a power trip to have so many authors hanging (let 'em hang!) It wouldn't be MY turn-on, but then some people like FEET. *GRIN* *That's a joke, son*
Whatever. The phone is still plugged in, waiting. I hope it ain't holdin' its breath, though.
@ ^ @
I discovered around three-thirty today that we no longer had Call Forwarding on our landline. I wanted to run by to pick up a couple of prescriptions for Hubby, and thought I should forward that landline to my cell phone. Nope, it wouldn't work. So I called AT&T.
They have a voice recognition system. I kept asking it for customer service. It kept apologizing for not knowing what I had said. I resorted to incomprehensibility. "Take me to your leader." "A penny saved is a penny that doesn't get stuck between your toes." When I got to "Klaatu barada nikto, Gort," it decided to send me to a real person.
The real person said that it would cost $3 a month to get Call Forwarding again and that it wouldn't be turned on until 5 PM.
I went on the errand anyhow. When I got back, there'd been no calls, according to the Caller ID pageback function.
But if I leave this weekend (I'm thinking just get in the van, point it anywhere but here, and press on the "go" pedal), I can forward my calls. Whoopee-doo-la!
@ ^ @
I saw a cute method for comments verification at Benjamin Rosenbaum's blog. When you get ready to post a comment, you tick one of these boxes:
1--I am an automaton, posting to your weblog in order to sell pharmaceutical aphrodisiacs or games of chance -- please delete my comment.
2--I am a sentient entity, posting to your weblog in response to its actual content -- please post my comment.
3--As a postmodern materialist, I harbor a deep skepticism and unease about declaring myself either "sentient" or, indeed, any kind of unitary "entity", but post my goddamn comment anyway, all right?
MUCH cleverer than expecting me to be able to read those bent and twisted letters and numbers and retype them correctly.
@ ^ @
"The Japanese have five ways to say 'thank you'--and every one translates as resentment, in various degrees. Would that English had the same built-in honesty!" -- Robert Heinlein, _Stranger in a Strange Land_
Anyhow. So the agent did not call today as promised.
Yes, I know . . . she has active deals and clients, and she probably had forgotten this would be the first of the month *and* a holiday weekend when she said last Friday, "I'll call you next Friday." She most likely hasn't had time to look at my revision or at the openings of the other books. Perhaps she finds it daunting that I sent so much.
I may have misunderstood what she said--although I distinctly remember that I asked, "Will you definitely call on Friday?" and she replied, "Yes, because I'm asking you for changes, and therefore I feel I need to get back to you in a timely fashion." Still, she might've meant "Friday two weeks from now."
She wasn't obligated to call at all, yes, I know. It's just that I'm used to "business" business, in which you either get a call or an e-mail explanation or you get a call from someone else to reschedule. Most of the time, anyway. But because writers are basically at everyone else's mercy, perhaps this is not seen as necessary.
I waited all day to get the call, but somehow last night I began to feel that it wouldn't come. My guts are often right about that kind of thing.
Hubby said that when a business person misses an appointment to talk to HIM, he waits for a bit and then calls THAT person. In other words, because the call was expected around eleven, I should have called the agency number around two (in his worldview) and asked, "I had a phone appointment. Did I misunderstand the time? Or did something happen?"
But I told him that publishing is not like ANY other business. That such an action could be construed as "pushy," that I would then be thought difficult to work with, that it would be a deal-blower. I said that the earliest I could call would be Tuesday, and probably not even THEN. I should probably wait until next Friday and perhaps leave a message on the office voice mail "hoping everything's okay and that the files arrived safely." But even that perhaps would be seen as the action of a desperada.
I probably screwed up again, as usual.
Maybe I seemed too desperate. I did the revision as if I were doing it for a manager/client back when I worked at The Real Corporation-Type Place, and perhaps that made me look like a buffoon. What kind of idiot does *that*? Maybe I just give off vibrations of hopelessness. The family would put their cash on that one.
On the other hand, maybe she just said that she'd call again to get rid of me and still be "nice." Seems like an uncharacteristic time-wasting move. I don't have any way of knowing. I e-mailed her on Wednesday (which was pathetic enough) to say, "Are we still on for the phone conversation this Friday, September 1st, around lunchtime?" And to forward a link about YA fiction that I thought she might find interesting. No e-mail in answer. In fact, I never got the customary response from her saying that she'd received the files I sent her. So maybe she's hoping I will just go away. (It'd have been FAR kinder just to say, "Look, I've lost interest" or "Well, I've changed my mind." People have been fired by e-mail [Radio Shack just did a RIF that way, in fact], so it's certainly an option.)
I was just thinking--so MANY agents and even editors do this, have a million people on the string at any given time, too many to try to keep up with. Perhaps it's all a power trip to have so many authors hanging (let 'em hang!) It wouldn't be MY turn-on, but then some people like FEET. *GRIN* *That's a joke, son*
Whatever. The phone is still plugged in, waiting. I hope it ain't holdin' its breath, though.
I discovered around three-thirty today that we no longer had Call Forwarding on our landline. I wanted to run by to pick up a couple of prescriptions for Hubby, and thought I should forward that landline to my cell phone. Nope, it wouldn't work. So I called AT&T.
They have a voice recognition system. I kept asking it for customer service. It kept apologizing for not knowing what I had said. I resorted to incomprehensibility. "Take me to your leader." "A penny saved is a penny that doesn't get stuck between your toes." When I got to "Klaatu barada nikto, Gort," it decided to send me to a real person.
The real person said that it would cost $3 a month to get Call Forwarding again and that it wouldn't be turned on until 5 PM.
I went on the errand anyhow. When I got back, there'd been no calls, according to the Caller ID pageback function.
But if I leave this weekend (I'm thinking just get in the van, point it anywhere but here, and press on the "go" pedal), I can forward my calls. Whoopee-doo-la!
I saw a cute method for comments verification at Benjamin Rosenbaum's blog. When you get ready to post a comment, you tick one of these boxes:
1--I am an automaton, posting to your weblog in order to sell pharmaceutical aphrodisiacs or games of chance -- please delete my comment.
2--I am a sentient entity, posting to your weblog in response to its actual content -- please post my comment.
3--As a postmodern materialist, I harbor a deep skepticism and unease about declaring myself either "sentient" or, indeed, any kind of unitary "entity", but post my goddamn comment anyway, all right?
MUCH cleverer than expecting me to be able to read those bent and twisted letters and numbers and retype them correctly.
"The Japanese have five ways to say 'thank you'--and every one translates as resentment, in various degrees. Would that English had the same built-in honesty!" -- Robert Heinlein, _Stranger in a Strange Land_
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no subject
Date: 2006-09-02 01:17 pm (UTC)If you don't get a call NEXT Friday, maybe you could give her a quck phone call in the early afternoon. Light and breezy, no expectations, but listen closely to what's said -- and what isn't.
SO there you have it, my unsolicited advice. For what it's worth. BUT, most of all, I want you to know there are lots of us here who are supportive of you and are sending all good wishes for your success.