Agent Charming

Finding the perfect agent is like a fairy tale. When it all comes together it's a beautiful, magical, mythical thing.

1. Take Your Time.

I read somewhere that publishing's motto should be "hurry up and wait". That's true of a lot of parts of publishing, but there are lots of times we can make it better. Look at Snow White. From the minute we meet her, she's waiting for her Prince to come. But she's not just sitting there. Even when she runs away, she occupies her days taking care of the dwarves.

At no point does she stop everything to go look for her prince.

Writing a novel, and editing it, and having it critiqued, and editing it again... it's a long process. Yet people find themselves waiting until after they've constructed their query to look up agents. They you race through the process because it's holding you up.

No matter what stage of the writing process you're at, start your search now and you give it the chance to be organic. You don't have to stop everything to go look for an agent. You can come across agents and make a note of matches instead of spending hours combing books, forums, and websites.

2. Search, search, search.

Of course there is the possibility that the names of 5 to 10 perfect agents won't just fall into your lap, no matter how much time you give it.

Time to go Aladdin- a la Walt Disney. Princess Jasmine has to be married, and to a Prince. The Sultan uses all his resources and leaves no stone unturned in the search for the perfect suitor.

There are lots of places to find agent names and genres.

Online
There's the Publisher's Marketplace listings, which you can browse for free.
Or you can find agent lists on forums like Absolute Write or Writer's Digest community.
There are also genre-specific communities that can help you find agents. In the YA world, there's YALITCHAT- which, like Publisher's Marketplace, has a free level and a paid level.
SCBWI, once again in the children's community, also has discussion on agents, but in the members-only area.


In print
Check out the (insert year) (insert field) market series.
I haven't really looked at any of the other series out there, but I find it hard to imagine anyone else could be more comprehensive. They range from general writing to novel/short story to children's to songwriting. They're also available from Book Depository- which means free shipping for us not in the U.S. Except Pakistan. Condolences :(
If you're looking to publish in the UK market, you may want to have a book tailor-made for you. The Writers' & Artists' Yearbook is just what the doctor ordered. I own a copy of the Children Writer's edition. It has wonderful lists of agents, and informative articles from the big fish of British publishing- Roald Dahl and J.K. Rowling, to name a couple. I recommend that if you're looking at the UK market you definitely pick up a yearbook. The UK market isn't as online as the US market. And there are entire agencies thta you just won't find online.
(Insert year) Guide to Literary Agents is just what the name says. It offers advice, explanations and listings of both American and foreign agents.

In person
I'm a people person. I'd probably do a better job of talking myself into a 3-book deal than writing/querying myself into one. Conferences, workshops, regional writing group meet-ups are great places to meet agents. And having a chance to interact with them and ask questions can make it feel less like they're are some holier-than-thou ruler-of-the-universe and more like a business partner.

3. If the shoe fits.

It's tempting to think that because an agent reps your genre, they're a match for you. That is not necessarily the case. Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter are both fantasy, but they're wildly different.

Of course, Cinderella will help us with this one. Prince Charming had her shoe, and knew that when it fit, that was the lady he was looking for. Did other people get their foot in the shoe? Yes. In almost every variation of the tale, someone manages to squish their hoof in there. But it's never a good fit. Realisitically speaking, there'd probably be more than one woman in a whole kingdom who could fit the shoe. But that doesn't mean Prince Charming should marry anybody in possession of a foot.

A while back the venerable Nathan Bransford spoke about spaghetti agents- agents who sign anything with a modicum of potential and then throw all the MSs at editors and see what sticks.

I don't want to be a spaghetti querier- querying every single agent who reps my genre, in the hope that one sticks.

So how do you find the girl from the ball?

This is where time comes in. Anytime you come across a book in your genre that makes your skin crawl, make a note of the agent. An agent usually only works with what they LOVE! So if they loved it, and it makes you want to gouge your eyes out, then you maybe have different tastes.

On the flip, if you absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVED a book, make a note of that agent too.

Making an agent list ahead of time gives you the opportunity to check out books that an agent has repped if you hadn't previously read any of them.

Also, lurk around the bloggosphere. You'll pick up little tidbits from agented writers about their agents style. Of course, they'll be more professional than to air their qualms on the internet, but you can find out whether an agent is editorial or not, what their process is like, and whether they'll call to wish your dog happy birthday.

I'm not saying you need an agent who remembers your dog's birthday. But if that's what floats your boat, the best way to find out is from their clients.

4. Is it the real thing?

In Studio Ghibli's Princess Mononoke, the humans disguise themselves in the skins of the dead boars in order to attack. When you mistake foe for friend, the effect can be devastating.

Real agents want you to succeed. Your success pays their mortgage. But there are oodles of fake agents out there who just want your money and care nothing about your success.

Always check it out if an agent asks you for money. I do know of a few agents - all the ones I can think of offhand are UK-based- who offer paid critiques completely seperate of their agenting business.

Check the Association of Authors' Representatives. As far as I know this is completely foolproof, BUT they require an agent to have been agenting for 18 months. New agents fall by the wayside. (Being included in any of the resources in the search section is also a validation.)

Look for connections to a reputable agency. If other agents in the same agency have AAR certification, the agency and therefore all it's agents are legit. There are certain big name agencies that have been around forever and also pretty much guarantee legitimacy: Curtis Brown (US/UK) and Conville and Walsh (UK) for example.

Affiliations with reputable conferences. If they've given a workshop at The Festival of York (UK) or SCBWI Summer Conference (LA), then you know they're legit. The same goes for being members of the large writing/publishing associations: SCBWI, RWA, etc.

Poke around author websites. If J.K. Rowling says on her website that person is her agent, then they're legit.

If you haven't encountered them in anywhere you'd stake your MS on, check them out on Preditors and Editors.

Good luck finding your happily ever after!

Rhyme to write by

Don't forget to enter to win a copy of MATCHED by Allie Condie.

You remember that old wedding rhyme?

Something old,
Something new,
Something borrowed,
Something blue.

Well, apparently I'm in a poetic mood. Because I wrote 2 poems yesterday and, as I walking to school, another came to me. It's like the wedding rhyme, only it doesn't forecast a good marriage, but a good book. Here are the ingredients:

Something tiny,
Something huge,
Someone to feel,
Something to do.

Something Tiny

Your book is one of millions, but what makes a book stand out from the madding crowd? Details. A little over a year ago,(REALLY??? Have I been blogging that long?) I posted about the devil in the details. In that post, I talked about how people compared Avatar (the one with blue people, not the one with the benders of different elements) to Pocahontas and Fern Gully. They said it was the same story. But that's not true. There are people who love Avatar and aren't Pocahontas or Fern Gully fans. And vice versa.

Every story has been told before. What can you do to make your story stand out? Can you bring some innovation to the way it's told? (Whatever your feeling about Avatar, it brought advances in on-screen visuals.) Will you offer a new twist to an eternal plot? A new setting? A wildly different character?

Yesterday (or today, depending on where you are in the world) was Valentine's Day. I saw a lot of people on my facebook quarreling about it. Why should we get all up in arms, doing special things for one day, when we don't do anything else all year? It's easy to get caught up in the monumental, but don't forget, it's the little things that matter.

Something Huge

How can you need something tiny, but still need something huge?

Those little things that you tell the story with- they need to fit into a bigger framework. Because the big picture is where people connect with one another. For example, I like quirky books, and I like books that make me think (not at the expense of story), and I like books that make me warm and fuzzy. Now you may like your books dark; or with racing plots; or featuring ruthless, rugged heros. I like YA. Maybe you like sci-fi. But what brings us together is the love of books.

Let's take Twilight as an example. There are lots of little things that aren't my cup of tea in that book. Bella is a bit of a twat, to be quite blunt. And the writing itself is not the most graceful ever. But I love Twilight. And so do millions of others. Why? Prince Charming. Guy appears and whisks girl who was never going to get involved with anyone else off in a typhoon of pure love? Yup, that's as Prince Charming as it comes. We can talk about being practical women of the 21st century until the cows come home. There's still a little piece of most of us that yearns for the 'perfect' love.


A good book taps into one of these overarching ideas. Here are a few more big name examples, accompanied by the big picture idea I see in them:
Harry Potter - good vs evil
The Hunger Games - man vs the establishment
The Duff - self esteem
To Kill a Mockingbird - injustice
Th1rteen R3asons Why - death

Someone to Feel

Books and stories have moved from their earlier purpose of educating to entertaining. In order to entertain, they have to connect. They do that through the people in the story.

I'd like to point out that I said 'feel', not 'love'. Sometimes, you read a book, and you just despise someone. Draco Malfoy, for example - even moreso since the movies.

Also, these days, the people in books need to feel real. If they're not, we won't be drawn into loving or hating them, or pretending that Peeta just kissed us instead of Katniss.

Something to Do

Right-o, now we've got the little things, the big picture, and the people. But we can't just sitting around all day watching Disney movies. (Even if that would be awesome! Curled up against Wesley Rush-from The Duff- swoon!) Now we need to do something.

What we do depends on the type of book. In a murder mystery, we look for clues, and solve the case. In a thriller, or suspense, we might get stalked. Or do some stalking. (Us writer-bloggers are well practised in that art. lol.) In a romance, we'll fall head over heals in love.

At the outset it would seem impossible to mess this part up. But it's the hardest part for me. You see, it's quite possible to spend the entire time doing things, and still have nothing happen. It's like how you realise another year has come and gone and you haven't crossed anything off your list. It's not that you haven't done anything all year. You got out of bed, and showered, and ate, and went to the bathroom- at a bare minimum. But you've done nothing to advance your life.

This is true of books too. What is going on in the book, must advance towards the ultimate end. Would you read a murder-mystery where the detective spent the entire book eating, drinking and making merry and then the criminal turned himself in at the end, out of sheer boredom?

Probably not.

All together now

As I wrote this post, I purposefully avoided calling any of the parts by their technical names, but I'm sure you knew what they were.

Something tiny (hook)
Something huge (theme)
Someone to feel (characters)
Something to do (plot)

Together, I think these make up the list of things a book can do to sell itself. (There are two other major elements of a book. style/voice and setting, but I don't think they can sell a book on their own. You can't pick up on voice until you read the book, since cover copy isn't written by the book's author. And setting only sells a book when it's part of the hook, think Hogwarts.)

Did you find the rhyme useful? Do you agree/disagree? Which of these are you strong/weak on? Which of these, in the absence of recs from friends/bloggers, will make you pick up a book? And which makes you love a book?

Watering the lawn -MoMM

22 by Lily Allen
When she was 22 the future looked bright
But she's nearly 30 now and she's out every night
I see that look in her face, she's got that look in her eye
She's thinking how did I get here and wondering why

It's sad but it's true, how society says her life is already over
There's nothing to do and there's nothing to say
'Til the man of her dreams comes along
Picks her up and puts her over his shoulder
It seems so unlikely in this day and age

I heard this song for the first time yesterday in my step-grandmother's car. (Forgive me if it's been around forever. I live in Japan so my perception of things from the rest of the world is seriously skewed.) My first thought was "Wow, that's depressing." But then I thought it was, as Lily herself asserted, "sad but it's true."

As females, from the minute we pass 25- earlier for some, later for others, we start feeling like we should be at this point. We should be married, or at the very least be involved with the guy we're going to marry. And we should have a child, or be in a relationship which will produce a child in the near future. And if we're not, we can hear this clock ticking, like a large biological time bomb.

It's not so bad for me, because I have a son, and so, I'm not thinking about the fact that I have 7 reproductive years before I put my child at higher risk for Down's Syndrome. By extension, marriage shouldn't be etched in my mind, since I already have a child, and I'm living the life, even without a husband. Still, I here the clock.

And even with not particularly female issues, I hear the clock. I look at my friends who graduated secondary school with me and have their Masters or Doctoral Degrees, my friends who are accountants, lawyers, doctors, etc. And then I take a little peep in the mirror. Just a teeny-tiny one, because a full-on stare is scary. A 28 year old unmarried, Assistant teacher living across the world from home, in a semi-permanent arrangement. Freddy Krueger move over- I am my own worst nightmare!

And when you pile it up that way, who wouldn't feel like the woman in the song? Who wouldn't want to go back to 22, and cram as much in as they could?

And then I stop myself. Okay, I'm unmarried. AND in a job with a maximum of 3 more years. AND living in a country where I don't want to spend the rest of my life. AND with just a Bachelor's degree in French and Spanish to my name. AND with nothing in particular in the bank...

BUT

I have a beautiful, brilliant, zany son
I've seen 6 of 7 continents
I speak 5 languages
I live in a country half the Western world wants to visit
For pete's sake, I am typing this at my step grand-mother's computer in Western Australia having just completed my first surf lesson!

And then, I think, my life is kinda cool.

Sure the grass is always greener on the other side. But you can bet your last goanna that someone, somewhere is looking at your lawn and thinking, Damn, I wish I had it like that!

And you know what? You do! You do have it like that. So enjoy it. Live it up! As Samuel Selvon said in "A Brighter Sun", "What is to is, must is."

I still hear the clock ticking.

Tick -tock. Tick-tock.
What have you enjoyed today?

Tick-tock. Tick-tock.
Are you seizing every moment of every minute?

Tick-tock. Tick-tock.
Did you water your lawn today?

Tick-tock. Live!

(PS- I'm still in the bush and on a dial-up connection- so no pix, and I won't be on often :( )

FoF! A country a meal, a princess for real!

Hi my name is Claire and I'm a travelaholic!

I don't mind though. We all need our addictions, and travel is about one of the nicest ones out there.

Yesterday was an excellent day for a traveloholic like me. I had each meal in a different country (or airspace-lol).

I started out in Chiba, Japan. Chiba is right next to Tokyo, and it's where the main international airport, Narita, is located. Because my flight was an early one, 9 am, I decided to get a room in Chiba, so I wouldn't have to get up at 5 and spend 2 hours on the train.

Breakfast was Japanese -Western. Japanese Western is a style of breakfast that exists only in Japan. It's a combination of a few Japanese items, along with what the Japanese THINK a Western breakfast includes.

So the breakfast buffet included miso soup, salmon, spaghetti and fruit salad. I ate in a hurry, and hopped a free shuttle bus to the airport.

I flew Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong, where I picked up this yummness at a Taiwanese restaurant.



This meal cost me 500 yen- which is a little less than $5 US. In the airport! Everything is so cheap in Asia! And I managed to live in the ONLY expensive country . Ugh!

After lunch, it was off to another Cathay Pacific flight for Perth. They gave me two full meals, and a snack on the 7 hour flight. If I had known, I would not have filled up on food in Hong Kong. But it's an Asian airline, so I really should have known better. Asian airlines are tops! I've always had a full meal, everytime I fly an Asian airline. Even on an hour flight from Mumbai to Chennai in India. But that was a 5 star airline...

Anyhow, Cathay Pacific, even came around and gave us chocolate-coated ice cream pops! Seriously- ASIA ROCKS!


That was after the first meal. And here's the second meal of the flight.



Main course was chicken and rice. The fruit cup was apple, watermelon and some white fruit with little black seeds whose name I don't know.

Apart from the meals, the tv programming kept me very happy. I've never been on an Asian airline where I didn't have a personal tv screen and get to choose what I watched. On the first flight I watched Public Enemies (yay! I went to the cinema a few nights ago and saw something else instead of that) and Watchmen in Italian. On the second flight I saw High School Musical, Corpse Bride, and Enchanted in Italian. There's nothing like watching musicals to make a girl ridiculously happy. Or at least, this girl, who lives in a fairy tale world 8 days a week. :)



And Disney's Enchanted??? I'd never seen it before, but it's "That's how you know" is my alarm tone on my cellphone (which by the way is Disney, so I get cool perks like Disney music, and a disney email adress :) .


Note the little Mickey Mouse in the upper right corner.








Doesn't it just look too cute and Disney? I love it to pieces. But I digress...

Enchanted- the story of an animated princess who gets thrown into the real world, by the evil Witch/Queen. I watched it in Italian- just because I could, and because I love the way "That's how you" sounds in Italian.

Dille che l'ami

The lyric which pops to mind is "Ogni donna sogna d'incontrare il vero amore" - Every girl dreams of finding true love. If that doesn't bring out the 6 year old girl in you, what will?

Disney and Italian should be an illegal combination! I feel like a princess! The sun will always shine. "Sempre splende il sole!"

Especially in Australia, where it's summer and not snowing, like it was when I left Japan.

Monday on my Mind! - Prince Charming

Hey there folks!

Welcome to another new edition of the blog- Monday on my Mind(MomM). Every Monday, I'll be writing about- you got it- what's on my mind.

In my last post, I mentioned Prince Charming, and it got me to thinking about the concept.

Women like to think of Prince Charming as the perfect man. Let's take a moment to examine the prototype, shall we. The two most famous Prince Charming's are probably the ones found in the fairy tales of Cinderella and Snow White.

So Cinderella's Prince Charming- What's so charming about him? He can dance the hell out of a waltz for sure! But do you really want a guy who falls in love at a ball, just because you're the best looking girl there and he never saw you before? I mean, it's cute to think that your guy will leave no stone unturned in pursuit of you. But really, a guy who will scour the entire land looking for you after one date? Not at all stalker-ish. (Insert sarcasm here.)

And Snow White's Prince Charming- hmmm. Let's ignore the fact that Snow White is a complete ditz to begin with, and just jump into where the Prince enters. So Ditz- I mean Snow White- has eaten this poisoned apple, since talking to strangers didn't almost kill her the first two times (more sarcasm), and she's fallen into a sleep that her housemates, the dwarves, can't wake her from. So they build her a glass coffin. In rides Prince Charming. And he does what any red-blooded man would do, seeing a seemingly dead girl lying in the middle of the forest- he falls in love! No hints of necrophilia anywhere in this story. (Mountains of sarcasm here.)

The ideal doesn't really exist. Even in fairy tales, where the world is a perfect place, Prince Charming is a necrophiliac stalker... not charming at all.

People are not perfect. In Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married, the male characters discuss the 80-20 rule, which in essence states:

You will only ever find 80% of the things you desire in an ideal mate, in one person. When your significant other supplies 80%, it's easy to look at others and find them attractive, because they have the 20% that your SO doesn't. But even though that 20% looks good at the time, if you walk away from the SO, you realise it's only 20% and the SO was the better deal.

Tyler Perry's "Why did I get married"

This in a nutshell is the 80-20 rule. It's also the Prince Charming dilemma. A generation of girls who grew up on fairy tales hoping to be the exception to every rule.

And the real Prince Charming? He might not be quite so charming or have such dashing good looks. He might not be able to ride a horse or live in a palace. He might have one green eye, one blue or, he might stay home from work to take care of you when you're sick. He might be the type of guy who walks for an hour to the nearest internet cafe so he can call you, during his 3 month exchange in Ghana.

Prince Charming is different for everyone.

But one thing's for sure. He's not perfect!

High on life!

Many lifetimes ago when I was in the Coast Guard, I was diagnosed as bipolar or manic-depressive. For those of you who don't know, it's a disorder where a person goes from bouts of depression to bouts of extreme happiness (mania). Now mania might sound like a good thing, but it has serious problems. While a depressed person might curl up in a ball and cry for weeks on end, a manic, will go out and live. With no regard for personal safety. Or for the future. Manics are invincible. Only, you really aren't. You're a human being like everyone else, and living like your indestructible is a fast path to trouble.

For a while, I was on medication to even out my emotions. It didn't work. They usually managed to take care of the depression, but they just couldn't clip the highs. After years of fiddling with different dosages, I decided I was done with that, said a little prayer and threw the pills out the window. Well, in the garbage, but you get the point.

Today, I still struggle with bouts of depression and mania. I have it on good authority, from my friends, that they don't know anyone who gets as miserable or as happy as I do. That's fine. I pray about it, and I survive.

Right now, I am seriously high on life. It's been building for a few weeks. Thursday morning, in between teaching my kids, I was reading a book about a girl who committed suicide. I've been there, I understood what she was talking about, but with all the detachment of a reformed druggie. That's not me, I thought. I am happy. Life is beautiful.

I don't always need a reason to be happy. I just am. But there is a lot going well in my life of late. I've rediscovered my relationship with God, thanks to a Skype Bible Study, and I feel like God is working wonders for me. I've just completed another novel, this time inspired by my trip to India. I did a Japanese exam, and for the first time since I've been doing them, I feel relatively confident. I adapted Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" into simple English (with no past temse) and performed a play together with the other ALTs in my town. And I wrote a Japanese summary for it. After jumping through miles and miles of hoops, I finally obtained a Visa to visit Australia.

And of course, as with any good fairy tale, Prince Charming has made an appearance.

I've spent periods of the last few days, physically fighting not to break into a grin or worse, song and dance. Seriously!

And I woke up this morning thinking, well, it's a good thing you can't OD on life! :) Life is like the best drug ever. No exorbitant costs, no family problems, no need to take another hit.

Life is beautiful. Don't take yourself too seriously. Laugh once in a while. Get high on life!