Ropes of Sand

Ointment in the Fly

At some point in the last few months, I decided to poke around the internet, see what I could see about agents. Generally, I mean. And somewhere in my poking, I discovered this thing. I want to say that I'm not aiming to pass judgment. I only wanted to share: "Gerald" has written a novel. He has also undertaken to contact "around 11,000 media, movie, and publishing people" in pursuit of publication. You may recognize many of the agents on his lists. He has kindly included (full-text) installments of the e-mail exchanges he has shared with many of them. That's where I get interested. Here's an excerpt:

Dear Claudia: Since I haven't heard from you in a couple months, I presume you're not utterly enraptured with the idea of representing my stuff. I don't have a problem with that. I must also presume, however, that you lack the common courtesy to have let me know that you're not utterly enraptured with the idea of representing my stuff. That sort of ill-mannered arrogance and imperiousness has a tendency to catch up with a person in the long run. It doesn't bother me, particularly, I'm used to it, but, for your sake, you might want to try to be a little more considerate in the future. Thanks again.

Gerald is capable of much more vivid language in response to the agents who contact him or fail to contact him. At some point, the agents begin to realize that their e-mails are appearing on a website - a feathering out, something meta. At some other point, Gerald has some realizations of his own.

This is the point at which we've arrived.
Read them all here: http://everyonewhosanyone.com/agus1.html

posted by SAS @ Thursday, July 07, 2005