Reasons I love my job #31

Agents love to be in the acknowledgement section of a book, that's no secret. Me too, of course.

But today I'm reading along in a client's novel and find a character named Janet described thus:

"I could tell she was the sort of coldhearted bitch
would never lose a moment's sleep over putting a bullet in my head".

ya baby!

Reasons I love my job #30

Cause I have clients who write things like this:

"You look like crap. What happened?"

"I was tied to a chair and had the shit beat out of me."

"So what's the other guy look like?"

"A corpse."


and just so you don't get the idea I'm totally anti-social and blood thirsty, here's my other favorite line:

"Can we get a pet?"
"How about a gold fish?"
"Fish are boring. They're like art you have to feed"

Imprint Agency Mascot....

The 8 pound sack of mischief decides that too much work is being done and takes matters into her own ...paws.

Elyn Saks-The Center Cannot Hold***

I have a special interest in reading books** about how people live with mental illness, after the death of a beloved friend last year. Andrea Sachs' interview this week with Elyn Saks was illuminating.

One thing I learned is that medication doesn't make the illness go away, it just allows her to recognize the thoughts for what they are:


Q: Do you still experience schizophrenic symptoms?

A: Even today, with all the treatment and all of the medication, I still have transient psychotic thoughts, probably daily. Where a thought like, I've killed people, comes to my mind and I just say, oh that's your illness acting up.



Here's the link to the full interview


** if you read this blog to find out what I'm interested in acquiring, I should mention I only read these books, I don't acquire them.



*** the title of Elyn Saks' book is a line from one of my favorite poems.
Three points if you can name the other book I loved that uses a line from this poem as its title.

The cost of war is not money.

This is Marine Wedding, one of Nina Berman's photos from her show Purple Hearts currently at the Jen Bekman gallery.

Three things to avoid

1. Send me an equery, get a negative response, then invite me to your myspace page.
result: your email address tagged as junk, and diverted automatically to the trash forevermore.

2. Put the words "hot" "sex" or "porn" in your subject line.
My email program is blindingly stupid as only a machine can be. It thinks you're spam and you've been diverted to the spam folder. When I wade into the spam folder I'm looking for email addresses I recognize and subject lines I know. Yours misses on both

3. Send attachments. I don't read or open attachments unless I've asked to see the material. If you query me with an email that says "I've attached my query letter" I won't read it and I will send you a form rejection. Policies vary agency by agency on this but mine is as clear as I can make it. NO ATTACHMENTS on query letters.