Gah and gah! I _know_ better, but what did I just go and do? Read an agent’s blog, that’s what. Oh, I know the argument for doing so–to get a line on the industry, to keep up with what’s selling by whom, to whom, for what, yada, yada, yada. Not enough is said about WHY ALL ASPIRING NOVELISTS SHOULD STAY AWAY FROM AGENT BLOGS. They can only make you feel bad. They can only tell you that whatever you’re currently writing is not what’s selling. Or that it might sell, if only you were a gender other than what you are. They can only explain in intelligent, well-articulated ways all the reasons you are a lunatic for even daydreaming about publishing fiction.

My most recent brush with death started out with an agent sharing wisdom her dad had given her when she was a teen. Well, my mom gave me a bit too, including: a leopard can’t change its spots. Whether that was a good quality or a bad one depended on the anecdote it was attached to, but nonetheless, I am convicted of its truth. And I have no desire to even try to change my spots. I–for whatever horrible, unchangeable, unfathomable reason–need to write. BUT I DON’T NEED TO READ AGENT BLOGS.

Maybe one day I’ll be the novelist some agent blogs about saying, “despite everything everyone knew to not work, to not sell, and to not be a valid expenditure of time, energy and breath, Ev Bishop blah, blah, blah…” Or perhaps not. But in any event, I’ll take a lot more pleasure in my WIP and waste a lot less time trying to dance to a tune that constantly changes.

On that note, I leave you with a quote from a writing forum I frequent: “My final thought is that you need to write what you believe makes your story stronger not to please some imagined editor.”

Hear, hear!

Severely traumatized, but drinking coffee, typing and feeling reasonably sure of a complete recovery,
Ev

p.s. I suppose there is value in reading an agent’s blog before you pitch to him/her–or so say all the agent blogs anyway!