Author and Agent

One afternoon a year ago I was sitting at my desk at school, enjoying the peace and quiet of prep time when I felt my phone vibrate. It was an e-mail coming in from Carrie Howland, the agent who had requested my manuscript from a pitch contest just a week and a half earlier. My first thought was something like, “Well, at least she’s ripping the rejection Band-Aid off quickly, and I won’t have to spend the next two months wondering about it.” I opened the message and had one of those moments when I wasn’t entirely sure I remembered how to read English, because what I saw didn’t make sense with what I had expected: She was writing to let me know how much she was enjoying the manuscript, and said she’d be in touch after finishing. After my subsequent adrenaline surge burned away, I went back to double-check the address on the message and make sure it really had been from her; it was April 1st after all, and if this had been someone’s idea of a clever prank, things were about to get ugly. It was for real though, and a couple of weeks later we agreed to work together, launching a year for me that has, at times, felt more like lucid dreaming than waking life.

Because the thing of it is, I never seriously expected to reach this point. Sure, it was a dream, and a goal to work toward, but I always thought of it as a pie-in-the-sky/measured expectations goal at best. As much as I had hoped to find an agent someday (or be found by one), I knew just enough about publishing and the number of aspiring writers out there to understand how unlikely of a pursuit it was. Finding myself in this position felt a bit like how I’d imagine a lottery win might feel.

There was great excitement when I broke the news, especially from the people in my life who knew about my writing. However, most of these people had little frame of reference when it came to understanding the ins and outs of publishing and what a literary agent does. They knew something big had happened, but the details were still a bit fuzzy. Over the next year and literally up through this past week I’ve been asked several questions about it all: “When is the book coming out? Someone said you have an editor? How is the writing going? When can we buy it?” and so on. None of which I have any problem answering, mind you; I've actively held back from talking about all of this as much as I’d like so I could avoid being an annoyance, and I would imagine there are some people who wish I had tried even harder. But today, in an effort to answer some of the questions people have had and to hopefully clarify how all of this works, I’m going to take some time to describe what’s been going on.

So what exactly does an agent do, and what benefits are there to having one? In short, she’s my advocate. A large number of publishers won’t accept unsolicited manuscripts from writers without agents. If they did, they’d probably receive hundreds of them each day. For an unpublished writer like me looking to get noticed, that’s a pretty big roadblock. But what if I had someone in my corner who loved my manuscript and believed in my writing, and was professionally networked with publishers and editors and authors, and worked with an established literary agency? Suddenly I’d have a whole new level of credibility. That’s where an agent comes in. Not only will Carrie’s representation get my work through some doors, but because of her networking and experience, she’s going to know better than I ever could as to which editors and publishers would be the best match for my work. In fact, even though we’re still finishing revisions, it would not surprise me to learn she already has a mental list of editors she plans on targeting for submission when the time comes. In just the past week she’s appeared at writing conferences in South Carolina and Maryland, both as a panelist and a presenter. She knows the how the system works, she knows the people inside of it, and they know her.

As any aspiring writer who has done their research will tell you, a big key to success isn’t just having an agent, but having the right one. As valuable as her experience in the industry is, that alone isn’t necessarily what makes her the right agent for me. Yeah, I’ll admit: When we first connected I probably would have gone with her even if I’d had some reservations, just because she was interested and represented my ticket to the next level. But after I researched her and we had talked a couple of times, I was nothing but enthusiastic. As a reader, the strength of the written voice in a book is the first thing I notice. That’s what I value and respect and, frankly, on my own level of capability, aspire to achieve. If someone had asked me a year or two ago how I would have liked to hear Following Infinity described, I would have simply said, “beautifully written.” Because I think it is, and I’m proud of that. I’ve had several gracious compliments about it from early readers, but their comments have always been very general and centered on the story. Carrie was the first person to call the writing beautiful, even highlighting specific passages. I had a goosebumps moment when she quoted what I had always felt was the signature line of the book back to me over the phone. During a recent revision, I came up with a new line that I loved so much I tweeted, “I just wrote a scene that brought tears to my own eyes. I hope that means it works.” When I got notes back from her, she mentioned that same line as one that stood out for her. Throughout all of the back and forth we’ve had working on the manuscript, I’ve never had any doubt about how well she understands what I’m trying to do with it or how strongly she feels about it.

Which leads into what we’ve been working on: revisions. I don’t mean just going back to fix the capitals and the periods and the typos. She'll read through the manuscript, make comments along the way, and send it back to me for more work. The notes she provides -- along with some additional feedback from other people she works with -- aren’t about crafting the story into being something more easily marketable, but about making it into the strongest version of itself it can be. The feedback is both specific and general, ranging from pointing out how particular sentences could be reworded, to eliminating or introducing or redefining certain characters. I’ll go over the notes, spend a fair amount of time thinking about how to approach her suggestions, then work on revising and send it back to see what she thinks. Is it frustrating to keep rewriting the same manuscript over and over? Not as much as you’d think. It’s actually a pretty invigorating process, because she challenges me to write and even just think about the writing at a level that few people have before. Under her guidance, Following Infinity has evolved into a dramatically different -- and far better -- story than it was a year ago. Ultimately it’s my decision about what ideas will or won’t work, but she has yet to make a suggestion that wasn’t at least worth serious consideration.

Which catches us up to today, as my latest revision waits on her To-Do list and I enjoy a Spring Break with enough free time to put together a blog post this long. What comes next? Time will tell. Maybe more revising, maybe something else. I’m always anxious to find out what the next step will be, but I wouldn’t really say I become impatient about it. I know she’ll get to it when she can, and she’ll put serious thought into it when she does. In the meantime, I’m just glad to sit back and be involved in the process. Although while I’m sitting here waiting, I’m finding my thoughts are starting to wander through the possibilities of which project floating around in my head might be next. And let me tell you, that's a great place to be.