When your literary agent becomes a veterinarian
or, why believing in yourself is an imperative
It’s October 2020. Pandemic thick. I haven’t yet caught Covid, though I lay awake at night imagining all the possible sickness scenarios: I catch it and get really really sick. My husband catches it and gets really really sick. My husband and I both catch it and get really really sick. My son catches it and… We ALL get it and we ALL…
But that’s the wee hours of the night. Days are pandemic normal. None of us are sick, alhumdulillah. My husband goes to work, my son attends school virtually, I ask him countless times, “are you on your Zoom?...are you on your Zoom?...are you on your Zoooom??”
I’m jobless. We’d just moved to California that February and I’d only just begun looking for work when the world shut down. So I return to writing my novel/twiddling my thumbs/staring at the walls/reading and rereading my small cache of books/doing everything and anything to avoid writing my novel.
I decide it’s a good time to start querying literary agents. I have a short story collection that I think is pretty solid. I go agent fishing and fairly quickly catch what seems like a decent one. She’s a new agent, eager to gain some publishing credits. I’m a relatively new writer, eager to take the next step in my writing career. We’re both hungry; it’s a win-win.
Thus begins a beautiful literary friendship. We meet up virtually, we chat on the phone about books and writing and life. We make plans to meet up IRL because wow we have so much in common! None of that actually happens but I share with her a few publishing houses I’d like to send my work to. She establishes a nice list of editors and publishers to query. She launches the first run pitch. We check in regularly. There’s promising responses, requests for the full manuscript, praise of my writing followed by a chorus of no’s.
There’s a second round pitch, more praise and more no’s. It’s okay! It’s part of the process. We’re working. We’re building. Through it all I’m writing the novel. She tells me constantly she can’t wait to read it. As the query list dwindles she asks me more and more about the novel.
We dance around for a year. My father dies. I catch Covid. My son catches Covid. My husband catches Covid. We don’t die, alhumdulillah. I heal and grieve and finally FINALLY finish the novel and send my agent my precious book baby, all brand new and wobbly. It needs work. Of course it needs work. But it’s good. I know it. I poured my heart into it and my soul is satisfied with it.
I send it to her and wait. Months go by. It’s okay! She’s taking her time. She’s savoring it. I get an email!
“I got about halfway through and I’m just not connecting with it. I don’t feel confident I can represent you for it.”
Sh*t response right? Oh and she ends with, “do you have anything else?”
I’m a cartoon character with steam coming out of my ears. I’m a puddle of tears, grab a bucket. I’m not a writer. I suck. Writing is a bad dream, time to wake up and give up. I wallow and wallow and wallow.
Alhumdulillah eventually I climb out of the muck. I am a good writer. This is a good story. Allah saved me from a bad partnership. My book baby will find a good home.
I begin putting together a new agent list and revamp my query letter. At the same time my manuscript is turned down by one publisher (a Big 5 but who’s asking), I win a publishing award – August 2025 with SparkPress, save the date!
Somewhere in this time I tiptoe over to my previous agency website out of curiosity. I want to actually write and send the email to my former agent that I’ve been writing in my head for several months. I notice she is no longer with them. I google her and see she has a blog. She got married and rediscovered her passion for animals and is training to become a veterinarian.
I almost trashed my dreams over awful treatment from someone who realized they prefer to work with animals rather than people. Fine.
I almost trashed my dreams because of the comments of a person who understands compassionate care for animals (hopefully) but not for people – writers! Has she not heard Erykah Badu’s famous line?? We’re artists and we’re sensitive about our sh*t!!!
This isn’t about her – though I am of the thinking that everyone needs to know the harm they unknowingly (I’m being kind) cause. Know better, do better, right? This is a note to self and you and anybody that needs to hear it, that little spark inside of you that makes your soul dance is precious and must be protected. Don’t let anybody snuff that out. We have to believe in ourselves and our abilities, and we have to be audacious in that belief. That thing that makes you feel most alive, you gotta keep doing it.
P.S. For the fiction writers or those who aspire to, I wrote a little how-to on short story writing over at Qalb Writers Collective.
Feature Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash
I am soooo glad you had that curious instinct to check out that former agent! What a way to put those doubts to rest. Alhamdulillah!! I am nervously thinking of starting to send out query letters as I'm not sure the publisher who initially reached out to me about my current book is the right fit. Your post helps other writers more than you know!
Did me good to read this. Thank you. Last year I had a mentor who gave me sound advice but then deliberately did f*** all for my confidence, when I asked, light heartedly albeit stupidly, if she’d read my book (one day). The answer: not really. I’m sure she framed it more politely, though I can’t remember how coz I was so mortified. Same way she politely gaslit me for my religious beliefs and my expression of them in my writing.