Excuse Me Are You A Literary Agent

Excuse Me, Are You A Literary Agent?

I have lived in New York City my entire life. I often feel privileged to be a part of the energy and magic of this Mecca of celebrity. Under the semi privileged dome of my existence, I encounter the rich and famous at every turn. When I was a teenager, I crossed paths with Jerry Lewis in Times Square and bumped elbows once with Marvin Gaye.

As a passionate college student of Cinema Studies, I dined across the room from Woody Allen and stopped to compliment his latest film. At Café Des Artiste, a rather high end restaurant in Manhattan, I was celebrating my thirty-fourth birthday when lo and behold, charismatic Mayor Lindsey walked past my table. At a function at the World Trade Center many moons ago, I stood next to Barbara Walters and had a chat about something terribly mundane. I walked away feeling we were friends. I caught the eye of Andy Warhol window shopping on Madison Avenue, admired Faye Dunaway on Fifth and called after Joni Mitchell on the corner of Forty-Second and Third, just to say I was a fan.

I could go on and on. Bill Clinton even used the bathroom in my building once. This is truth. I guess he couldn't hold it and his bodyguard entered our lobby to announce the dilemma. I believe my doorman has a photo of the cherished night. Not Bill on the john of course, just Bill and Pete, the doorman. So I didn't actually see Bill but my doorman did.

I'm not bragging about any of this but I do live in New York. I've gone to charity dinners with actors, singers and statesmen. I've been lucky enough to spend my summers in East Hampton where celebrity is as common as sand and let's not forget, Bill Clinton used the bathroom in my apartment building.

But here's the rub. In all my years living in this fair city I have never met a literary agent, or even seen one close up. Being a writer who's having a hard time getting published, this is a sad fact. They don’t seem to live anywhere near me. They're certainly never in my neighborhood and we have a lot of good restaurants on the upper west side. I can't help wondering where they do eat. They don't show up at the same parties across town and they don't even drink at the same bar. I never even sat next to one on an airplane.

Where do you think they are? Hiding from me, perhaps? Do they see me coming, hungry for representation and run for the burbs? Do I give away my yearning for them in my expression, my need to be discovered, appreciated and signed on? Do I have to find a conference in which to pitch my precious novel? Why can't we have a friendly chat in the elevator? Why can't I find their missing pooch and emerge a hero, why aren't they related to my Aunt Em? Where the hell are these people?

I would know one if I saw one, I'm quite sure. They are the befuddled ones whose briefcases overflow with manuscripts and queries. They wear formula friendly smiles and Next Bestseller buttons on their lapels. I think they only come out in the daytime because they have to go home and write rejection letters. This takes practically the whole night so most of them have circles under their eyes. I think they only speak to one another because they don't really know what makes the average reader tick; they think it's just about clothing the same characters in different color khakis.

So maybe they're the zoned out sleepyheads on the subway listening to the same CD over and over again. You know who I'm talking about; they're the people asleep behind their sunglasses, lattes and ipods, exhausted by the latest seminar on What the Industry Wants. Maybe they're really jaded, so much so that the words in the books they read run into each other and one good novel is just like any other. They're probably not aware anymore that Tolstoy is not the Russian word for "hello" and Jane Eyre is not a brand name for refrigeration. This isn't because they're stupid, it's just that their minds are too full of the contemporary maze of repetition and when you put so much time in trying to find the next New York Times bestseller, you forget things.

I keep looking for agents all over the place despite their shortcomings. After all, I'm a writer and my manuscripts need a mommy or daddy who will believe in them and sell my book's screen rights or get me a major publishing deal. I mean, after all, I'm told that's what they do for a living. Don't they need me as much as I need them?

Well, I'll be patient. I guess they'll find me when the time is right. And like a Vampire after blood, they'll emerge out of their misty obscurity, charming me into believing they've been there all along, just waiting for the richness of my words, the taste of my appeal.

Once they devour me with promise, I will be theirs forever. I'll see them flying through the cavern of my dreams, their faces close, the contract of eternal representation in their hands. As these prolific little pundits move from shadow into form, their eyes burrowed in my manuscript, at last; their image, finally, clear as a dime store novel plot, I'll tip my writer's hat and welcome the occasion, as if the absence of these literary phantoms, was never felt.

BONUS : Ezine Article Writing - Structure And Stretch

If you are a webmaster you will know that writing articles for publication in ezines is an excellent way to get free publicity for your website. One thing that holds many would be writers back is that they don't think they will be able to find enough to write even on a subject they know well. Webmasters who have never written an article before tend to feel their minds go blank at the suggestion of writing for publication. One of the most common reasons for not writing articles is that people do not think they will be able to write enough about a topic. This worry is usually overcome during the writing process but, even if you run out of words too soon, there are a few useful tricks you can use to increase your word count.

Most article directories will not accept an article consisting of fewer than 500 words; the most suitable length for an article is between 500 and 700 words. Let's go for 500 words for our first attempt. That might sound a lot but, if you look at the structure of most articles you will see that they are broken down into three sections: introductory paragraph, main content and closing paragraph. In turn, the main content will be broken down into 3-5 paragraphs.

If you plan your article to have three paragraphs of main content, you only need to find 100 words to write in each paragraph and that is a far easier goal to think about than finding 500 words. When you write the article, you obviously won't have exactly 100 words in each paragraph but this rule of thumb gives you something to aim for. Decide in advance on the sub-topic of each of the main content paragraphs, you can give them subheadings if appropriate, otherwise just use the sub-topics to plan your structure.

To get a feel for structure, let's look at an idea for an article. Our subject can be planting spring bulbs and our plan will look something like this:

Introduction - general information eg about types of bulbs available for spring flowering, type, varieties available, colors available, best time to plant, benefits of using bulbs in preference to other forms of planting.

Para 1 - choosing the right bulbs for particular situations eg shaded ground, containers, mixed planting, indoor displays etc.

Para 2 - planting techniques e.g. choosing growing medium for containers, choosing containers, depth to plant different species, color schemes

Para 3 - general care e.g. watering, when to cut down, propagation, naturalizing

Closing - brief summary of topics covered or something along the lines of "if you follow this care guidance, your bulbs will provide a colorful display year after year".

In this plan our closing paragraph is very brief but there should be no problem in writing well over 100 words for the first paragraph. In fact, if you are a bulb expert, you could write several articles based on each of the sub-topics.

If you feel you need to write an article on a particular subject but really run out of things to say, there are a couple of simple ways to bring your word count up to the level required by the article directories. Make it a rule, however, that you never use artificial padding to inflate your word count. The trick is to add words that enhance the value of your article, not just puff it up. These are legitimate ways of boosting your word count:

1. Add a sub-title to the article and use sub headings (if appropriate) for each paragraph.

2. If you use acronyms or initials, place the full term in brackets after the abbreviation. eg if you are talking about PPC, add "(this stands for Pay Per Click advertising)" after the abbreviation to add seven extra words.

3. Use quotations or statistics. Some articles can be uplifted by the use of a famous quotation. Inserting the quotation and author name adds several words but you can expand this by adding a brief biographical note about the author eg "the famous Russian metaphysical poet". If the article is not suited to the insertion of quotations, you might be able to add an interesting statistic. The information together with details of its source will add more words.

If you follow the steps set out above, you should find it comparatively easy to write an article of sufficient length for Ezine publication.