Extra Cheese and a Side of Weeping

by Barbara Poelle

This past Christmas the family theme back in Minnesota was “As Seen On TV”. This means that all of the gifts had to be of the Sham-wow variety. There were Bug-Vacs and Moolarms (alarm clocks that Moo) and the like, but I received the greatest gift of all from my sister: the Pasta and More. This is the item that allows you to put all of the water and pasta in a blue Tupperware and put it in the microwave and then you can put veggies on a double-decker steamer thingy above it all and BAM! Pasta Primavera in about 10 minutes. Now clearly this handy device helps you avoid all the effort of the, well, the water and the pasta on the stove, where you put in the, you know, the water and the pasta…but, right, the veggies! Come on, you can do that on your stovetop! That takes a whole other pot! And a steamer! See? I don’t know how I have lived without the Pasta and More. It’s like Velcro, or plastic. Or toilet paper. (Because, OMG, why do we not all know the name of the person who invented toilet paper? Their face should be on the nickel.)

Anyway, I am just so glad that last year’s theme was As Seen On TV, because the Pasta and More has  come in handy this last week as every night when I get home from work I need to spend an hour or two eating my feelings. And maybe crying a little. No, really. Why am I eating my feelings and crying? Well, because last week, a colleague of mine was going out with a brilliant manuscript and was told by an editor, “The writing is amazing, but amazing writing isn’t enough.”

AMAZING. WRITING. ISN’T. ENOUGH. (I suggest you grab the nearest carbohydrate and stuff it in your mouth and chew vigorously.)

I mean, I haven’t been living in a bubble- although not a bad idea as I am basically allergic to Earth. Seriously, the worst? Someone recently spilled some margarita mix on my arm and I BROKE OUT IN A RASH. Oh the humanity! To be allergic to sour mix! But it does explain that massive asthma attack I had in Mexico in ’04. Anyway, what I am saying is, I don’t have my head in the sand, I know that the publishing industry is really going through it right now. Earlier this month I was asked for the platform on a literary fiction author. I was like, “Uh, she writes good.”  That’s the first time I have been asked for platform on literary fiction.

Is this what we’ve come to? Turning down material because the writing is amazing but they don’t have enough followers on Twitter? (For the love of Megan Fox, did Husband hide the bagels? I don’t care; I’ll eat handfuls of dry cereal.) I mean, I am all for self promotion. In fact, one of our clients just sold to S & S based on a fabulous angle he took in tootin’ his own horn. I love virtual book tours, blogs and tweets, but are we now seeing brilliant writing as a secondary element to viral media in selling a book to a publisher?  

Uuhghgh. I have to go. I can’t type holding these doughnuts.  

(P.S. Next Christmas the theme is "Pawn Shop Gifts", meaning all gifts must come from a pawn shop. My cousin is a cop, so I tried to vote for "Evidence Room Gifts", but was, for some reason, turned down.)  

Comments

[Suzanne]

If I ever needed to laugh out loud, this was the morning! I just received an email from an agent who stated I had the makings of a "great novel" and that the "sentences and the writing were impressive and beautiful..." but that she wanted just a little more mystery. She asked for a revision.

My novel isn't a mystery. I would have to revise it into a mystery? Go figure! Thanks for the post!

[Barbara Poelle]

See? I suggest ordering baked ziti for lunch. It seems to congeal in your soul and plug up the saddness fairly well.

[Suzanne]

Ahhhh. I got a cheeseburger instead. And a large diet coke. I forgot about fast food addiction. Too much tofu lately. As I ate the burger, I decided "why not make it a mystery?" Worst case scenerio I end up with two novels instead of one!

[missi]

So you think this is the new reality, just making excuses to say no in a bad economy, or a (perhaps younger?) editor jumping on the trend-o-the-week?

[Lauren]

Sure it's kind of a cruddy time for publishing, and the agency newsletters have gotten progressively bleaker over the past couple of months. But! You bring the positive energy into the picture, which is your whole angle. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but when one of your clients expresses hopelessness or doubt, you seem to go into this outer-body plane of optimism that involves caps lock and stories about pants falling down that somehow make sense in the context of the conversation. And trust me, that's not a common thing, and this sort of thing travels around in the aspiring authors circuit. In fact, I've had to stop telling people that you're my agent because they were starting to hurl manuscripts at me the way a paperboy would hurl the Times at a doorstep, begging me to pass it along. True story.

[Binky]

Hang in there 'til December...the pawn shop on Lowry has a mini-doughnut machine.

[Lynne Patrick]

A writer turned down because she can write... Aaaaaaaaargh!
Now I know why I keep emergency chocolate stashed where no one else can find it.