I’ve been writing for some time, and just looked up to find that it has started to snow. So far, the snowfall is light and none of it is sticking, but the weathermen have been spreading rumors that we might have up to 5″ of snow before the day is over. If it continues to snow and the forecasted depth is achieved, miracles will certainly be written in fine print somewhere among the drifts. Possibilities are indeed endless there in the snow, and their hidden existence excites me. I don’t know why an active snowfall always makes me feel like a child again, but it does. Perhaps I am still hoping for a day off from school.
That notion isn’t nearly as crazy as it must sound, coming, as it does, from a 68-year-old man. For I find I have been perpetually in school, learning something new about life and its complexities from everything I’ve attempted. I was fortunate in my choice of profession, for being a business lawyer requires one to learn something new from each client’s business, and the constant discovery kept me young at heart. In my estimation, a life this long without continual exposure to the white magic of learning would not have been a life worth living. I have long been puzzled by those who opt out of an education, who do not feel the joys of its challenges, who aren’t the least interested in anything new, who don’t wish to wrestle with life.
My current challenge is learning about the publishing industry. With one book ‘finished – are they ever ‘finished’? – and a start on a second underway, I have discovered that the keys to success in the publishing world are well hidden, well guarded. Major publishers prefer authors to have an agent; agents are not interested in newly hatched authors (especially those of my hoary vintage), unless the newbie can grab their attention with a single throw of the dice. I understand the agents’ problem. They must be swamped with manuscripts, many of which probably fall well outside their genre of interest despite the submission guidelines they carefully post on their websites, and many of which are likely as murky as the bottom of the Dan River in North Carolina must currently be – the river that Duke Energy recently spilled great quantities of coal dust into. The agents’ plight must be akin to that of a law firm recruiting officer who has advertised for sixth year associates, only to have to wade through tens, if not hundreds, of letters from third year law students who are hoping the recruiter will ignore the published strictures in their case because they are so patently worthwhile and so obviously in need of work.
Who knows? I may well fit into that image, although I am trying my best not to do so.
But while I believe I understand the agents’ problem, finding an agent is still a mug’s game from my vantage point. I am certain I will not spend much time on the search; I know I prefer to go about it in the background while I continue doing what I love best – creative writing. Hence, I began work yesterday on the new novel I have been thinking about and planning for during the past month. That planning required me to read Native American mythology – a task which proved to be no task at all, but yet another joyous exercise in learning. For Native American mythology is earthy and whimsical to a degree I was not expecting, and it expresses a notion of wholeness, of completeness in the world that is refreshing when the reader is the by-product of a consuming society.
When I began my first novel, I wasn’t thinking about publication. In fact, I told myself I would be happy simply creating something that could stand upon its own feet, that friends might enjoy reading. I had little interest in the toils of publication, seeking instead to create the equivalent of a first-time woodshop student’s wall-mounted bookshelf. But, as one nearly always does, I discovered a catch.
I found the catch to be a constituent element of each character I created. If you read closely, you will soon find the lie in that last sentence – the lie inherent in the phrase “I created’. For while I may have drawn the initial rough caricature of each major character from whole cloth, I soon found that he or she had a way of blossoming upon the unwritten page that was as unique and idiosyncratic as it was wholly unexpected – as if each of them had grabbed my keyboard from me, taking charge in order to better express who it was he or she wanted to become when the pages were finally filled to completion.
Since each character is composed of equal parts spit, baling wire, duct tape, and imagination (theirs and the author’s), the author becomes their caretaker – a steward with the corresponding fiduciary duty to let their story be told because they are incapable of telling it aloud themselves; their story can only be told in print, and each telling can only happen when that printing interacts with an intelligent reader. So if an author comes to care for his characters and if they desire their story to be heard, guess who must make the effort to publish.
And so it is I find myself playing a mug’s game and hoping to shorten the very long odds. A good friend who is a published author in a genre other than my own tells me that finding an agent requires a form of incest – a writer who already has an agent must refer the unrepresented author to his or her agent for there to be any hope of success. So must I now seek to cultivate the acquaintance of those who have access to an agent? Must I drift endlessly from one publishing-themed cocktail party to another? Not likely, for I hate cocktail parties with a passion. In fact, my completed novel ends during a cocktail party, in the corner of every cocktail party room where those who perpetually disdain such experiences inevitably find sanctuary.
So I will continue to send off queries to agents in hope of a miracle or two, while working on my second draft – the draft where I fully expect the real miracles to occur.
