To recap, I went to convention, I had the flu, I thought I was awesome, (normally a bad sign) and I had a meeting with an agent... It was not going well- I had two books but nether were ready to pitch, I just wanted to ask an agent a few questions....
And things got worse from there.
Yes, you guessed, I pitched both books. One was a young adult book with a combination of prose and E-mails and IMs, something I thought would be very marketable and original, but according to the agent, it’s getting done a lot. Yikes. Then the second book, I said, “It’s only on the second draft but I have a really good feeling about it.” Oh. My. God.
My brain had been screaming, shut up, shut up now. What the hell are you doing? Stop talking. But my mouth wouldn’t stop. It didn’t. It couldn’t. I kept rant and raving about the dumbest pitch ever. A novel I had a really good feeling about! My mouth and my brain had become completely discontented and were two separate entities trying to get control of my body. Some other information I came out of my mouth during this disconnect between body and mind, my profession, my daughter, and I’m pretty sure my bra size.
Time is a funny thing, pregnancy time was the longest time in the universe while ten minutes with an agent was faster then the speed of light by the infinite power. I thought I had only been talking for two minutes when someone came in and told her we had one minute left.
Then just as she’s about to give me feedback, I CUT HER OFF to ask her the four stupid questions I had intended on asking in the first place. Yep. I cut her off. Its like I’d had never been in a social conversation before, like I had been locked in a small room in a basement only learning English from whatever fragments would filter down through the vents.
She ended the meeting with, “At least you had a good time at the conference, and good luck with your baby.” Ouch.
That’s not even the lowest point of the day.
I sunk to a level of desperation that I never thought was possible. I went to the final session of the conference, on the verge of tears as I replayed the events of minutes ago. The woman I met in the beginning of the conference sat next to me, her agent session went much better and the agent asked for a manuscript. I felt like crap. I did the most humiliating action I could ever do. I pounced on the woman and asked her to read my first 10 pages of the novel I had a good feeling about. I told her, “I just need to hear its’ good.” Newest personal low. Worse then anything I did in high school or college put together. I basically forced a woman to read my writing and tell me it was good. It was like I was raping her eyes and mind.
While she was reading and I was wallowing in modification I noticed something was very wrong. The woman looked up at me and said, “Its very good and funny.”
I blinked at her. “You’re missing four pages.”
“Oh.”
And that’s the point when I wanted to kill myself.
I sighed and thought one day I’ll be laughing about this. Or someone will. Hopefully when I’m dead.
At the very least people should learn what not to do.
Hopefully Saturday will go better.
No comments:
Post a Comment