IN SEARCH OF MY SECRET AGENT
Sunday, February 21, 2021- daily column #6675
Throw hard.
Throw fast, hit the strike zone, and don’t strikeout.
That’s baseball. Pitching starts play in baseball, cricket, and horseshoes.
And in publishing.
I don’t have an agent or publisher. Not yet.
My late friend and mentor Frank Dabbs coached me on how to pitch and when to pitch, but he’s gone now – so now that I’m ready, I’ve got to pitch unassisted.
He didn’t start with any cliché ’begin with the end in mind’ scenario. Frank’s credentials were credible, and his fees were modest. I bought lunches and took notes – he told me stories and gave advice. I got the better end of that arrangement. Beyond ghost-writing books and his august journalism career, Frank’s highest literary achievement was as a coach to Yann Martel on The Life of Pi. Certainly impressive. I was, and remain, in awe of Frank’s kindness – that he was impressed by my writing.
Other writer friends have given nurture and support too. I have no doubt about my work ethic, and I have my lead character and sinister villain figured out. I have the arc of the story figured out. My one novel notion beginning has clearly become an unfolding trilogy. Not like Bond or Bourne or Reacher. Not like Fleming, or Ludlum or Child. Or La Carre or Grisham. But if you think of those, that’s my genre. Serious, intellectually violent, physically and technologically unique. Tortured characters doing the torturing, the wreckage of mayhem and lives lost – and the psychological devastation to those left standing …
A powerful sub-story, too, of intrigue woven among characters who are in themselves twisted parts of good and evil, flawed and heroic, complex and rather effed-up. And, as Frank said, I write the way I talk – strongly reinforcing that I should appreciate that is easy for me and an arduous task for many writers, “So don’t lose that, Mark.”
Frank also coached me to be clear, for my writing for my pitch, to answer the question of which section of the book store, which genre – does my book fit? I told him I didn’t care so much about where in the store it would be shelved so long as it wasn’t lingering on a half-price remainder table. He coached me to gear my thinking to get excerpts published in newspapers or magazines. That good idea has taken root in my consideration, but I’m not to that stage yet. He suggested I consider self-publishing. Since then, I’ve had others counsel me on finding the right editor and on independent publishing. It seems, long before COVID and binge-watching, the strategies in getting something published rested on an unsettled landscape of which the internet is a platform, competitor, villain, and accomplice all in one.
Oh, bother, what to do?
My business and real estate career should help – I have a background in cold-calling, warm-calling and calling back to stay in touch or to nurse an idea along. But getting a novel published seems to be a lot like getting a date with the unattainable desirable woman. They don’t know who you are, and even if you’ve met before, the fear they won’t remember or care or be interested tests the introvert’s nerve. Endless rehearsals prove little. In the end, it was picking up the phone to start …
Today we can pre-phone with a text or email or with a blog posting – to explore if the welcome mat is out or if we’ve picked the wrong approach and the wrong point in time.
The goal, I expect, is not to win the day or the date but to start a relationship that can germinate in a fertile mind.
First impressions rarely tell a tale or make a sale because nobody can predict a best-seller. But a bad one stands out right away.
Standing out right away seems essential if we want someone’s attention – but once we’ve got their attention, that precious time should not be wasted. But, it should be tasted.
Most first impressions make no impression at all on anyone – like a train rolling clickety-clack, we don’t back, we don’t revisit. One chance that someone might notice or care, one pass to garner favour or attention – or stick in their memory because we might have something to pitch another day.
Start with intention.
Transparency helps but isn’t essential at first.
But honesty is.
More can be told in the fullness of time, but nobody gives a second glance at anyone who isn’t there for you, real for you, kind to you, or thinking of you …
Any life struggle is impressive. Forget when, now or then, whatever weather or force of nature or man moved us – the beginning never foretells the end any more than the goal auto-prescribes the beginning. Of anything. For anyone.
A few words at the right moment paint pagan brushstrokes across a cheek or chest at best.
We can make things happen or try, but the arrow never pushed into the air could not land anywhere near anyone’s chest, let alone pierce their heart.
Every artist and clever photographer knows, a picture paints a thousand thoughts – some too rich, too raw, or deplorably bawdy to be attributed to the viewer. But pictures matter. Words matter. Point of view and ticking clock matter – because the unspoken word that matters far eclipses the outspoken voice lacking an exact point of view nor vector to their target. Anyone can hit a bullseye if you stand close, but hitting the spot at which you aim millions of miles away to arrive in the right crater on a red planet far away is like pouring ink on a page here, expecting it to whet someone’s appetite half-way around this earth.
Painting takes many forms – brushes and roller, a room gets cleaned up or takes on a whole new look. Painting on a canvas puts layer over layers of images and pigment, brush strokes and smudges to push our emotions to like landscapes or portraits. What housepainters and artists cannot easily do is paint a picture of pain. Or of gain. The twisting of points of view or channeling an experience into understanding or wanting what is missing from that picture calls for a cobbler of words or other words ending in smith. Silversmith, coppersmith, goldsmith, blacksmith – or wordsmith. Hammering away to produce art, or the news, or a point of view or a point of no return.
Someone said a picture paints a thousand words. I don’t yearn for a blank wall or empty page as much as I want to plant my seed in a fertile imagination, just how any father gives the sperm of life to a child. The idea about any idea is not to predetermine an outcome but simply to push a worthy thought in a target’s direction. I’ve not given up on finding love, or lust, an agent, or a publisher – but I’ll never land the shot I never take, I’ll never get a volley back if I don’t get the ball over the net. Writing and painting are not about any sports metaphor or looked-up fight.
I’ve had plenty of time, tasted lots, wasted lots too – but I’ve never lost my appetite.
What will we taste next?
To conclude with a final sports metaphor, we understand the baseball pitcher – righty or lefty, starting in rotation, sometimes pitching the whole game, more often relieved by a relief-pitcher.
When we pitch ourselves for a job, or for a mate, or for a gig – there is no bull-pen to help us get through the day. Just more pitchers willing to take our place as we vie for a piece of that real estate between someone’s ears. We want to be picked; first or last doesn’t matter, but we need the win today if we hope to ever pitch again another day.
Whatever I write – be that the next great novel, series of books, screenplays, or some other nugget-form of publishing, more than finding an agent or publisher, I need to find an audience – and build a following. That lesson from Frank took root. The audience is large, in my view, but still small by internet social media standards.
This pitch is not for everyone, not for just anyone – it’s for the right one. If, by some masterful stroke of good fortune, my agent/publisher find is a charming woman who sweeps me off my chair, well, that would be lovely too.
Now, the challenge is to get this boiled down, like a sauce you reduce on the stove, to a simple, compelling query letter.
Frank, help, I need you now!