The Waiting Game

Time to hold my breath. For a really, really long time.

I previously crowed about meeting a literary agent at a writer’s conference in August. The agent seemed to be very impressed with the first 20 pages of the book, Minerva James and the Trial of Mars, and asked me to come up with outlines for the next two books in the series. He asked that I wait to send him all this material until after the Jewish High Holy days, and I agreed.

Of course I agreed. Do you think I’m a heathen?

Anyway, I had everything ready after Yom Kippur last week. I sent it Thursday night.

Now, the waiting game.

I look in my emails every day hoping to see something from the agent, saying at least that he got my materials. Alas, nothing.

He’s a big-time agent, and my guess is that he gets thousands of emails each day. So plowing through them to find mine will take some doing.

I want to be patient. But it’s like that old cartoon with two vultures sitting in the desert, one saying to the other, “Patience, hell. Let’s kill something.”

It doesn’t help that I just received a list of 10 mystery book publishers who don’t require an agent. It’s very tempting…

But I need to be patient. He was so excited about the book that I’m sure nothing has happened since my last email to him (I wished him a blessed Rosh Hoshana).

I can’t help but refer, in my head, to something that happened to me earlier this year.

A big law firm with offices in six cities contacted me–they called me!–and asked for an interview for one of their litigation positions. After some back and forth to try to arrange an interview, I finally interviewed with TWO partners in the same week. Both of them, upon hearing of my experience, said the same thing: “You’re the guy we’re looking for.”

I started to look for places to live in LA, where they said they needed me. I started to make plans about how to get there on a weekday while I still lived in Barstow. They said they’d let me finish my private practice cases, but I started to think about whether I should take anything new on before working with them.

And then…silence.

Nothing.

Nada.

I sent a friendly email a week after the last interview asking whether they still wanted to talk to me.

Silence.

Nothing.

Nada.

It’s pretty clear to me at this point they’ve “gone another direction.” But you’d think they would have the grace and courtesy to write me and tell me.

Now I worry this is a pattern. That the agent I met who was so enthusiastic in August has somehow changed his mind in October. Or maybe he doesn’t recognize the book in the email, though I put Minerva’s name on the subject matter line.

No, Mark. Be patient. He’ll get to you. Really, he will.

In the meantime, breath is being held. I’m a lovely color of aquamarine right now.