Ok, at least until the end of the year -- I'm committed to posting once a week. Hopefully more so after that.
Can I just say that I can't really believe that the end of the year is ...erm... a month away? When did the year start flying? (Oh right, January)

Less grump, more stuff...
Wait, two more whines:

1) Everyone I know is sick, so when I started feeling crummy yesterday I took to bed (with laptop) right away. Which means I actually went to bed before one am last night, but I also woke up at six am... and now I feel like I was somehow jipped. Who wakes up that early if they don't have to? (Oh right, morning people) 

2) I've been angsting over what I should write about. It seems a little different nowadays, before I always just imagined I was typing to myself or to my one client that I knew was reading my blog and now I seem (even though my audience is way smaller than it was on AgentObscura) to have a frightful case of stage fright. How amusing. So, I'm going to try and think a little less (erm....) and type a little more and hopefully you'll excuse anything that doesn't quite work as well as I had hoped.

Since this is the last week of the month before the last month of the year -- I think that it's time to start setting goals for the upcoming season. I already ran my numbers for this year (argh!) and am prepped for doing tax-related things in January (can I just say that this is one of the lamest parts of agenting? Sending 1099s? Last year my assistant figured out that if we just mail everything to the accountant that they do the 1099s for us. It's absolutely brilliant!).

What else happens at the end of the year? Well, I think everyone does that thing where they the season slows down, we stop submitting (some people won't submit after the first week of December, some won't submit in December at all... I have meetings up through the 20th and am now wondering why) and we start trying to "clear our desks."  I think agents freak out because they think editors just clear their desks without giving their projects the right amount of consideration and I know authors feel this way about agents, but I think it's the same amount of consideration there is just less pause.

Here's what I mean by pause.

Sometimes I'll send a project to an editor and the editor will call me and say, There is something I really like here but I'm not sure I love it. I automatically want to pull it. Why? Because I want the editor to LOVE it. If it's too flawed, perhaps I can take it back and help the author, but if the first thing the editor feels is doubt... ehhhhh. I think a time crunch or "the end of the year" crunch simply makes everyone say, "Do I love this?" "NO?" "Moving on!"

Which... in all honesty... is healthy and good. I'm always trying to figure out how to tell people that it's OK if it's not TL right away for a manuscript, but I don't know if I want to sell them a book that they can't wrap their head around either. And if I feel that way, eesh.

All my manuscripts for the year are out, I need to get on the phone and see where editors are in their reading and if they need any more information about the author/projects to make their decision and then ... WAIT. (Which, admittedly, is much easier when you have six to twenty projects out, than the pain of having only one out... as the author... so, I won't make my "wait" period sound as bad as an author's, but it still has its moments).

Ok - 8:21, I have work to do. I'll talk to you all soon.
xDia