Secret Agents . . . Continued

(continued . . . )

After my third agent, Davey, dumps me--I decide to take a break from writing. Or, rather, the circumstances of my life dictate that I take a break. From 2005-2007 I find myself engaged in a massive moving effort. Not only has my family moved to a new town, but I'm also engaged in moving a congregation. Packing boxes, reviewing building plans, raising funds, setting up, tearing down. It's an all-out effort that drains all of my creative energies and with so many long weeks and evenings dedicated to committees, architects, building plans, and moving trucks, there's nothing left in the tank for writing.

But in March of 2007 I suddenly realize that I can begin writing for a few hours each evening. I get back to work at Old Sparky. One evening, after a fifteen-hour writing session, I take note of the stacks of book proposals and ideas I've accumulated. That night, I tell Becky, "I need an agent."

"You've had agents," she reminds me. "You need a shrink!"

"I'll bet I could get an agent this time by making a single phone call," I boast. "I've got connections."

The next day I work up a plan and settle on an agency that is second-to-none. It's an agency whose voluminous list of best-selling authors have sold, in the past ten years, more than 200 million books. This agency is, indeed, the envy of the agenting world. This sounds like the agency for me, I says to myself.

So I make a call. I tell the receptionist that I am a young, virile, aspiring writer who is looking for THE BEST agency in the world (is it okay to lie?). I run through my list of qualifications and ask if I could speak to the top dog. And, by golly, she actually patches me through to the big dog hisself.

I talk to this big-name agent (really BIG in the agenting world) and he tells me that he can't take me on (he's too busy with successful writers to worry about losers like me). However, there is another agent in his agency who would love to work with me. I hold then line, then I talk to this other agent for awhile, and he says, "Sure I'll work with you. You sound like just the type of idiot our agency can help." I don't declare my love right away, but I do plan on buying some chocolates later. I wonder if he likes hard centers or cremes.

When I finish the call, I yell upstairs to Becky, "Hey, sugar . . . got myself another agent. Number four! I told you I could do it, sugar! And with just one phone call. Just like Emeril. Baaamm!"

"That's nice, dear," she says. "When you gonna clean these toilets?"

(continued . . . )