Secret Agents . . . Continued

(continued . . . )

I had now reached a verbal agreement with my fourth agent. In essence, we'd shook hands on the deal (that's me on the right!)

But writing about my fourth agent . . . let's call him NUMBER FOUR . . . is going to be tougher than writing about agents one, two, and three. Especially since NUMBER FOUR was my agent up until just a few weeks ago. Read on.

Anyway, like my previous agents, NUMBER FOUR wants to see what I can do, so I send along a small mound of proposals and books, junk that I think represents my best work, pages that will give NUMBER FOUR a sneak peek into my dementia as well as my broad range as a writer (you know, stuff that can also make my wife cry or make my children shout: I didn't know that dad knew about THAT!)

NUMBER FOUR takes a week or two to read my thick stack of paper and then calls me on my cell phone to talk at length one afternoon.

"I'm just curious," he says, "but how many of your books have you published without agent representation?"

"All but one of them," I say. "For all intents and purposes, I've done everything on my own. I also cook my own food, brew my own coffee, and wipe my own bottom."

"That's astounding. I didn't think it was possible to even get a manuscript through the front door without agent representation these days. You must have a lot of contacts."

I run through the list of all the editors and publishers I know. "You probably know more editors than I do," he tells me.

I'm not sure what to make of this. A bad sign? We talk on, our conversation stretching toward the dawn, and we reach an agreement and a plan concerning my work and how he will sell it. NUMBER FOUR seems very eager to represent me, though, and like the agent before him, he's particularly high on my presidential death book. (I like death, I tell him. It's one of my specialties! You should see me do a funeral.)

At long last we close our conversation and I yell upstairs to Becky, "Hey, sugar, I've got a winner this time! By next year we'll be livin' on a private island off the coast of Florida!"

But it's three a.m. and she's asleep. I brew myself a pot of coffee and get back to work on Old Sparky.

(continued . . . )