Secret Agents . . . Continued

(continued . . . )

It's a great thing for a writer to have an agent. The agent is supposed to guide the writer and sell his/her work to publishers (in the best-of-all-possible worlds). That means the writer can concentrate on writing, which is what writers do. Write!

So during the months that NUMBER FOUR is out there in the wide world peddling my wares, I'm doing my thing. I'm not worried about contacting publishers, conversing with editors, writing cover letters, or sending emails. That's my agent's job, right? Well, one would think.

But as the months go by and I get no report from my agent, I begin to wonder . . . did this agency meet with a tragic asteroid accident? Why the silence? It doesn't take much time to drop an email, leave a voice message, or write a post card.

Eventually, however, in this high-tech world of ours, I do begin to get snatches of information from the agent. Some of it arrives by carrier pigeon. Other snippets of information is handed to me by out-of-breath boys who inform me that they have just run eight hundred miles to hand deliver this important scroll. A couple of times I receive unfounded rumors that the agent is having difficulty moving my products, but these rumors have been written in smoke signal, and I'm not good at translating in cloud. Do you see what I'm saying here?

But heck, I'm a writer, and so I wait.

I wait . . . wondering . . . what horrors could I possibly have to confront this time?

(continued . . . )