The Web Haunt of Ryan K Lindsay

I am out there. I’m looking for an agent, or agency. I am sending my writing off into the world. It’s a first step, but I am very sure the first of so many more to come. At first that sounds promising, but it is not, it means I know this will take a while and I will have quite a lot to do.

I have three novels written; two are proofed (as well as I can do it) and ready to ship out for your consideration. I feel like the poor little buggers only get one chance. It’s nerve rattling, I tells ya.

One novel, The New World, Same As It Ever Was, is a hard one to categorise into a genre. I guess it’s a thriller/drama of 116k. It follows a young bloke as he crossed a Europe that has lost all of its power due to some unknown circumstance. He is trying to find his parents whose plane surely crashed somewhere between Paris and Venice. Along the way Matt gets to see what new forms society crumbles into when there is no longer the communication, entertainment, and industry that we are used to. He is also chased by a mobster, a pregnant gypsy girlfriend, and an angry gypsy woman bent on revenge. There is violent sacrifice, non-committal sex, murder for the pleasure, and a whole lot of sadism as people show their true sides.

The other novel, In Ten City, is a pulpy crime novel that weighs in at 66k. It looks at a teacher being dragged through the bottom of a local trash caravan park in his town as he looks for a missing student, one he had been sleeping with. Macbeth hates the uglier side of life, is sick of dealing with it, and his pessimistic ways might just help him deal with slutty teenagers, violent coworkers, undercover police officers, and a scrawny hipster who thinks he rolls deeper than his thought process. This book shows the sort of dreck in the world normally saved only for the authority figures to see and deal with; retributive justice through violence, random oral sex, idiotic henchmen, one angry and strong as fuck father, and shimmering flowers growing out of that dung.

I like both novels. They are different styles, as I believe they should be, and I like one more, my missus likes the other. I have been told to choose one and submit it for consideration; I’ll be sending the one she likes first.

I emailed one agency and waited. There was no reply. I thought email would be easier for them to consider and process, apparently I’m an idiot. So I called them up and got the coldest shivers off the lady who answered the phone. She did not sound happy with me, or life. Very short and curt answers to my overly friendly questions. She wasn’t having a bar of my charm. I got off the phone and just feel unpleasant about the entire exchange. Sure, she gave me a few answers, but I didn’t like how they came. I felt like the agency already wasn’t interested in me. I think it’s because I told her I am currently unpublished. I hate that train of thought, someone has to be published for the first time, everyone does in fact. At least be nice and give us a go, then send it back and tell us it’s crap.

I am tinkering with my 1-2 synopsis a little more, and have chosen my two chapters for consideration. I guess I’ll send them off soon, but I just don’t get a good vibe from them. All because of one person on the phone, not even an agent (I don’t think) just the lady at the desk. Way to ruin my day, lady, thanks.

I am absolutely certain that this agency just won’t pick me up, but maybe I shouldn’t let one bad instance change my whole game plan. I have to go in confident, I have to go in certain, I have to go in at least happy. It’s like ballsing up a joke on the first date, you don’t walk away, you don’t hang yourself in the men’s room with your belt, you don’t have a cry. You just keep on keeping on, and I feel that with two novels ready to go, and a third hot on their heels, I will be keeping on for a very long time.

This is where the writing game becomes something else entirely. I’m usually just hanging out with my words in the darkness of morning, or after the house sleeps, but now I’m pushing it, I’m analysing it, I’m marketing it, I’m selling it. Will anyone buy? I have to believe yes, or else what’s the point?

In Australia there only seems to be about a dozen accredited agencies, and of that only slightly over half are accepting submissions, but I’ll mine them all, one at a time. Then I wonder how reasonable it is for me to shop internationally. I’ll look into it.

I am determined to put these novels out there. I don’t expect the first one to sell and make me squillions, I am realistic, it will probably never sell. But I do expect to learn as I go, and I do expect to get there eventually. That is the one thing that is concrete.

I’d just like a few smiles along the way, something nice to put in my pocket and save for a rainy day.

Posted on October 26th, 2009 by ryan
Filed under: Writing