Xopher: Ewww. What a creepazoid.
Oh dear no - I fear I've misrepresented him. He did give me an uncomfortable five minutes or so, but what impressed me the most was that he had no ego involved in the thing at all. If I'd taken him up on the offer he'd have been thrilled, but when I didn't he wasn't hurt, he wasn't offended, he just pulled away the minute he realized I was truly uncomfortable and cheerfully started conversing with me instead. It was bizarre, but mostly because I've known so few guys who made turning them down so comfortable for me.
He's now a good friend of mine and tells the above story at every opportunity. *grin*
On getting hit on at cons:
Torcon last year was my first Worldcon ever, and it was brilliant, in spite of me loosing my wallet. I probably got hit on several times (I'm not good at noticing) but the one that stands out happened on Saturday night. I was going into a party when a hand snaked out from the crowd and grabbed me by the arm.
"I've seen you around and I just have to say - that's a really fantastic tattoo."
As background I should say that I'd lost my wallet that afternoon, hadn't eaten for 24 hours, and had in fact been going to the party so I could steal food off the tables. I was alone at the con and very socially awkward and going into serious people overload, and I had just found out that I'd somehow accidentally crashed the VIP seating at the Hugos and was suffering from residual guilt.
Therefore, insert "glazed look of panic and incoherent mumbling" as my response wherever necessary.
"It's a very beautiful tattoo," he reassured me, hauling me in. He then turned to the guy standing next to him. "Now you see," he said in a lecturing tone, "this is how you hit on women. If the intial stage goes well you can move on to some light stroking." He began rubbing my neck.
My co-victim (who was not penniless, but was, as I found out later, suffering from a cold) assumed a glazed look of panic strikingly similar to my own, although I was too busy panicking to do more than notice in passing.
"Now, if this is acceptable, she will smile at you and purr," my attemped seducer said, still stroking my neck. I smiled at him in complete terror, but, since it was obvious I wasn't going to purr, he reached out and started stroking the neck of another girl in the party (I should mention there were quite a lot of people standing around and laughing at all this). She purred happily. "If, on the other hand, she stiffens up," he continued, removing his hand from my neck, "your attentions are not welcome. Move on gracefully."
He then turned back to me and asked who I was and where I was from, and I stammered out answers, and after a few minutes me and my co-victim were recovered enough to carry on normal conversation with him and each other. After a while he took off with another girl, but I hung around and kept talking.
As for the rest of the night... suffice to say that I caught a cold.
The moral of the story is, I suppose, that hitting on girls may work sometimes, but it's more likely to produce unexpected results and funny stories.
This sounds like advice for sending out query letters. Cover letters are sent out with manuscripts. If he doesn’t know the difference, he doesn’t know how to submit his own work, much less advise others on how they should submit theirs.
In his "Nine Tips for Getting an Agent" page, Mr. Pierce gives this priceless advice: "In the first phase [of agent submission], you should send a cover letter introducing yourself, a short overview of your manuscript, and a sample chapter of no more than 20 pages.... Send this packet to as many suitable agents as you can find. Let's say, 15-20."
So it would appear that he doesn't know the difference between a cover letter and a query letter, or even that the latter exists, or, for that matter, of the existance of agency guidelines. And he is kindly sharing his errors with the rest of us. (In a later part of the same article, he notes sadly that, "Some agents will never respond to you." Has it occurred to him, I wonder, that there might be a reason for this?)
The rest of the article is largely stock advice, but it's his Tip #1 that really gets me. Here he advises that new authors not submit to big-name agents, because they've got no chance at all of getting in, and anyway the agents would just slight you, the new author, to pander to their big-name authors. Instead, "As a good rule of thumb, your experience as an author should more-or-less match your agent's experience as an agent."
This is insidious advice, especially after you've recieved your fifth or sixth rejection slip, but it's bad, because it encourages authors to go looking for agents with few or no publication credits. And while there are a few legitimate agents just starting out in this category, the vast - the very vast - majority are either useless or scammers. He does not mention this possibility; nor does he discuss scams, scammers, fee-charging, or any of the other pitfalls of agent searches. He lists several agents which I know to be scammers on his literaryagent.org website. A quick search on the agency he claims is representing him, Richard Parks Agency, reveals nothing but a standard listing. This doesn't necessarily mean much - plenty of legit agencies haven't managed to leave internet tracks yet - but it's not encouraging, either.
So, the answer to the question "Is this guy completely clueless?" would appear from all sides to be a resounding "yes."
I collected about fifteen agent-and-editor rejections on my first novel. Two of the agents hadn't bothered with a rejection form, but had just scribbled "no thanks" across the bottom of my own query letter and sent it back. This threw me into an absolute snit at the time - although, reading them over a year later, I can't quite see why.
Rejections suck. Form rejections really suck, because they suggest that you didn't even make it to #11 on Teresa's list. A certain amount of directionless anger is to be expected. Turning it into directed anger is, however, not a good idea... especially on the all-searchable, all-remembering Internet. I try to remind myself that, if I ever do become published and famous, every stupid rant I've ever posted on a listserve, messageboard, blog, or, well, comments thread, will be fair game to everyone, including my biographers.
And no matter how hurt, frustrated, angry, and rejected I feel - a year later I probably won't be able to remember why.
I collected about fifteen agent-and-editor rejections on my first novel. Two of the agents hadn't bothered with a rejection form, but had just scribbled "no thanks" across the bottom of my own query letter and sent it back. This threw me into an absolute snit at the time - although, reading them over a year later, I can't quite see why.
Rejections suck. Form rejections really suck, because they suggest that you didn't even make it to #11 on Teresa's list. A certain amount of directionless anger is to be expected. Turning it into directed anger is, however, not a good idea... especially on the all-searchable, all-remembering Internet. I try to remind myself that, if I ever do become published and famous, every stupid rant I've ever posted on a listserve, messageboard, blog, or, well, comments thread, will be fair game to everyone, including my biographers.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2006 | 1 |
| 2004 | 5 |
Total: 6 comments. View all these comments on a single page.
The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Kat Feete:
Show all comments by Kat Feete.