Living: the ultimate team sport

Complimentary words from a literary agent

Posted on July 14, 2015 Updated on July 29, 2015

Many of you know I’ve been trolling for an agent since mid-February. Each rejection I receive is a form rejection so said e-mail doesn’t say anything about my writing per se, or the subject matter. The common thread of these rejections is as follows, from a recent rejection I received:

Thanks for sending me REQUIEM FOR THE STATUS QUO.  I wish I could represent every book I enjoy. Because my resources are limited, I can only devote my energy to projects that I feel passionate about, and I’m sorry to say that your book isn’t right for me.  I greatly appreciate having had the opportunity to read your work, and I wish you all the best in finding the right agent and getting published.

I follow many agents on Twitter; one such agent is Janet Reid who also runs her infamous Query Shark site where writers’ query letters are critiqued, criticized, and cut to pieces. Janet runs a flash fiction contest every once in awhile, providing 5 words that must be used within a 100 words or less story. The 5 words can be used in whichever form we choose, but they must be used, and there’s a short window of time in which to submit the piece.  These were the words for the most recent contest posted over the weekend:

FANGLE, BANGLE, DONGLE, TEN, TEAR

Here was my submission:

Gloria never dressed to draw attention; her style was more Quaker Gray than Newfangled Bright, so it was a stretch parading around in a matching orange blouse and pants. A this point, however, she was ready to tear herself away from them.

She looked forward to replacing the wrist bangle she currently sported so beautifully, with a Star Wars-type ankle dongle. Gloria didn’t know how her old man would take to the addition, but he always was kinda kinky; ten to one odds he’d get turned on by her new look.

“Inmate 563214, you’re free to go.”

Okay, now the exciting part. Even though I didn’t win this flash fiction contest this time, the agent wrote comments about parts of peoples’ submissions that she liked. Here’s her comment regarding me:

I love the subtlety of this one “matching orange blouse and pants.” It’s a sublime detail.

I had to look up the definition of sublime so I could revel in whatever it was she had said about my writing. The definition: elevate to a high degree of moral or spiritual purity or excellence.

Those of you who are writers understand how I can get so excited about a relatively small bit of encouragement; the rest of you might think I’ve gone over the edge a bit.  Regardless, I am on Cloud 9 because FINALLY, an agent said something positive about something I wrote.

Three cheers for me!