by Diane Sherlock
While working on my MFA at Antioch University, Los Angeles, I started my fourth novel, Wrestling Alligators. My primary mentors for the book were Rob Roberge (Liar: A Memoir, Crown 2016) and Gayle Brandeis (Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write, HaperOne 2004). I finished a first draft for my thesis project in May, 2009, and continued to polish it to the point where I was confident about sending it out to agents. At the time, my daughter was an assistant to a lit agent in Hollywood, and he read it and recommended an editor he’s worked with for many years. I sent it to her and she peppered me with hard questions about the material, pointing out that some of the imagery was in conflict. She was pessimistic about my solving those problems. That lit a fire under my inner “I’ll show you!” She recommended a big reorganization of the material, which ended up serving the book well. I walked a lot of miles in the hills near my place to figure out answers to her hardest questions and after a few weeks, I solved them. It was one of the best breakthroughs I’ve had. Even so, the Hollywood lit agent passed.
Undeterred, in no small part because I’d been through a lot of rejection with screenplays in Hollywood, I sent it out to about 100 agents. For the few agents who requested exclusivity, I set a time limit of 2-4 weeks, nothing open-ended. Mostly, I contacted dozens of agents at a time with simultaneous submissions. I received many requests for pages and many compliments about those pages. One agreed to represent me if I could get a publisher on board. This was sounding a lot like Hollywood: do the hard work, and we’ll close the deal for you. Continue reading “The Long and Winding Road of Not Having All Your Eggs in One Basket”