Murphy’s Law of Agenting
- By: Jessica Faust | Date: Aug 02 2011
#1: Your rejection letter is sent the day the author’s email either requesting an update or letting you know of an offer arrives in your inbox (this was more common with snail mail queries).
#2: The phone call you’ve been waiting for all day comes when you’re on the phone with the only other call you’ve gotten all day.
#3: The editor is so interested in the submission you sent that she just bought something similar the week before and now can’t buy yours.
#4: The blog you wrote and scheduled a month ago about a touchy situation between agent and client posts the day after you had a very similar touchy situation with a client, leading her to believe the blog was about her.
#5: The dog sleeps peacefully all day at your feet until the exact moment an editor calls with an offer, at which point he decides to start barking maniacally at a random leaf floating by the window.
Jessica
Your children are angels all day long until you receive that important phone call you've been waiting for then they are crying, screaming, bleeding and undressing themselves.
Sounds like the kind of summer I've been having!
Funny, yet tragically true sometimes.
Murphy’s Law of Writing
#1: The day you send your ‘I can’t believe I got it so perfect query’ to your dream agent, is the same day you receive a rejection from that same agent as a result of a crap query you don’t remember sending.
#2: The day you decide to send your ‘I can’t believe I got it so perfect query’ to your dream agent is the day he/she decides to be closed to queries until the next, millennium.
#3: The day you are to receive the message that YES your dream agent wants you as his/her dream client is the day your computer crashes, your car is totaled, you’re in traction and/or your fourteen year old tells you she’s pregnant, the dog runs away and you smell smoke.
Yes. Life is not without a sense of humor.
I bark at leaves too. I'm on the dog's side. 😉
Gusto Dave
#1– Heh. I got a form rejection dated the same day my manuscript sold for, well, a lot.
The phone call one is my worst nemesis…always. ^_^
Lol #5. I think that can also be filed under the Murphy's Law of Dogs.
Precious kitten is sleeping peacefully in the corner. Your computer dings with an email from the agent you're hoping will offer you representation. The kitten then walks across your computer deleting said email.
Can totally relate to the dog barking one for sure. Two shelties here and they LOVE to bark. Gotta love Murphy's Law…..
I'm generally a lurker on this blog but just had to say how much I appreciated the reminder that these types of things happen to everyone. It helps keep things in perspective.
So you know Murphy, too, huh? And as your examples demonstrate, Murphy tends to strike at the worst possible moment.
I can relate to every one of these!
Even when I put the dogs as far away as possible, they always bark during editor phone calls….what is with that?
Jessica – laughing at all your bullet points. For me, the phone rings when I'm in the bathroom and I've left it on the counter in the kitchen.
And LOL @ S.P. Bowers – Yup, that's me too.
Hey-why is my dog in your office?
Inspiration finally hits when you're supposed to be very busy paying attention to your priest/boss/husband/children. Never fails!
You finally find time to write when your kids start screaming/fighting/throwing things/getting into the pantry/stripping/having potty accidents/or are simply just waking from their naps.
LOL! My three dogs see imaginary bunnies when my agent or editor call. They bark hysterically in three different pitches. And when I walk away so I can hear — they follow me!
Number 5 is a constant with me. Doesn't have to be an agent call–though I wish one of those would come!!
My house is quiet all day. If I ever get on the phone, the three pups have no clue I'm not talking to them…and raise the dickens. — RMW
LOL, I hope all of these haven't actually happened to you…but if they have, my sympathies!
The barking dog happened to me today while I was talking to Amazon.com. AWKWARD! But thye will still sell my book, A Marked Past in October despite the barks.
At least the dog didn't want to go outside to do it's business which is what my dog wants to do when I am on the phone.
LOL. Love these – especially the dog one as my 8-month old puppy seems to feel it's her duty to disrupt every single business call with her (extremely high pitched) barking. WHY?!?!?
Murphy's Law #Whatever: Puppy sleeps peacefully all morning while you're on hold for Toshiba for 45 minutes re: your broken laptop that they just shipped back to you, still-broken. She decides she urgently needs to go outside…just as customer service answers, but you didn't think to bring the service order number with you, trusting that it'd be another 45-minutes before they answered.
Murphy's Laws Of Authoring
#1 – You have your best ideas at midnight, just as you drop off to sleep.
#2 – Just when you're in the flow, your son comes into your room and tells you the joke he just made up.
#3 – The time you've set aside, warned the family about and told everyone about is the exact same time the fuses in the house blow due to a sudden power surge in the grid.
#4 – Murphy was an optimist
Murphy's Law of Life, really. Everything will break right when you need it or get chaotic right when you don't (after being quiet and boring for hours before). Ahh, life!
I am betting with myself that the day I send a query to one of my dream agents will be the day she leaves the business. I'll just have to avoid getting too attached to the idea and query widely.
The last one with the dog is the one that tickled my fancy bone. Happens to me all the time.
The day after you email a query to your 5 top pick agents is the day your email program decides it's a good time to resend everything it had sent the day before. Yeah, that really happened. So embarrassing. :-/
This sounds totally accurate. It's how things happen. Also, you are late for an appointment and a surprise pedestrian decides to walk slowly in front of your car oh, every two minutes or less.