publishing industry

Writing Wednesday: Does This Manuscript Make My Ass Look Fat?

When we first decided to put pen to paper (or rather, fingers to keyboard) and actually write a novel, never in our wildest imagination did we think we would end up here.  Having a blast writing this blog, interviewing authors that we idolize and, um, even tweeting!(Although, admittedly, we still aren't the tweepiest tweeps...)  And we never thought that our search for a literary agent was going to be more difficult and take longer than birthing a child.  Well, maybe that makes sense because The D Word has kind of become our baby... But sometimes it feels like breaking into the publishing industry is like trying to get in the hottest club on Saturday night.  We wait, wait, and then wait some more for our turn to get in, just to have the bouncer tell us that our outfit just isn't right.  That it just didn't hit the right note. They just don't feel connected to our outfit. So we say whateveh, that's just fine, the next club will LOVE this damn outfit. Because it's the kind of outfit you just can't stop looking at and never want to take off. In fact, all the other people who have seen this outfit said it's even better than the last!

But the bouncer at the second club tells us that he had really been hoping to like our outfit better than he did. That it just didn't live up to the brief glimpse of cleavage we gave him while in line. Oh, but we shouldn't be discouraged because he thinks we're very talented at putting outfits together.  And if we ever want to show him another outfit, he'll be happy to tell us whether or not we look fat in it.

Undaunted, we make our way to yet another club.  This club was recommended to us by people who wear really, really great outfits all the time.  We always LOVE their outfits.  But this line never seems to move and we aren't sure if they even saw our outfit?  Oh wait- maybe leaving us in line is their way of telling us that our ass looks huge without actually having to *say* it.

Hold on! Is that a celebrity we see breezing past the velvet ropes?  Because from here, her outfit doesn't look that great-our outfit looks way better than that.  In fact, she looks like a hot mess!  Well, maybe they think people will want to see her outfit no matter what. Her outfit will probably be on the Today show and Regis and Kelly next week. *sigh*

We're not gonna lie, some days we just feel like taking that damn outfit back and building a new one from scratch.  That even though we believe in and are proud of our outfit, maybe the dressing room mirrors had played tricks on us.  What had looked fabulous in the store now felt out of style when being given the once over by the powers that be. I mean, how many times could we be told that people just don't buy those kind of outfits anymore?  Which is odd to hear anyway, because we see people buying those outfits everyday. Interesting. Very interesting.

But what we've learned is that you just have to get your ass out of bed each morning, put on that freakin' outfit and strut around like you are America's Next Top Model. Because at the end of the day, even if our outfit isn't perfect, even if it gives us camel toe, there must be at least ONE bouncer with a camel toe fettish out there that will be willing to let us into his club.

What about you guys?  What are your thoughts on the agent search? Leave a comment and tell us!

xo, L&L