Mytherea
Minstrel
Okay, so, I'm not sure if this is the right place for this question, but it seemed like the subforum that fit it the most.
About a month and a half ago, I participated in a pitch session at a conference with an agent that's one of my dream ones. And it went bad. I'd never done a pitch session before and have this crippling problem when it comes to talking about my stuff (I'm a master of deflection and vagueness, mostly 'cause on some level, I'm utterly convinced I'm boring my audience and they just want me to hurry up and shut up). I was utterly unprepared and botched it bad. I'm pretty sure no one knew what I was talking about by the end--I sure didn't. It also didn't help much that I pitched the exact wrong book for the agent in the exact wrong category at the exact wrong time. And yet, even after these fifteen minutes of failure, the agent gave me their card and invited me to submit a synopsis. I tucked the card away, pretty sure this was some sort of weird consolation prize and everyone was getting one of these and I drowned my sorrows in whiskey, pretty much convinced I was an absolute failure and I'll never get anywhere in this publishing thing.
I found out later that this wasn't the case, that only a few got the invitation. So now I'm stuck. Do I submit? Pretty much all of me is convinced I'd garner a rejection for this, and I frankly don't ever want the agent to remember my name out of shame and embarrassment for how badly I did, but there's a very tiny part of me that's saying, hey, try anyway. Worst that can happen is a rejection, right? But then, there's that part of me that's already traipsed over into fantasy-land and is saying, yeah, but what if you're offered representation? Do you want to work with someone who made you feel like absolute crap for weeks? And then the rational part shoots down the fantastical one, insisting that the chances of this even being looked at for longer than thirty seconds are so slim, even with the agent's card, it doesn't matter anyway. Argh. I have no idea what I'm doing, and there's yet another part of me that's taking that as evidence that I'm not ready and probably never will be.
So. To submit or not to submit? That's my question. And will it matter if I don't make my decision for another month? Three months? Six months? Or did I already miss my window of opportunity and really shouldn't submitted the day after?
About a month and a half ago, I participated in a pitch session at a conference with an agent that's one of my dream ones. And it went bad. I'd never done a pitch session before and have this crippling problem when it comes to talking about my stuff (I'm a master of deflection and vagueness, mostly 'cause on some level, I'm utterly convinced I'm boring my audience and they just want me to hurry up and shut up). I was utterly unprepared and botched it bad. I'm pretty sure no one knew what I was talking about by the end--I sure didn't. It also didn't help much that I pitched the exact wrong book for the agent in the exact wrong category at the exact wrong time. And yet, even after these fifteen minutes of failure, the agent gave me their card and invited me to submit a synopsis. I tucked the card away, pretty sure this was some sort of weird consolation prize and everyone was getting one of these and I drowned my sorrows in whiskey, pretty much convinced I was an absolute failure and I'll never get anywhere in this publishing thing.
I found out later that this wasn't the case, that only a few got the invitation. So now I'm stuck. Do I submit? Pretty much all of me is convinced I'd garner a rejection for this, and I frankly don't ever want the agent to remember my name out of shame and embarrassment for how badly I did, but there's a very tiny part of me that's saying, hey, try anyway. Worst that can happen is a rejection, right? But then, there's that part of me that's already traipsed over into fantasy-land and is saying, yeah, but what if you're offered representation? Do you want to work with someone who made you feel like absolute crap for weeks? And then the rational part shoots down the fantastical one, insisting that the chances of this even being looked at for longer than thirty seconds are so slim, even with the agent's card, it doesn't matter anyway. Argh. I have no idea what I'm doing, and there's yet another part of me that's taking that as evidence that I'm not ready and probably never will be.
So. To submit or not to submit? That's my question. And will it matter if I don't make my decision for another month? Three months? Six months? Or did I already miss my window of opportunity and really shouldn't submitted the day after?