Just for grins, in case anybody's keeping up, I heard back again from the 
nice lady agent.  This time it's the blow-off, please go away thing.  She 
has decided she can't sell anything I write, I suppose.  Or perhaps I 
jinxed it by mentioning her name in the first place.  Or somebody got to 
her--it certainly seems as though there's a person out there who warns 
people off of me, but it must be just my shadow self, because I can't think 
of anyone who dislikes me so much and has that much free time on her/his 
hands (most of the people who can't stand me are very busy and productive 
themselves, and just wouldn't take the trouble!)

In this agent's defense, I would say that she has been EXTREMELY quick to 
read and respond, and she's been VERY tolerant in asking to see what else I 
had up to this point.  (Today's email does not say that, and I get the 
message--she figures it's all going to not appeal to her, so why waste all 
this time?  I mean, this is business, after all.  And that's 
appropriate.)  If you have something in the genre, I would say you're in 
good hands sending it to her snailmail.  She's still taking on clients, and 
that's the most prestigious agency.  It's like being pledged to be a 
Tri-Delt on the SMU campus.

But she says (and I hope this is fair use), "The light, breezy narrative 
voice didn't seem to fit your protagonists' circumstances. I wanted to get 
more of a sense of danger,
a sense of urgency and tension from these pages. Here is a sixteen year 
old, on the road alone, forced to use sex as a means to survive -- it 
seemed to me that her thoughts were just a bit too flippant. All in all, I 
felt that Camille needed to be better developed, and that we needed to see 
a bit more of her worries and inner conflicts."  Well, okay, but I 
deliberately self-edited out most of the Introspection that comes naturally 
to me so that the action would move faster.  Either you have the suspense 
and urgency, or you have pages of angst-ridden inner monologue.  One takes 
away from the other.  The kid doesn't realize she's in danger from having 
stolen the magical luckpiece--she doesn't even realize there's anything 
special about it until after it knocks out the policeman.  *Then* it scares 
her--she throws up outside the car, even though she's putting on a brave 
face.  *And* she thinks about it--but the thoughts are, "I can't think 
about this right now" and "too much thinking gets me into trouble every 
time--I need to DO, to Be in the present moment."  She shouldn't be 
overthinking it, 'cause she discovers what this is along with the 
readership. It's a very Phil Dick/Tim Powers thing.  (*Where is Tim Powers 
when you need him??  Judging WOTF, but that's short fic.)

I think she's wrong about Camille as a character not being 
developed.  Actually, I think she just hasn't read that much or that 
widely.  She probably isn't as old as I am (and she's already having a good 
measure of success, so which life would you rather have?  Exercise left for 
the reader) and just has been brought up on suspense novels, I suspect.  At 
any rate, she thought Camille should be way more angsty and there should be 
more of a sense of danger, otherwise it's too YA.  Hmm.  That's certainly 
valid as an opinion, but the point I was trying to get across as far as the 
way Camille acts is the girl doesn't have the sense at the moment to be 
that scared, thinks she can handle everything, and so forth.  The menacing 
stuff comes in the Philip chapters (she saw one of those, too.)  Also, 
here's Camille thinking about why she isn't more upset by some of the 
little things: "When her father died, it killed something in her.  She 
didn't want to re-awaken whatever it was.  Most kids--er, women--her age 
would be all angsty and all upset about being out on the streets and so 
forth, or at least that's what some of the guys had told her.  She shrugged 
it off.  Whatever had happened and whatever it'd taken away from her 
emotional availability, it had also given her armor against lots of the 
small hurts in the world.  Or maybe she was just a sociopath or 
something.  It didn't really matter as long as you didn't hurt anybody 
else, was what she figured, and left it at that."  It's just a case of her 
having armored herself against stuff.  I've done that myself to some extent.

Still.  It's going to be impossible, as usual, to find anyone who thinks 
about things "my" way.  Is this some kinda hint or clue that I'm
hopelessly 
outta step?  Already knew that, my friends.  Already knew it.

If a woman does not keep pace with her companions. . . she's just screwed, 
that's all.  And she's too stubborn to ignore the different drummer and get 
with the program.  And she's not even a Taurus!

I wrote to that other agent who was briefly interested in _Dulcinea_ when 
it placed in that Warner contest--at least until she read 1/3 of the 
manuscript--but she completely doesn't even remember me and is not taking 
on new clients.

My advice is to go with Xlibris.  I'm not there just yet, but I'm probably 
headed back there.

- - -
The only thing that flies faster than an F-16 is your guardian angel
- - - -
Nine out of ten doctors recommend reading my books.  The tenth is a quack.
Shalanna Collins   http://home.attbi.com/~shalanna/>
_Dulcinea: or Wizardry A-Flute_  (e-mail me 4 excerpt)  ISBN 0-7388-5388-7
New!  I'm trying out a blog/jrnl http://www.livejournal.com/users/shalanna/>

--- Rachel's Little NET2FIDO Gate v 0.9.9.8 Alpha