Hug an Agent Day

I hearby declare Friday, May 27th as Hug An Agent Day!

There is no secret that, on most days, literary agents are both lauded & maligned by the unagented segment of the writer populace.

We need an agent. We want an agent. But it can be hard not to get annoyed with what we believe to be their "shortcomings".

What do you mean I have to personalize my query letter to you only to receive a "Dear Author" rejection?!?

Yeah, I know. No sense in preaching to the choir.

But, considering the fact I got back from my big, annual day-job conference last Wednesday and I'm STILL not caught up on all the things I missed while I was gone, I'm feeling extremely sympathetic to literary agents as a whole.

I was gone for a week. One week.

In that one week, I managed to fall woefully behind on blogging, emails, social medializing (this would be the act of interacting with others via social media, just in case anyone is confused), the housework, the work built up on the desk at my day-job . . . and don't even get me started on the amount of behind I am with my WIP word target!

I'm working like crazy to get caught up and it's like trying to climb a steep mountain covered in vaseline (the mountain being covered in vaseline, not me).

It's at times like this, it makes it easier to realize why it can take 12 weeks to hear back on a query letter. Or why we can wait as much as 6 months to hear back on a partial. Agents are always stuck in catch-up-mode just by the sheer volume of work headed their way. And I shiver to think what happens when they take time off for a conference, etc.

Next time you want to rail at the amount of time it takes to hear back from literary agents, or want to grumble over their "holier than thou" attitude toward would-be writers. Keep in mind that maybe they're just super duper swamped too.

So, I think a Hug an Agent Day is called for.

Just please make sure you know said agent and/or have given them sufficient warning as to why you are invading their personal space. We do still have laws in this country and I'm not sure, but I think you can get in trouble for tackling someone for affection they don't know is coming their way.

Happy Friday!!