dr_pretentious | Let The Volunteering Begin! (Reply)

Last night I picked up the first of the conference speakers at the first of the airports. The conference doesn't start until Saturday morning, but already I've been asked to send a partial manuscript to an agent. The agent's general advice about querying if it turns out that my book does not float her boat: stop telling people up front that the full manuscript is 300,000 words long. I can't help thinking that editors and agents would be highly annoyed to request a full manuscript and then discover that it's so much longer than the market wants books to be, but this particular agent insists that if the book is really good, the annoyance would be short-lived. Hm. Maybe so. Of course, there's the remote possibility that she herself will like the book enough for the question of full disclosure to other agents to be moot. What with lost luggage and highway construction, we had many hours to converse last night. After five hours together under occasionally trying circumstances, we still seemed to be having a good time. I was, anyway.

Today I'll pick up three more speakers at two more airports. I hope I get home before 2am tonight, given that I have to be lucid, and may even have to emcee the conference's opening session, at 8:30 am tomorrow. I'm hoping my mutant superpowers as the Vortex of Schmooze will activate. So far, so good.