jaylake posted about how he got an agent, and what he would recommend other people do to get one, too. I posted that one of his tactics wouldn't work so well for me, since I don't go to conventions or attend conferences. Well, I attended one conference, but while the cost was more than reasonable, it was still a bit of a hit for our family. Also, while I got to say hello to jimbutcher, malkingrey and red_mike_yog, I heard very little that I hadn't already heard from hanging out online. (Those three writers I just mentioned were the exception.)Still, I didn't actually meet anyone. It's been a year, and I haven't spoken to anyone from the conference. I stuck a couple of the people there on my flist, but I haven't interacted with them in any serious way. That's mainly because I don't do that. I'm not good at it and I don't enjoy it.
mevennen replied to my comment and picked up the conversation on her own lj. It would have been easy for either of them to default to "don't worry your little head about it, just write something good" but they're both too cool for that. I do remember Jim Butcher telling a crowd at the conference that he landed his agent because he met her at a conference. He seemed sane so she asked to see his work, even though she'd just rejected his query 3 weeks before. Just yesterday,
agentobscura talked about working with a client that she had, of course, met at a conference. There have to be writers out there who got an agent from a cold query, but I never hear about them. And that's pretty much the option open to me.
I'm probably not ready for all this yet. I'm getting a lot of rejections for Twenty Palaces and maybe it's not, you know, the book. Still, when I do write that book, I'm sure not going to start going to writing conferences.
