A Common Sense Approach to Creativity
Some things I’ve learned over a decade+
A few years ago, a friend introduced me to an MFA student who wanted advice. That was a lie, but I didn’t know yet. We agreed to meet. She was a coiffed little thing, with a real New York attitude. The first thing she asked was, “Do you have an agent?”
I said, “No.” And you could see her fake smile glitch. It’s hard to act that nice when you’re judging everyone.
Suddenly, any tips I might give needed a little dash of salt. She said, “Wow. You’ve accomplished a lot without an agent.”
Okay, now she was just condescending.
You can tell with some people, they’re not interested in learning from others. They ask questions they think they already know the answers to. For example, “do you have an agent?” was code for “Having an agent makes you successful.” Which leads me to lesson #1…
Stop worrying about agents.
Focus on your work. Submit to journals. Query magazine editors. Blog. Go out and live an interesting life, and write about it. When you get good enough, and gain a big enough audience, an agent will find you.
Or maybe you’ll still have to send out some letters, but they’ll take less energy, because you’ve established…
