An American in Asia: His Quest for Cosmic Truth (or at least a Decent Espresso)

 

First Christmas Tree
and Fishing for Agents

It's Christmas, for the first time in ten years.

Sure, there was something called Christmas that happened towards the end of Asian Decembers, but it wasn't really the same thing. No streets lined with lights and decorations, no snowmen, no Grinch.

In a way, Christmas in Buddhist countries was refreshing. None of the religious hoodoo, just the shopping music and winter sales.

Now this is my first Christmas back in the States, and the first American Christmas with my wife. She's not remotely Christian but, since we came here from Thailand last January, she's had a strange fascination with Christmas trees. On a Spring walk in the conifer forests of our northwestern hills, she was constantly asking, "Is this one a Christmas tree? What about that one?"

So of course, we had to get our very own Christmas tree. It's in the livingroom now, shedding needles on our rug. I went deluxe and sprang for a five-foot noble fir, something with lots of strong branches to support the strings of lights and boxes of antique ornaments my Mom loaned to us.

Predictably, it's been a lovely exercise in nostalgia for me (and now I understand why Dad always shooed us away when putting up the strings of lights–it's really a one-man job). More than that, though, it has been another in a long list of things that are made more fun by the fact that my wife is doing them for the first time in her life. She had a blast putting up the ornaments and she can't walk by the tree without seeing some small adjustment that needs making or a bare spot that wants more stuff on it.

She's almost as excited about the growing stack of presents beneath the tree, though she can't understand why, if the presents are already here, she can't open them today.

Fishing for Agents

One of the reasons I've neglected this website recently (as opposed to all the other times I neglected it this year) is that my time has been consumed with the search for an agent to represent my finished book to the publishing industry.

My agent search has required a two pronged approach. One prong to poke at every agent who has represented something remotely resembling my book, and the other prong to poke holes in the manuscript and fix them so that an editor won't have to.

After producing what I thought was the final draft months ago, I went through three or four more full revisions. Agent research is an enlightening experience and what I learned about the market motivated me to take a chisel to my book and lop off some rough edges. For instance, I found out the average novel is 80-100,000 words long. Mine was 130,000. I lost some excess adjectives and scenes that were neat, but didn't move the story forward, and got it down to 116,000 words. If they want it shorter than that, they're going to have to ask me nicely.

None of this required me to sacrifice artistic integrity (whatever that is), since I originally set out to create something that entertains as much as it edifies. I don't believe in books that hurt the brain. An author can be as erudite as he likes, but if his book isn't readable, there's something wrong with his humanity. Writing is always for someone. Even the most private journal keeper knows deep down that, perhaps long after they die, someone else will have access to their scribblings.

Now, I've got several lines in the water in my search for an agent. So far, I've received a definite no to half my queries, and the other half are still under consideration. Of those, most have not yet contacted me, while a few have asked to see the first few chapters and a couple are nosing through the full manuscript.

This is how things go:

1. Submit a query letter that very briefly outlines the book, and (even more briefly) the author's history as a writer.
2. If the agent likes that, they'll ask for a look at a few chapters and maybe a 3-5 page synopsis.
3. If it's still something they like, they'll ask for the manuscript–mailed, not emailed–a big six-pound box of ground-up tree, double-spaced in Courier 12-point font.
4. Then–and also between each of the previous steps–wait.

Rejections are a big part of the process. Every author gets them and it's nothing to fret over (I tell myself). A rejection may mean that the piece needs work. Much more often it means that the agent doesn't have the right contacts to push the book onto. He or she might be bosom pals with three dozen editors who take in voracious amounts of sleazy romance, but if the book is not a sleazy romance, the agent has no business taking it on.

So, now I'm waiting. Once I land the agent, I'll bait the line with them and go fishing for a publisher.

So, Jeff, what's the book about?

As the sages tell us: Write what you know. So how's this: American rock band + the Tokyo rock scene + a yakuza casino on the Cambodian border?

See ya in the funny papers.