My Literary Agent is Displeased with Me

Time was when I was rather proud to have a literary agent.

Now, my voice mail contraption is in quite the panic from lack of recording space, because I have been "call screening" (a strategy not meant for the long term, apparently) phone calls all week to avoid my agent. The little box blinks incessant demands at me to review messages that I have already heard.

I also find myself considering adding my agent to my spam blocking filters - if I only knew where these blocking filters might be purchased. Do they come in different sizes, like HVAC filters? Are they actual blocks? Of what material, do you suppose? I hope they are carbon neutral, I mean, you know, not made of carbon or something, for that just wouldn't do at all.

Well, these are questions for another day. To get back to the point I never got to in the first place, my literary agent is displeased with me. Not to get into the fine points of the technical details, it has something to do with "commitments" and "reputation in the trade" and things like that, but also, and most important, his voice mail thingy is in a panic similar to mine.

I ask you, did Michelangelo think about "commitments" or did he concentrate on the Sistine Chapel? Was Shakespeare unable to sleep at night worrying about his "reputation in the trade" or was he noodling out how to finish the line "Out, damn'd ... " ("stain?" "irritant?" "tarnish?" Or perhaps it should read "Out, damn'd Gentlewoman" because Lady Macbeth is sick and tired of the omnipresent castle staff and just wants to be left alone. But this solution leaves a play that isn't going anywhere, and with opening night coming up, William S. is really on the spot. Spot? ... Wait, how about "Out, damn'd spot!" Of course! And Mr. Shakespeare rolls over to an easy sleep for the first time in weeks.)

But in any case, I am sure Shakespeare was never concerned about "prior commitments which must be honored." Commerce might be culture, but it is not art, and at most Will might have had a few momentary regrets over things like overpaying for a donkey's head costume he had no use for.

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However, those artistic giants lived in quite different times. How about Tom Clancey? J. K. Rowling? Stephen King? Clive Cussler? John Grisham? John Jakes? Dave Barry? Do you think any of these would let the vampires of commerce in the door whilst they were in the muse of creation? Well, maybe Dave Barry would, but I'll wager you five spam filter blocks to your two that the others would not give the time of day to some rumpled suit tossing around threats of a civil suit while they were in the musing mood.

It's static is what it is. I must have a dozen separate "treatments" in various stages of completion that are each at a complete standstill. This entire week I am humming along, plucking muses out of the air like low hanging fruit, and then my eye is caught by that blinking, blinking, blinking little red message light. With an effort I turn away and begin work again, when suddenly my computer beeps that I have mail. I know who it is of course, my agent. Profoundly irritated now, I return to my work only to find that the muse fruit is hanging so low it touches the ground and is rotting as I watch.

Fortunately, this world is fundamentally synchronic. What I mean is that, as I related before, I purchased my first TV this past week and I have discovered that no matter what the time of day, the variety of shows on offer is truly remarkable. In addition, except for the women in the soap operas, all of the TV people are happy and well adjusted and just the kind of people I prefer to associate with, in contradistinction to my dour and sour literary agent.

So, the week in which my artistic soul shrivels due to circumstances beyond my control is the same week I take a pass on my first TV set with 450 channels of uplifing entertainment. Coincidence? Nay, synchronicity, and I say again, synchronicity!

I have more to say about these matters, but I must go. My black dog is up wagging his tail in expectation. Yes, I know: Oprah's On!

With a triumphant “Out, damn'd rumpled suit!,” I click the remote.

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