everyone wants something

Just a short one today.
I read an agent's blog about the stupidity of an author who was trying to sneak past her slush. The agent was flabbergasted that anyone who put their professionalism on the line to do something so patently dishonest. I was simply surprised that she was surprised. It can't be the first time someone's faked a request in order to get their work read.

But once again--the subtext. See, there were a bunch of replies, and hidden in them was something unsaid. It took me a while to figure it out. There was a lot of omg and loling, but it didn't strike the right cord. There was some highbrow 'ugh, they are so stupid', but that wasn't it either. And then, there it was. All the replies had an ass-kissing edge.

The authors who read her blog know what it's like to be desperate. They admire the dude's chutzpah. They wonder how many times it's worked in the past with an agent that wasn't paying attention, but they dare not say so, because that would paint them with the ugly brush too. So instead they jump on the agent's bandwagon and kiss her lovely hiney and tell her how awful it is to have to put up with such bad behaviour from such an idiotic peon. Thereby proving that they are the worthy authors who would never be so stupid and deserve a chance to be read and see, *nudge nudge wink wink* we're on your side.

Ass kissing at its finest.

I must mention, I don't know any of the players in the blog I just mentioned above. It's not a blog I regularly follow, I just stumbled upon it, and got a feel for the thing. I have no way of knowing whether or not the agent's hiney is indeed lovely, and no way of knowing whether the authors who jumped in to kiss said hiney already have secure publishing contracts or not.



Currently reading: Scorned by the Boss
(p.s. so much for short)