by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Here I am, fleshing out the latest version of the first draft of my first novel, feeling great that things — at the moment at least — are going well. Then, I find myself looking into the future and contemplating what happens when I finally finish the novel.
Is it possible that my digital footprint is so kooky that whenever a literary agent does the inevitable “due diligence” on me that they will dismiss me a crank, no matter how good the actual novel is? This is something that really weighs on my mind because these days I can’t even pay people to help me work on this project.
They either do due diligence on me — I can see them in my Webstats looking — and think I’m a crank, or I pay them for a chat and then they won’t let me have a “second date” for some reason.
It’s very disheartening. I can’t help who I am. I can’t help that I’ve always been a square peg in a round hole. And I refuse to change who I am. I either publish these novels in the traditional manner or I fail and self publish. My only hope is that — despite doing all of this in a vacuum — that the final product I produce will be good enough that I might have a chance overcoming this very annoying obstacle.
In the end, you just have to believe, I suppose. No one else will.
