by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
As I lurch towards the querying process, which can be quite brutal from what I can tell, I have to let sink in the fact that I could very well, uh, fail. So, let’s go through the reasons why this might be.
My Crazy Drunk Behavior in Asia
I was kind of a wild animal in South Korea back in the day. And it’s not like I’ve hidden how bonkers I was. It’s just not in my nature to do such a thing. So any liberal woman women literary agent worth her wine is going to smoke out how bonkers and crazy I was back in the day. And that, unto itself, may be enough to steer them clear of me, no matter how much I’ve changed since then.
My Not Doing Anything For About 20 years
This is another tough issue for me to have to address during the querying process. I have not done _anything_ of note since late 2011. That’s….a long time. But, here I am, wanting to bootstrap myself out of this particular situation by writing a break out hit novel. Yet I suppose it’s possible that, by definition, could be the thing that prevents me from getting published. I could write the fucking Bible and because I’m a nobody, I just won’t be taken seriously as an aspiring novelist — and never will be.
My Being Bonkers
I’m kind of a kook. And the more due diligence is done on me by the typically liberal white women who are literary agents the more they’re going to think, “Uh, no.” There remains a lot of a taboo about having mental health issues, despite what everyone wants you to think when you’re bonkers, so…I dunno. Though I SUPPOSE it’s possible that could be used in some sort of marketing campaign for the novel, “bonkers author makes good,” that sort of thing.
The Nature of The Novel Offending Liberal White Women
I got nothing against liberal white women, it’s just I worry that the nature of my novel — that of a part-time sex worker who wants to own a community newspaper — may be a little too much for them to stomach in the context of being my literary agent. If I was a transgendered, undocumented woman, rather than a smelly CIS white male, it would be different, but I “don’t have a lot going for me demographically” as one woman recently mentioned when I wanted her to look at the first chapter of my novel.
