I signed with my agent in early 2019 on the back of a novel getting on lots of short lists as well as winning the Yeovil Prize. I thought, as many do, that I’d made it. Even though I knew it wasn’t true. When you spend several years, across several manuscripts trying to achieve ‘a thing’ and then you get it, it’s impossible to convince a positive little soul like mine that things won’t keep going in the direction of success.
Dear Reader, they did not. And I know dozens of other writers, authors, best selling folk for whom it also did not. And yet I kept hoping.
But that 2018, award winning MS didn’t sell in the summer of 2019. And it didn’t sell again in the winter of 2019 into 2020. So I wrote something new that, eventually, my agent said was ready to go. Then it too did not go anywhere. I didn’t revise this time. I switched genres and wrote something wholly new and outside of my wheelhouse. I challenged myself and enjoyed the characters and a world that I grew to know every inch of across five drafts, two of those almost total rewrites. Still, when I felt I’d nearly nailed it, all I heard was that I hadn’t.
Which is when the conversation about parting ways with my agent came up and then when I brought it to her, she agreed. She agreed kindly and generously that she’d failed to sell anything I’d written for four years. I agreed generously that I’d failed to write anything she could sell. We parted with messages of future support and any assistance in anything pledges.
That had to happen not just because nothing sold, but because the relationship reached an impasse. I’m a collaborative person. I am a reflective practitioner, as we call it in education. Generally, I am always ready to hear how I can improve and execute on that feedback. I’m also prepared to say ‘no, this bit is important’ and present my case.
What I couldn’t continue doing in my agent-author relationship was hearing that it was all down to me. All of it. And my agent would sell it when I had perfected it. We disagreed on this point on repeat. Looking back, I know that was partly my fault. I kept saying ‘tell me what to do’ when what I meant was ‘point out the places where this can be stronger and give me some options for improving.’ Agents can’t tell you what genre to write. They won’t tell you what kind of story you should be telling. Which is different from teaching where the What is proscribed and it’s the How we get to be creative within the classroom.
Lesson learned. Reflection complete. Ask, specifically for what I need. Be clear in my own mind what kind of tale I’m telling. And go!
Querying began last week. Four sent. Two rejections already received. Aiming for ten more queries before December. Stay tuned.
C J Gold 
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