Personal blog of christian
writer & fallible mom
Katy McKenna Raymond
in Kansas City, Missouri
Katy is represented by
Rachelle Gardner at
WordServe Literary
Read more Katy at
LateBoomer.net
Recent Posts
- Soul Train
- Live Out Your Dream And Discard The Box
- Tears In A Bottle
- From The Young Mom I Once Was, To You
- I Can’t Help Falling
- What A Difference Ten Years Makes
- The Next Best Thing To Robert Redford
- The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
- Where Have All The Years Gone
- Fun With Kiki Cullen
- Stuck On Mom
- Ten Years Later, Our Girls From Northern Ireland Remembered
- The Thrift of Grief
- Job Security
- The Party’s Over
Syndicate
E me at katy @ ngenius.com
Faking It
If you’ve read here for any length of time, you know I’m not normally the nervous type.
In fact, you probably frequent fallible precisely for the sense of calm that automatically descends upon your agitated psyche the second you click over and see that sedate Victorian chick, pensive though she may be.
It pains me to have to admit this to you, but I am often the unwitting (and unwilling) victim of fits of high anxiety, the likes of which you’ve likely never experienced unless you, too, have encountered cobwebs connecting your crystal chandelier to your dining room chairs. Trust me, when this happens in September—with all of spidery October still ahead—even I, a paragon of semi-comatose peace, become a bundle of bristling B-12 deficient nerves.
It’s not just the cobwebs on the chandelier, though. It’s the cobwebs in my mind. Suddenly I’m picturing next week’s 15-minute appointments with agents and editors and my stomach’s twittering. There’s a tempting zit I’d love to take a poke at right about now, but what if the agent I’m hoping to attract thinks I’m the product of spousal abuse, or maybe that those pesky spiders freed themselves from the brass and glass and had their way with me?
The 15-minute pitches are wracking enough, but it’s the table-for-eight pitches—wherein an editor or agent hosts a table and the conference attendees RUN (think the opening of Macy’s on the day after Thanksgiving…) to sit with their notables of choice.
At a round table, I can hear exactly one person—the one on my left. There will be 400 people in that banquet room, and every lunch and dinner is a new but not improved chance for me to pitch my novel, to receive from the table’s host that all-coveted invitation to “Yes, please send me your proposal! Here’s my contact info.”
What do you think my chances are that Mr Agent or Ms. Editor will ever sit on my left?
I dread dinners out with family and friends, because they more often than not catch me faking it. I’ll say something that I think provides kind of a catch-all response to whatever might have just been said by someone else—my way of trying to stay in the take-a-chance-and-make-up-a-non-word Scrabble game of life.
“Mom,” one of the kids invariably pipes up, “What did you THINK I said?”
Maybe unilateral deafness isn’t something to get too worked up about, I don’t know. If I say something stupid like “I love you,” (hat tip to Frank and Nancy Sinatra), the old one-ear-is-stone-deaf-please-accept-my-apologies line could come in handy.
Deaf or no deaf, one thing’s for sure. Thinking about selling myself makes me nervous, and next week I’ll be doing a whole lot of faking it.
OK, here’s a solution. Come sit at my empty table. I’m no editor or agent so I won’t be popular. I’ll be lonely. So, come to my table and pitch away. Tell me you love me. I’ll welcome you!
Posted by relevantgirl on 09/13/06 at 01:22 PMMaybe instead of a name tag, you could wear a T-shirt that says, “Interested in me and my wonderful book? Sit on my left and let’s talk!” It would be a wonderful conversation starter…
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 09/17/06 at 12:49 PMRelevantMary—Great solution!! I freakin’ adore you, and I cannot bear the thought of you lunching all by your lonesome….Can’t wait to meet you in person!
Bridget—What a GREAT idea! You know, a t-shirt like that kind of garners the sympathy vote and I can use all the help I can get. :)
Hey, I could have the words all printed out in American Sign Language!!Posted by Katy on 09/17/06 at 01:02 PM
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