I'm new here and have an agent question (please hu

[Puzzled]

Yep! Right on, Iris.
BTW, in my earlier post, I should have said "for some guy or some other gal" to be p.c. Sorry about that.

[Jane Forsman]

Hey, am I the only one who was shocked and rather put off by Puzzled's sexual subject in his/her first post?

I think you could have come up with a less explicit example, Puzzled. There are really young people who read these boards and I'm not sure your language is fit for young teenagers.

[Iris]

hate to spring this on you, Jane, but "young teenagers" know more about sex, lies, and videotape than most of us old folks...........it's called television, television, television......

[Jane Forsman]

Iris,

Should we really be posting about "taking off clothes" and "spreading legs" and "getting down on knees" here? All I'm saying is that Puzzled could have used a much less explicit example, and formed it using more tactful words. I'm eighteen and I felt a little offended. The possibility that that younger people could have read that makes me feel . . . well, not good.

[julia]

I think that is the job of parents. If they are less than eighteen and on the boards, where are the parents?
However, life is fun but ugly business. Nothing is learned by sugar coating it. Women do humiliating things to get and keep a man. If an eighteen girl read that post hopefully she learned about life and dating and sex and how to keep her self respect, for get the art of agenting. Life is more important.

[Jane Forsman]

Julia,

My remark was not about whether or not I either understood what Puzzled was referring to (which, sadly, most eighteen-year-olds would understand) or was angry that Puzzled didn't "sugarcoat it." Nor did I learn anything valuable about life from his post (did you??).

My remark expressed my concern for his/her lack of taste in addressing such a subject on a public forum. I think most parents wouldn't think discussion boards on a writer's website about publishing, agents, and writers would bring up such crude topics as oral sex and intercourse. I'd like to think that Hamish would have something to say on this - there must be some rules somewhere about such explicit language on this site? If the sexual meanings in Puzzled's post had been expressed in a more tasteful manner, I wouldn't be posting what I am right now.

Are you seriously thinking, Julia, that a reference to oral sex and intercourse is a good analogy to make in regards to the publishing world? Not only that, but the words used, instead of such techinal terms as oral sex and intercourse, were extremely crude: "spreading legs," "get down on knees," "take off clothes," etc.

Perhaps I would have accepted such an analogy if these curde terms had not been used. I see no reason why they were crucial to the meaning of the analogy. I think we should try to keep this site clean for the many young writers who come here looking for advice on writing, not "spreading legs," and "taking off clothes."

That really is too much for me. I'm a little taken aback that's it's not only perfectly fine to you, Julia, but also educational. I don't want to pass judgement on your personality or character, though, so I'll stop there.

[Dwight Mannsburden]

When you think that the stage of the game we're all discussing here, the sexual comparisons cry out to be made. I resisted doing so in my previous post, but twould have been better had I done so.

.........so let's all suppose, for the sake of argy-ments that we'z all what they used to call 'sportin' gals.' which of course we all are, in a manner of speakin'. and let us suppose the agents are the um, 'jonathans.' Her agent was the goof-ball jonathan who's asking 'am I the one and only?' and you thinks to y ourself, well, yeah, baby, maybe the one and only one named Elmer.... Tell him what he needs to hear and ifn he want to come back and make honest wimmens of us, well umm I guess then we start acting mostly honest.

But until dat day doth come, we all just offering it on the street!

OR something like that.

[Jane Forsman]

LOL, Dwight. Well done.

[Rachel]

FWIW, Jane, I'm with you on this one. As for me, the remark that women do humiliating things to get and keep a man just sort of rubs me the wrong way. I've always conducted myself as a lady, and I've always treated a man like a man, while I too acted like a woman. I didn't burn my bra and to this very day I still allow for my husband to open the doors for me(which he's proud to do, I might add). And when he asked me to marry him, there was nothing I had previously done that could be classified anywhere near the term "humiliating". I realize I may not be with today's "mod" group, but to this I can only say "long live the Queen". ;-)

[DK]

Iris:

If you think an agent getting back to you in a few days is typical, you're way off base. If that's your experience, you're very, very lucky (or very, very good). I've sent out a lot of queries in my time, and some come back quickly but most take a month or more, and for reads of partials and manuscripts, typical for me is two to four months. We've had this discussion here many times, and from reading past posts I can also say that a few days is quite atypical.

DK