Of Gin Pails and Poodles

Writers are some of the most obsessive and insecure folks, especially us pre-published types. A publishing contract with a major house is the holy grail, that shining goal that keeps our butts glued to our chairs, our fingers filling page after page with words we fear are not good enough.

We troll all the agent sites looking for the faintest indication that maybe this agent likes the particular kind of mystery/romance/fantasy/sci-fi/chick lit/biography/whatever it is we write. We agonize over every word in our synopsis, scrutinize every comma in the query letter. Our hearts soar with hope with each nibble of interest, and crash to our feet when that anorexic SASE bearing the “not right for me” form letter appears in our mailbox. We feel alone, wandering in the wilderness.

And then someone tells us about a blog that has the answers we seek. It’s tough love from a New York literary agent who – try though she might to hide it with a snarkalicious attitude – cares about writers, their struggles, and their dreams.

Miss Snark does not suffer nitwits or fools. She swigs gin from a large pail, lusts after George Clooney (thus proving her inimitable good taste) and cohabits with a pink tam-wearing poodle named Killer Yap. Miss Snark answers questions from her readers, even the clueless ones. She exposes publishing scam artists, derides phony, incompetent or just plain rude agents, and finds several ways to say, every day, “Write well – that’s your job.”

There are few blogs I read every day; Miss Snark is always the first.