Slim Shady

Hey! I'm so excited to be part of this blog. I'm hannah...otherwise known as Shady Lane.

I guess I should tell you a little about myself before I start talking at you. I'm sixteen, and I live in Washington D.C. I'm currently agent shopping and churning out manuscripts as fast as I can (I'm shopping two different manuscripts right now...soon to be three, and four pretty soon after that.) I have this novella called The Sublime out with an independent publisher, Cantarabooks. I wrote it when I was fourteen. It's existentialist before I knew what existentialism was. So it's innocent. If you're interested, you can check it out on ebook here: http://cantara.squarespace.com/the-sublime. The paperback's coming soon.

I write some mix of literary/commercial YA. I usually have male main characters, 1st person, present tense, high concepts, and the occasional touches of urban fantasy or magical realism. It's a niche, but it's one I still manage to have fun with.

Now that I've finished the introductions and shameless self promotion....

I love writing emails to agents. Actually love it.

And I love when they write back. I love the unsure requests. I love the excited requests. I love the "this is good, buts," (and trust me, I get a lot of those.) I even love those damn forms.

The only thing I don't like is when they don't write back.

I don't do snail mail query letters. I'm sixteen--I don't have the part of my brain that lets me wait that long. I even groan a bit when an agent asks me to send material hard copy. I'm an internet junkie--that's why I answer to the Shady Lane pseudonym as eagerly as if it's really mine.

So since it's all email, I understand that emails occasionally get lost. It makes sense. But the amount that could statistically get lost is so disproportionate to the amount of emails I send that remain unanswered.

I understand a lot about how agents work. I understand why they don't want phone calls, and why they send form letters, and why they leave us hanging for so long when we just. want. an answer. But I honestly don't understand agents who only answer if they're interested. How long until you're supposed to give up? How are you supposed to remember, looking at your records, that this is one of the agents who's rejected you, silently, and not one of the ones who could still be mulling over your query?

It's a stupid rant, but it's what's on my mind today.

Anyway, I hope you'll stick around and check out what everyone has to say...there are some really talented writers here, not to mention some awesome people, and I have really high hopes for this blog. Super high hopes, as Shady Lane would say...


<3 hannah