Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Parting ways
Googling around this morning, trying to find out who is this-or-that author’s agent, I discovered something that might be month-old news to many of you, but it was new-news to me.
At AAR After Hours, Sandy Coleman reports that Jennifer Crusie and her agent, Meg Ruley, are no longer a pair:
Over at argh ink, Jennifer Crusie just broke the news that she was “fired” (in her words) by her long time agent, Meg Ruley. As Ms. Crusie puts it, she and Ms. Ruley wanted her career to go in “different directions”.
This is a powerful statement by an agent. Make that a very powerful statement. And I really hope that Ms. Crusie takes the time to ponder just what it means when a woman who has stood by you for years and supported your work most ably chooses to part ways.
Ms. Crusie added to the comment thread, and she shows herself to be a class act. I know we’ve all read examples of authors behaving badly — bad-mouthing their publishers or agents — but this isn’t one of those stories. Here’s Ms. Crusie back at her place:
Friday, I went for drinks with my agent, Meg, and when I saw her sitting at the table behind a pillar, I knew something was wrong. She looked so strained, and Meg never does, she’s always who-loves-ya-baby upbeat. I sat down and said, out of the blue, before I even knew what was happening, “You’re firing me, aren’t you?†And we talked about what we both knew, that I wanted my career to go in a different direction than she did, and she said, “I think you should find a new agent.†And I thought, This can’t be happening, but I said, “Any suggestions?†not “Wait, we can work this out.†And we talked and hugged each other because she’s truly one of my best friends, and then I went back to the Village and thought, Everything’s new again. That moment of sheer panic when everything changed . . . liberating.
Wow. It would be like me saying, “I’M SICK OF BOOGERS AND WAX, DO YOU HEAR? I’ve always wanted to be lumberjack!”
Or a romance writer. Same difference.
Good luck, Jenny.
D.
PS: Live-blogging tonight . . . same time, same channel, if all goes well.
Correction: we’re going out to eat! Yeah, it doesn’t happen all that often, but tonight I get lucky. (Meaning, I don’t have to cook.) (No telling about the secondary meaning.) So, I may be around here sometime after 8, but not sooner.
Leaping from tree to tree… The mighty larch…
I had a moment like that recently when I found a brochure for the jewelry/metalworking program at a local community college. For a moment there, I could picture myself walking away from coding and not looking back.
And then that whole eating and having a roof over our head thing kicked back in…
BTW, I got your email – there’s no good way (really) to get at ‘CPU load’ for a website hosted like this one. BlueHost just has some f’ed up site management software that they’re using.
Well, that’s a shame. Guess they’ll tell me I’m overbudget when it’s too late 🙂
“I cold have been . . . a metalworker!” Naw, it just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
bawahahaaa
Interesting discussion. Jenny really is a class act.
Good luck with your synopses!
M