Where have all the agents gone?........and procrastination.

I'm late on posting this bog.  I wrote it on April 5.  I'm new to the blogging process and started a blog on another site and then started this one.  Trying to decide which one to use full time.  I don't plan to keep up more than one.

Still no word from the three agents who have all or part of my novel Crossing Paths.  Are they so busy they haven’t looked at it yet?  Or did they reject my novel and are of the mindset that an email doesn’t have to be answered?  I’m sure I don’t know.  Now it’s time to start querying the gazillion other agents.  No, I haven’t started.  And I have a confession to make.  The whole idea is scary.

Why is it scary?  I don’t even know those people.  They’re nothing to me.  But wait.  In a way, they hold my future in their hands.  Or do they?  Another thing to examine.  Socrates (469 BC – 399 BC) said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”  A fascinating concept.  So, the topic this week is procrastination and the issue is to examine it.

 Why do we procrastinate and find ways to wait another day?  I don’t know why all the rest of you do, I can only examine why I do it.  Feel free to comment with your own reasons.

When it comes to me and querying agents, the reason can be told in one word:  fear.  To examine that word further, it could be the fear of failure and it could be fear of success.  And it could be both.  I haven’t wanted to examine it at all, it’s much easier to procrastinate.  In fact, I just walked away and made a small pot of decaf coffee to put off finishing this.  The coffee tastes good, even if I didn’t need it.  And I’m doing laundry, too, so I’ll have to go take care of that in a minute.  It feels good to get the laundry done.  So why doesn’t it feel good to get those blind query letters out?
How can I turn it around and make it feel, if not good, at least okay?  I guess I could let go of expectations.  No expectations as to the outcome.  Hmmmm.  Sounds good on paper.  But it’s hard not to have feelings around the outcome.  Will have to work on that one.

Another load of laundry folded, last load’s in the dryer.  It came to me while I was folding.  Judgment.   Those agents will be judging me.  Another part of my brain asked, really?  More examination.  Judgment is the wrong word.  The truth is that they will be reading my writing to see if it engages them.  And if it doesn’t, that isn’t necessarily a judgment about my writing.  Not everyone likes historical fiction.  Some people prefer__________(fill in the blank). I was going to name a genre that I don’t care to read and decided to let you fill in your own.
Okay, so those agents aren’t judging me, they’re seeing if my writing is something they want to read, if they want to keep turning the pages.  More work to do.  My goal is to conquer the fear and get past the judgment thinking and just do it.

I'll let you know how I'm doing.  In about a week.