Instead, I'll let Curtis Brown agent Nathan Bransford do it for me: http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/2009/06/stepping-up-your-game.html

I'm pointing everyone I can to this blog post because a)he's hilarious, and b)everything he says here is completely true. I try to balance out my "omg but it's sooooo hard" posts (this one) with the occasional "glimmer of hope" posts (yesterday's rundown of some recent debut deals) and I think Nathan's post is a good middle-ground.

A few weeks ago I posted some of the more interesting debut sales that had been recently made. There have actually been A LOT of exciting debut deals recently - a bright spot in a grim time! - and here are some of my faves:

by Karinya Funsett-Topping

Your manuscript is finally finished. It’s been revised, agonized over, critiqued, and revised again. It’s ready to take the next step. It’s ready for an agent. And because you want nothing but the best for your manuscript, you know you’ve got to find the best agent possible. The biggest name, the top seller, the power player. Right?

Well, not necessarily. Many superstar agents are great at what they do – that’s how they became superstars, after all – but they’re not the right agents for every project. Sometimes the right agent is one you just haven’t heard of yet.