I’m high on agents today. I think they’re cool, nice. It’s not April Fool’s Day so it must be a blue moon event. The next time I feel this way, it will be the year 2020 and we’ll be down to four or five real planets.
I admit it: agents have value. If each one of our projects is like a child, then an agent tells us which one of our “kids” has the best chance to make money for us. If a couple of agents tell you they like one of your projects better than the others, that’s probably your best project.
Why am I suddenly high on agents? Because I’m about to sign with one.
A female agent liked the screenplay version of my story about the only lawyer in heaven, called "When Angels Speak." (It’s also a completed stage play and TV pilot.) So I'm cleaning up some loose dialogue now in the 108 page script, as per her advice to, “Cut the chit-chat.” After I do that, she promised to send me a contract to sign. She even hinted she’d rep other scripts (especially the “woman jockey” story) if I made a few changes to them.
STRANGE MOMENT:
I came across an offer for a free list of literary agents. I started to go to the website, then realized I had an agent! I didn’t need the list! That was a real curveball. I had advanced into the playoffs of the writing profession (for the tenth time).
A WORD OR TWO OF CAUTION:
I’ll never forget what Aunt Esther said on my wedding day almost seven years ago: “I hope it lasts.” (While my marriage has thrived, my relationships with all my agents since and including 1981 have been volatile and brief.)
I remind myself of Homeless Otis, who was involved in 20 knife fights, none of which were his fault. I’ve broken up with 10 agents and it was always their fault.
“When Angels Speak” is set in the afterlife, so there are many spiritual/philosophical comments I could make (or choose to avoid) in the script. Larry David wrote and produced a TV show with a similar theme. Dustin Hoffman played the role of an executive angel in an episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and Dustin-the-angel got so angry at Larry-the-recently-deceased that the angel sent Larry back to Earth, just to get him out of his world.
What I tried to say in my script is that the afterlife affects our personalities and preferences … and that we never stop being judged. No one else judges us, BTW. We judge ourselves. And, even after we die, we’d better be kind, unselfish, loving and doing the right thing.
I’m back. Where was I? I’ve been cutting out some of my favorite lines from “When Angels Speak.” It was a real test of my professionalism. But I managed to cut five full pages from the script. I’m just hoping that what I cut was chit-chat and not essential elements of the story.
“Trust in the Lord,” Dom DeLuise told me before the cameras rolled on our TV show years ago. It’s true with writers as well as actors.
The reality is, I’ve read the script so many times in the past week that I’m dizzy and probably incapable of distinguishing between what’s essential and what’s extra baggage.
In “Reds,” Warren Beatty (as John Reid) shouted to his editors, “No one re-writes what I write!” Gee, I love that part of the film.
TIME-LAPSE BLOGOGRAPHY
It’s OK to invent a word, even a stupid-sounding one like blogography, if the word makes sense. With photography, it’s about photos; with blogography, it’s about blogs. Fair ’nuff.
Flash-forward. It’s been several weeks since I sent the promising agent a re-vamped contract and I’m still waiting for a reply. Someone just had a baby; they’ll get back to me, blah, blah, blah. With agents, you just can’t tell if you’ll ever hear from them again. It’s like, “Your very first kiss was your first kiss goodbye.”
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