Who are you?

Bear with me, but I'm having a dickens of a time trying to write one sentence about who I am to a potential agent, so I'm going to ask you who you are to get some idea what to say.

Sounds easy? Ha! Not as easy as it sounds, because here are the things you can't include:

1. Family relations. (That means no mentioning you're a parent or the child of your parents, or a spouse, or third-cousins thrice removed from Kevin Bacon. No family ties at all.)

2. No employment status, past or present. So it doesn't matter if you own your own company, won the lottery so you don't have to work, or used to be the world's most famous rocket scientist, no work relationship information at all.

3. And let us assume you are a Christian, love the Lord, and all that, but no mention of that either. (He is family relationship.)

Oh, and one more thing: no more than one sentence.

Did it just get harder? I'm so used to identifying myself for what I do for money, (or, in my case, what I did for money), family relationships, and the Lord, I really can't figure out what else to tell someone about me. So, I'm hoping if you can do it, maybe I can catch on how to do it.

So, who are you?

this sounds like a blessing, but don't ever 'play', just LOVE...

...who could use a few more days off here and there.

For real. I'm officially on term break now though so I'm finally gonna get some more time to write fanfic... I just recently saw Star Wars so that's exciting to write about haha.

By the way, is this the agent for your book?

An agent. My list was 96 agents long, now it's 83. But I think I'm experienced enough with query letters now to approach some of my Dream Agents. He's one of them, and the first not-American.

The British query is a bit different than the American one. Now that I've written it, I wish it would work for the American queries. I feel like I've gone from bulky to stream line. Ends up the Brits want, "tell, don't show." After forcing a business letter to make a book character personal in 200 words, I can just tell what the story is about. Whew!

Actually, just ignore what I posted on here so far, I'm not real...

Bear with me, but I'm having a dickens of a time trying to write one sentence about who I am to a potential agent, so I'm going to ask you who you are to get some idea what to say.

Sounds easy? Ha! Not as easy as it sounds, because here are the things you can't include:

1. Family relations. (That means no mentioning you're a parent or the child of your parents, or a spouse, or third-cousins thrice removed from Kevin Bacon. No family ties at all.)

2. No employment status, past or present. So it doesn't matter if you own your own company, won the lottery so you don't have to work, or used to be the world's most famous rocket scientist, no work relationship information at all.

3. And let us assume you are a Christian, love the Lord, and all that, but no mention of that either. (He is family relationship.)

Oh, and one more thing: no more than one sentence.

Did it just get harder? I'm so used to identifying myself for what I do for money, (or, in my case, what I did for money), family relationships, and the Lord, I really can't figure out what else to tell someone about me. So, I'm hoping if you can do it, maybe I can catch on how to do it.

So, who are you?

Let's see... career, family, and religious beliefs are the primary things people have ALWAYS identified with.
So as a starting place, asking you to give an explanation of your very being, while disallowing all the things which humans normally identify with... is... just... really stupid.

I think this is stupid.

If you need it for a job, that's fine... but it's just stupid.



Anyway, if you disallow all of these key self identifiers, what are we left with?

We're left with:
a. personal attributes
b. personal preferences
c. hobbies

It would have been simpler to just ask you to write a sentence about your personal attributes, personal preferences, and hobbies.

For real.

Who peed in your cornflakes?

I'm fully aware of how most people usually identify with themselves, but think about it in two different ways:
1. Is that all we are? I'm a Christian wife and bookkeeper? If that's the sum total of my life, it really doesn't tell anyone who I am, except in relationship to other things.
2. I don't work. I don't have kids. I'm old. And considering most people who identify as Christians really aren't, that really doesn't leave me much room to tell an agent who I am. Was I supposed to say, "I'm disabled, so I'm useless, but my husband kept me around anyway?"

I do agree that this demand to know who the person is who wrote the manuscript is a bit ridiculous. After all, when was the last time you chose something to read based on knowing who the author is? It happens, but it's rare, and usually has nothing to do with fiction writers.

I thought I'd use this problem to get to know people past family ties and job titles. And considering everyone was going to say they were a Christian anyway, why include that too?

But, nope. That's stupid? Who peed in your cornflakes?

Anyway, if you disallow all of these key self identifiers, what are we left with?

We're left with:
a. personal attributes
b. personal preferences
c. hobbies

toinena: In the USA it is a colloquialism when somebody is grumpy. "Who peed in your cheerios?" In other words, who did something to ruin your day and make you so grumpy?

Maxwel:

Yeah I think that's exactly the point. That is precisely what they want from the respondent. But just saying "Please tell us about your personal attributes, personal preferences and hobbies" is far too simple.

OR

That is exactly what they want, and they also want to see who reads the instructions and who doesn't read them and includes something in the response about his job or family.

Actually, just ignore what I posted on here so far, I'm not real...

I never really thought of anyone peeing on the cornflakes, but found it quite funny. It makes sense your explanation. Thank you.

I think this thread is a fun idea. No point being grumpy over it. And no need trying to provoke a fight either. Peace and love to everyone. It is Christmas. :-D