On my world, it means hope.

Lately, I've been seeing a lot of news in my writer circles from BIPOC authors who found rep from amazing advocates after losing their first agent, or landing book deals after long ordeals on submission, and many of them have been saying things like "dreams really do come true!"

And all I can think is...your dreams came true. But mine aren't.

There's a weird sense of shame that I feel, having been querying for 7 months without getting an offer of representation. Being rejected by the majority of agents who say they want to represent authors of color. I just feel like...why am I not enough? What is wrong with me/my books?

It would be a different story if I knew my writing wasn't skilled enough or my ideas are too niche. But they're not. Every time I pitch my books to other people (other authors and acquaintances I barely know), people always say they sound amazing. And yet I can't convince agents/editors that my stories are worth anything.

Right now, I have two agents who still have my full manuscript and seven who have my query. Aside from a few agents at those "only query one agent at a time" agencies, I've pretty much exhausted my list. I'm at this weird point at which I'm stuck in a holding pattern—I feel like there are still too many agents who have my query/manuscript for me to say I have no hope of representation, but I've also been waiting without news for months and really, really wishing I could just yeet my book at some open submission calls so I can feel like I'm *doing something*.

I'm going to try revising Novel #4 during the holidays, but I feel like I'm not even excited to query that book. Because I'll be going out to the exact same agent pool who rejected Novel #5 (which I feel like is objectively better written), so even if I get interest for Novel #4 from those people my reaction is going to be "what the hell is wrong with you??" Also, although I tend to bounce around different subgenres, my consistent "brand" so to speak is the way I approach plot, characterization, and themes, and I just feel like if you don't like how I write one novel, you will probably not like anything else I write.

I have been having an absolutely terrible time with traditionally published Chinese fantasy (by Chinese authors) this year. The only ones I’ve enjoyed were The Emperor and the Endless Palace by Justinian Huang, and The Blood Orchid by Kylie Lee Baker. Every other one I’ve read has been a one- or two-star read. :(

As an example, I recently read The Last Dragon of the East by Katrina Kwan, which I was really looking forward to, but it was just so mediocre to me. (I know people argue that BIPOC authors should be allowed to write mediocre books, but at the same time, am I not allowed to be disappointed when mediocre books are published when so many talented authors of color are languishing because they're deemed "not relatable" or "not marketable enough"?)

One of the issues I had with the book was that the Chinese fantasy elements felt so superficial. Apart from the reincarnation/red thread of fate concept, if you took out the dragons, the teahouse, and the emperor, this could have easily been a generic Western fantasy. Hell, the book even features fae beasts and will-o-the-wisps already.

I've been ruminating a lot lately on the topic of what makes Chinese fantasy "culturally Chinese" and how much that matters. To be honest, it wasn't until I started reading danmei novels that I realized fantasy novels set in China by authors in China do feel very different from fantasy novels by diaspora authors, in terms of how (fantasy) China is depicted - the cultures, the traditions, the language.

I mean, the system of pronouns and honorifics in ancient China is extremely complicated, and while I don't expect a diaspora author to necessarily know when an ancient Chinese person would refer to themselves as 本官 or 小的 or (family name) 麿 (heck, I don't necessarily know either), I think it's worth trying to convey some of the speech patterns rather than just having everyone talk like a 21st-century English-speaking American. (Personally, I love writing Chinese fantasy characters introducing themselves like "My family name is X, my given name Y" to emulate "我姓 X，名 Y".)

I can really tell now when a Chinese diaspora author is aware of Chinese folklore and cultural nuances. I had that feeling while reading Justinian Huang, Joan He, and Judy I. Lin's novels.

But I'm also personally wrestling with the fact that I don't like ideas of cultural "purity" or gatekeeping diaspora authors from writing fantasy. And I have enjoyed Chinese fantasy novels by Sue Lynn Tan, RF Kuang, and Kylie Lee Baker that feature Western values and/or storytelling traditions in certain ways.

I think it comes down to, for me, feeling like a diaspora author has done some research on ancient China, instead of just taking some superficial elements and running with their imagination of what ancient China is like (because isn't that the exact same thing white people do?).

All this is, of course, not even getting to how traditional publishing is dominated by white people who are the arbiters of what should be published even when they have no knowledge of Chinese culture or storytelling. Sigh.

It sounds weird to say this, but the only way I'm holding onto my sanity right now is by thinking about self-publishing Novel #5 if querying doesn't work out.

Technically, I have a revision plan for Novel #4, but I've been extremely unmotivated to work on the novel. Deep down, I can't shake the thought of "what's the point?"

I think maybe I'll start revising Novel #4 at the end of this year or beginning of next year, so I can try querying it if Novel #5 dies in the query trenches. But given that Novel #4 was on wide submission to editors, I feel even less hopeful about its chances of landing an agent than Novel #5.

I know there's an audience for Novel #5, even if agents/editors don't agree. I'm willing to try to capture that audience through self-publishing if querying fails, because I'm so tired of feeling helpless in the face of the publishing industry. If I do self-publish, though, I think I'd want to expand the story (adding 5-10k words), since I currently feel like the third act of the book is a bit rushed due to my efforts to stay under 120k words.

Sigh.

I usually don't feel compelled to write my thoughts about books until I'm done, but maybe it's the combination of my nerves being on edge from querying and recent events in my personal life, or maybe this book is bothering me just that much.

I requested an ARC (advanced reader's copy) of Sorcery and Small Magics by Maiga Doocy (from Orbit Books, publishing this October) after reading the first two chapters in an online excerpt and enjoying them. Now I'm nearly 25% of the way through and feeling like this book has already become a slog.

I want to say for the record that I try not to request ARCs of books unless I really want to read them and really think (or hope) I'll enjoy them. I'm an aggressive DNF'er when it comes to books in general and hate being stuck with a book I'm not enjoying, so because I feel pressure to finish ARCs I receive, I try to only request books that I believe I'll enjoy enough to finish.

Before I received my ARC, I read an online review that said the book felt like fanfiction of The Untamed. That made me apprehensive, but I assumed that maybe the two romantic leads would follow the same trope. Tropes can't be copyrighted, after all. Even as a writer myself, I love writing opposites attract/the sunshine one falls for the reserved, grumpy one.

Unfortunately, the similarities are too close as to be distracting.

Leo Loveage, the narrating protagonist, is an alcohol-loving, free-spirited, prank-playing, rules-hating character who even practices forbidden magic. Like, come on, my guy.

At the same time, he's different from Wei Wuxian in one crucial aspect: rather than being clever and a genius, Leo is more the Walking Mess type of character. And this is a pretty crucial difference, because it makes him much, MUCH more annoying to read about.

You can forgive Wei Wuxian's antics because his cleverness makes him fun to follow and makes it more understandable as to why he's constantly bending rules. Even though he antagonizes Lan Wangji, he has the energy of a rambunctious, mischievous, but ultimately harmless puppy who nevertheless wants to befriend Lan Wangji (at least in the C-drama). Leo Loveage, on the other hand, constantly antagonizes Sebastian Grimm for no reason other than he likes to cause trouble and annoy him. I don't know how old he's supposed to be, but given that this is an adult novel, it makes him seem immature rather than endearing. Combined with the fact that Leo is consistently terrible with magic and seems determined not to find a solution for that in order to spite his family, it quickly becomes grating to be in his head.

I don't easily find characters annoying. I also generally like Walking Disaster-type characters, characters who are presented as being messed up, who drink too much, and whose lives are out of control, usually due to past/family trauma. But I think it's the fact that Leo has no goal or desires and can't stop himself from making his life worse that bugs the hell out of me.

The other part that bothers me is that the magic system feels eerily like the author took cultivation from The Untamed and slapped a European coat of paint on it. The system of scriving spells onto paper sounds a lot like paper talismans, and the absolute dead giveaway was the fact that these sorcerers are also taught swordplay. Combining swordsmanship with magic has always been a very Asian, if not Chinese, fantasy tradition.

Why does this bug me? Because Chinese cultivation fantasy is not exactly well represented in American publishing. Very few, if any, Chinese fantasy novels published in the US actually draw from the Chinese fantasy tradition of cultivation---which to me is an indictment of what Chinese fantasy novels US publishers deem "worthy" of publication. So yeah, it bugs me more than a little that slapping a pseudo-European coat of paint on Chinese traditions is deemed palatable while actual Chinese fantasies drawing from that same tradition are not.

So I haven't posted in a while! It's because the querying process has been stressing. me. out.

Remember how one of my goals was to try to become better at coping with publishing stress? Yeah, I've been failing at that so far. I've realized that a BIG anxiety trigger for me is expecting something to happen soon, but not knowing exactly when, and also feeling like I have no control over the result. That was exactly the reason why I coped so poorly with being on submission for Novel #4 last year, and it's why I haven't been dealing well with querying right now. :(

Querying...hasn't been going well so far. I ended up panic-withdrawing a bunch of my initial queries after a string of rejections because I was pretty sure something was wrong with my query letter. I revised the query letter, but I do feel bad, wondering if maybe the earlier agents rejected it because my query letter didn't do the story justice. It's tough, because I feel like this is a fantastic book, but no one's been interested so far.

I mean, I guess to be fair, I felt that way about Novel #4 too, and now in hindsight I can see problems with it. But that just leads me to a whole new paranoia—am I so bad at judging what's a commercial story that I can't trust my own taste? If so, that would make it seem like I should just give up on traditional publishing, because I can't even identify what a marketable story is.

It sucks too because there's nothing I can use to take my mind off querying. I'm not the kind of writer who can jump into a new project right away, given that it usually takes me about a year after finishing one book before I have enough ideas to start a new one. I haven't had any video games to play since Tears of the Kingdom. And I haven't been having a great reading year, either—many of the new book releases this year I've found to be pretty mediocre so far. (And even when I enjoy a book, I burn through it quickly and then am back to twiddling my thumbs. The downside of being a fast reader...)

This long weekend in particular has been agonizing for me, because I know an agent has my full and I'm expecting them to get back to me soon. Which suuuuuucks for my anxiety. They've sent me enthusiastic emails so far, but after the initial excitement I felt, I realized that makes me feel worse—because I'm going to feel so much worse if they reject because the rest of the manuscript didn't live up to their expectations. And it's already happened once—another agent from my first round did request the full pretty quickly, but they rejected, and their rejection said they stopped reading halfway through because the book didn't live up to their expectations.

When that first agent requested my full manuscript, I was hopeful, but I had a prickling sense of dread too—like "I'm afraid to hope for an offer of representation from the first agent who requested, because my publication journey has never been that easy." Now I'm trying to make peace with the possibility that this second agent will reject, too. In which case, I'll be back to waiting around to see if any of the other agents I queried will request the full. Sigh...

My revisions for Novel #5 are done, I'm ready to query (just waiting on feedback on my query materials from someone who hopefully will respond this week), and now I'm trying to refill my creative well because I'm feeling drained of ideas.

And...I'm not having much luck.

While I've read some books I've enjoyed so far this year, none of them have "wowed" me. Even my four-star reads are books that I mostly forget about a week later—which is deeply painful, given my autistic self loves nothing more than to latch onto a new special interest and obsess over it for a month.

I have yet to rate a book 5 stars this year. Even books I've enjoyed have had issues that prevent me from loving them: character development that wasn't done well enough, wooden dialogue, meandering plot, "show don't tell" problems. As one example, I tried reading Darker By Four by June Tan, which just recently came out. And I just...became too aggravated to keep reading by the 20% point. All of the characters were paper-thin and poorly established. The beginning had no plot momentum. I couldn't believe the book was published like that, when any debut author trying to get a book like that published would be laughed out of the industry by editors.

I don't know what the problem is. Quality of books declining due to editor burnout, or the industry's focus on hook and premise over execution? Gatekeepers doing a poor job of publishing books that are actually compelling? It's interesting to watch Goodreads pages for upcoming books and see there are books that lack buzz from advance readers—sometimes due to the quality of the book, but sometimes this happens to books that are reviewed well. Books that were enjoyed by most of the readers who read them, yet not enough for readers to rave about them to their friends.

Honestly, the books I find myself most excited for these days are danmei novels. :( Because I can at least be guaranteed a plot that moves and interesting characters that I care about. Meanwhile, reading tradpub releases feels like playing roulette: Am I going to enjoy this book, or am I going to hate it?

I am—very slowly—working on edits for Novel #4, and I may have had a revelation?

Whenever I feel "bored" by chapter openings—usually when a chapter begins with setting description—I try to rewrite the descriptions to make them "voicier" (or more active). And now I'm starting to wonder, is THIS the secret sauce I was missing when I went on submission with this book?

I've read two books recently that I thought had amazing voice: Everyone On This Train Is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson, and Voyage of the Damned by Francis White. Maybe that's why I'm suddenly paying a lot more attention to voice now. In particular, I feel like I've (semi-consciously) picked up the idea that voice can really come through in physical descriptions and choice of metaphors.

I do feel like I'm improving Novel #4, but I'm becoming a little paranoid, too. Voice, for me, is something I have not really prioritized since I spend most of my energy while drafting thinking hard about character and plot. And then, while editing, I often have to look for places to add physical descriptions because that's a weakness of mine. Dialogue is a strong point for me, but voice in the narrative is something that I tend not to think about beyond a sentence here or there. To put it another way, voice has always been intuitive for me in the past.

The idea of voice as something I have to consciously craft? It makes me scared that my tiny brain doesn't have the space to pay attention to yet ANOTHER consideration while drafting/editing. Especially since my neurodivergent brain has a hard time verbalizing to begin with.

Sigh. Maybe I'll noodle on this some more.

Now that I'm close to done with the first draft of Novel #5, I have a better idea of my plans/timeline for the beginning of the year. This is still a bit aspirational/optimistic, since it relies on me finishing my draft by the end of this weekend and finishing my edits by the end of the month, so we'll see...

End of January 15: Finish drafting Novel #5.

I may also send the rough version of Part III to my first beta reader for initial feedback.

End of January: Finish editing Novel #5.

February: Send Novel #5 to my beta readers at the beginning of the month, with the aim of obtaining their feedback by the end of the month.

While waiting for beta reader feedback, I plan on:

- Workshopping and finalizing my query letter
- Asking the author groups I'm part of for agent whisper lists or recommendations, and putting out feelers to see if I can get any referrals
- Taking a break from all this hectic drafting/revision
- Working on scheduling an eye doctor appointment and taking care of any other chores left over from last year

March: Finish revising Novel #5. Hopefully, I won't need to make any significant revisions. If that's the case, then I will finalize my query list and send out my queries some time during the month (I plan to shotgun all my queries since my list will be small).

March onward: I have no idea how long the query process will take. Possibly months. I also know I can't bank on the idea that this book will land an agent, and if this book dies in the query trenches, that process will also take months, possibly a year or more. So, here's what I plan to do:

- More relaxing. (Seriously, after writing 40k words over 10 days at the end of 2023, I think I need to step away from Microsoft Word for a while.)
- Any chores I didn't manage to do during February.
- Rereading, brainstorming ideas, and (gently, as in not rushing or grinding) revising Novel #4 in case Novel #5 dies in the query trenches.

Non-writing things I'm looking forward to this year:
- Books!
- Rebel Moon Part 1 & 2
- Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus

Happy 2024!

I've just spent the last 10 days in a writing cave, working feverishly on Novel #5. I'm now at 100k out of 120k words, and I think I can finish drafting the book by the end of MLK Day. Then, of course, I'll need to edit and get feedback from my critique partners to make this book the strongest it can be before I can jump back into the query trenches. (Hopefully, the first half of my book is polished enough and I don't need to edit it much, focusing mostly on the second half.) As long as I don't need to do any major rewrites, I think I may be able to query agents in March???

I'm happy with my progress, though I'm also feeling pretty exhausted after drafting 40k words in 10 days. I've learned that I can draft for 4 or 5 days in a row before I start feeling the mental strain of fatigue (I did take a break last Wednesday to slow down and do some editing rather than drafting). I definitely wouldn't have pushed myself this hard if I wasn't trying to get back into the query trenches ASAP; the last time I spent Christmas break drafting, I only wrote about 9k words over the break.

It's interesting. 120k is my maximum wordcount target for this book due to the conventions of the publishing industry, but the book definitely could be longer. It's structured a bit like an anime and it was inspired by Journey to the West, a fantasy adventure epic, so there are more subplots I could add. But I'm trying to keep it lean for the sake of keeping the pacing tight and to avoid giving agents/editors a reason to pass due to the wordcount. (My brain also got tired and ran out of ideas for more fight scenes, haha.)

I still think about my former agent sometimes, and one of the things that hurt me the most from our relationship was when she told me that, instead of trying to see if UK publishers would be interested in Novel #4, it was a *better use of my time* to write a new book and go on submission with that. It's still unbelievable to me that an agent would dictate to their client what they should think the best use of their time is and not understand how condescending that attitude is. At the very least, shouldn't an agent ask how their client felt about that? Like "would you rather continue pursuing publication for this book or, since you're working on something new, would you prefer to focus on that? Let's talk through the pros/cons of each choice"???

I am literally the one doing all the work (especially since I also had to come up with all the pitching and submission strategy for my books!!); I am the one juggling writing books with a day job (since my agent worked as an agent full-time), and I am the one who understands my own writing process, how much time it takes, and the toll it takes on my energy when I decide to write a new novel. Not to mention, my agent can never guarantee that she could sell a new novel I wrote, either!!

It's unbelievable to me, because she always said the right things; she always thanked me for my hard work whenever I turned in a new book or a round of edits to her, seeming to acknowledge my labor. But then she turned around and acted like I should be a book factory who can just crank out books for years with no compensation until I produced one that she could sell in a big deal. I could never work with an agent who took such a cavalier view of my labor. And that was absolutely incompatible for my own vision for my career, which was to grow my career with a publisher who was as invested in my passion projects as I was, even if I have to start small. To get my foot in the door, because even though publishing is unpredictable and doesn't come with any guarantees, it still seems easier to sell a second book once you already have a book published. Plus, you can't build a fanbase if no one can ever read your work.

And, yeah, like I mentioned before, realizing the disconnect between (some of) her words and her actions has definitely left me with deep trust issues and made me wonder what else she lied to me about over the course of our relationship. Like whether she actually did much work to identify the best editors, or whether she even cared about my books. Especially since she had a history of not engaging with me when I had industry questions.

Look, I'm a logical person, and if you show me facts that prove me wrong, then I will change my mind. What drives me absolutely nuts is if I present facts and ask you to explain why those facts are different from what you told me, and you either ignore me or tell me I should *just trust your experience*. That just makes me mad, as well as paranoid that you are either purposefully misleading me or that you're not competent at your job. We can debate whether or not a book is marketable or well-written. We can't debate about the publicly reported size of deals made by publishers or whether or not publishers have distribution in the US.

The way she communicated with me was just baffling. I still don't understand why she felt that the appropriate response to me saying "You seem to be very opposed to UK submission, so I'll let it go, but I want to understand why you're so opposed to it?" was to say for the fourth time that she thought UK submission was a bad idea but we could still do it if I wanted. And then when I said I felt like I was being strung along, her response was to deny it and said we could still do UK submission if I wanted. No attempt to explain herself. No acknowledgement whatsoever that a reasonable person, after being asked *3 times* to confirm that they wanted to do something, may become suspicious when told "I need you to confirm one more time that you want to do this, but I'll still do it if you want to." Like, you're going to have to at least explain your motivations for why you've been acting that way if you expect me to believe you.

Thinking back, there were other times I could have been more direct and pushed her earlier in our relationship, but I always held back out of politeness and fear of sounding like a nag. If I had been more direct then, maybe I could have realized the problems with her sooner, because that's how the house of cards finally came crumbling down when I pressed her on her reasons for not wanting to sub my book to the UK. And I guess that's a lesson I should take going forward into a new agent relationship—not to be afraid of being direct and asking my agent to explain themselves. Because if they can't or won't, that's a major red flag.

I know I'm just ranting about my ex-agent again. Here's to hoping I can find a true advocate in 2024.

Well...I know I previously said I would wait to leave my agent until I had a new book ready to query. As it turns out, our relationship very suddenly imploded. Even though I was very angry and hurt by an email she sent me, I tried to lay out my issues and point out that I'm concerned about our communications lately, deciding that I'd give her a chance to explain herself and see if she'll express any willingness to salvage the relationship.

And...she did not.

She said she was sorry for being unclear, but then proceeded to claim I misunderstood what she said, which felt like a defense instead of an apology. Plus, I still think it's unreasonable for her to act like "just because I told you three times that I thought UK submission was a bad idea doesn't mean I was trying to talk you out of it," or even if that truly wasn't her intention, there's no way she can't understand why I would come to that conclusion. Then she wildly misinterpreted something I said in an outrageously unreasonable way and didn't apologize for that at all. Her recent emails have generally felt like they were full of "polite professional-speak" without actually addressing my concerns or truly acknowledging why I might be hurt.

The consensus among my family and friends is that she's purposefully trying to obfuscate how she truly feels, and there's no way I'll ever know for sure what's going through her mind. Still, I'm neurodivergent and I obsess over people's behavior when I don't understand them, so here are the possible interpretations I came up with:

Scenario #1: Assuming that she wasn't completely lying and purposefully trying to mislead me, and that she was being honest this whole time (even though she backtracked on her position and didn't explain why): She is a terrible communicator (for someone who makes a living based on reading), but she cannot accept being challenged and refuses to take accountability for her own bad communication. If she had just said "I completely understand why you read my email that way and I sincerely apologize for not communicating clearly and causing you unnecessary anxiety because that was not what I meant" and said she was willing to discuss how she can improve communicating with me, she would have completely defused my hurt and anger.

In any case, the fact that she seemed unwilling to meet me in the middle feels like she was uninterested in retaining me as a client anyway.

Scenario #2: She was lying about everything the whole time. She didn't want to do UK submission and tried to persuade/manipulate me into dropping the idea; however, when I called her out on it, she tried to backtrack, for reasons I don't understand. My personal theory is that she didn't want to go on submission in the UK because she thought she couldn't earn much money (which would be a massive conflict of interest if true), and when I pointed out to her that UK publishers can offer six-figure deals, she didn't want to acknowledge that I was right and she had been wrong, but that motivated her to backtrack and tell me we could still do UK submission, even though by that point I said I wasn't interested.

She suggested we part ways as a way to get rid of me; however, when I said she brought that up out of nowhere, she again seemed to backtrack. One of my friends suggested she is extremely conflict-averse and was trying to make me happy even if it wasn't what she wanted to do, and also at the cost of communicating any coherent position. I'm not sure if I personally believe that, because even if she was conflict-avoidant, she should have accepted it when I said I was willing to drop UK submission instead of coming back and insisting we could still do it if I wanted to.

I am a very conflict-avoidant person*, and one of the primary ways I avoid conflict is by preemptively apologizing whenever I feel like someone else thinks I might have screwed up. Obviously each person is different, but I'm just not sure I believe that conflict avoidance was her primary motivation for communicating with me the way she did.

(*I'm conflict-avoidant unless/until I feel like conflict is inevitable; once I'm in the middle of a conflict, I can become incredibly aggressive in standing up for myself, and I've noticed that people don't receive that switch well. Sometimes, I suspect that people assume they can bully me into obedience because I usually seem mild-mannered and shy, and then they react badly when I stand my ground and call out their BS.)


All of this is to say, I didn't have the energy to want to argue with her further if she was going to continue sounding this defensive and not receptive to my hurt feelings. So...as of yesterday, I am now agentless again.

I did have to ask her to pull the remaining submissions for Novel #4 and write them off as a loss, but there's a possibility those editors were ghosting me, anyway.

I also have to buckle down and finish Novel #5 in order to query again (querying Novel #4 would be a risk since it's already been on submission to US publishers).

Based on my experience and also speaking with many other authors, no author—and this is even more true for authors who don't have a book deal yet—ever wants to be in the position of terminating with their agent and being back in the query trenches again. While many authors do land another agent, there are also authors who don't. But the industry is so opaque that agents can, quite frankly, get away with treating their clients poorly and authors have very little recourse.

As I mentioned in a previous entry, there are many factors that pushed me to leave my agent. When I look back, there are multiple subtle hints I can now see that make me think my agent prioritized how much money she could make over my desires, which is a massive conflict of interest. I didn't pick up on those red flags at the time, because it's not unusual for an agent to want to get as much money as possible for a client; however, if a client values things other than money, an agent shouldn't pressure them, either. When it looked like a publisher was going to make an offer on Novel #3, my agent sort of pushed me to want a multi-book deal and seemed upset when I said I only wanted a one-book deal. The way my agent easily gives up on my books after they don't sell after one round to all the major publishers now feels like she's no longer interested if she thinks she can't get a big commission. And again, that's a conflict of interest. Money is not the only factor to weigh when considering an offer from a publisher. I've even heard that some agents pressure their clients to take the highest offer if there is a multiple offer situation, even if the author wants to go with an editor with a better vision for their book, and that would be an absolute nightmare scenario to me.

I'm cynical, so I feel like that my agent could probably claim that we parted ways because I was being unreasonable. But I left the relationship because I was starting to get stressed by the idea of interacting with her. Because I don't want an agent who is defensive, who hides or lies about their motivations, who is unwilling to have open and honest discussions with me even if those discussions are difficult.

I want an agent who believes in my books enough to fight their hardest for them. I want an agent who understands that this is my career and I need to have the final decision-making authority on issues that affect my career. I want to have an agent I trust enough that we can have discussions about the industry, about difficult situations and how to strategize if my career isn't going well, instead of suspecting that they might want to persuade me to one course of action or another for their own reasons.

Fingers crossed that I'll be able to find my advocate next year.