Hitlist: 1) Adverbs; 2) Thesauruses...

Yesterday was the best day ever so I figured I should blog about it now, before this heartbreaking client manuscript has me bawling.

The agent-editor party was poppin'. It was great catching up with FinePrint Lit and Nancy Coffey Literary. I miss them so!

Also, I finally met a certain editor. When I interned at FP and NC, I recommended a manuscript to an agent there, who ended up selling the book to Tor. So when I bumped into the editor at the shindig yesterday, both of us were like, "It's you!!1!" lolzolz It's just a really awesome feeling to see a manuscript you love go from intern to agent to editor. I'll let you know more details when the galleys are out. Believe me, I can't wait to share this sizzling love triangle. And you know me--have I ever led you astray?!

After that, there was a panel at the Center for Fiction called "On the Well-Tempered Sentence," which was all about language. My favorite quote from the night was from author Gary Lutz about never using thesauruses. He said something to the effect that dictionaries and thesauruses should only be used to remember a word that has escaped you; however, you should never just plug in synonyms in your sentences, because you need to use your own line of thought to find your own word. The thesaurus, after all, reflects the thought process of someone else--it's already been done and it's just going to limit your writing. It's important then to make your own word and image associations to come up with something fresh.

I like that.

It reminds me of one of George Orwell's rules for writers: "Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print."

So. The crowd was mostly made up of Columbia MFA students and I ran out of business cards pretty fast. Can't wait for the next event!

In other news, I'm still struggling to come up with a photo and bio for our website. I should've gotten my professional photographer friend from San Francisco to take my pic when he visited the other weekend. I'm debating whether or not I should fly out there next week just so he can snap a photo of me that says HI-I-AM-A-VERY-NICE-AND-FRIENDLY-YET-FIERCE-AND-COMPETENT-AGENT-WHEN-IT-COMES-TO-CHAMPIONING-YOUR-WORK.

You might think I'm making a big deal out of a dumb photo, but consider this: A writer called me once to ask if he could send his query to a certain agent here. I replied that she doesn't normally handle that genre, so maybe he should send it to so-and-so instead. The writer answered that he's aware of that, but the agent looks so welcoming and friendly, that he wants to send his query to her anyway.

See? That's the kind of picture I need!

As for my bio, I figure it's like the agent's "query letter" to the author. It has to be just so. While brainstorming, Steve Ulfelder, author of PURGATORY CHASM, suggested I open with this gem: "Judith has seldom been convicted..."

Thanks, thanks a lot, Steve.

-jude