Better than, "Copy monkey"

The approaching birth of the Sprout has sort of crystallized my thoughts in some areas while, at the same time, it confuses me about others. I'll be talking about one area where I've achieved some clarity.

The writing. I'm 37 and have achieved only moderate success in the field, but I feel like with the right promotion/encouragement/cajoling I could be a lot more successful. I do not have it in me to do these things myself. Some folks with a baby on the way, and in a similar position, might say that they were going to forget about the writing and concentrate on their career as a way of guaranteeing some kind of stable home-life. But not me, apparently. To that end, I met yesterday with a couple of literary agents to talk about representing my work, and me, too, I suppose. I've known these two ladies for a couple of years now and they're always enthusiastic about anything I've worked on. I've suspected they'd like to rep me, but haven't felt the need to pursue that opportunity as getting work in comics never really seemed to need it. But my last few experiences with story pitches, and the fact that I'd like to get away from writing monthly publications and publishers and to start doing work for larger, more mainstream publishers, have led me to think otherwise.

I told them about a couple of comics projects I'd like to work on, they told me about what a couple of publishers they know are looking for. I also told them about an idea for a non-fiction prose book I've had and they seemed really excited by it. They're going to send me a faux proposal that will help me knock my idea into some kind of shape to show publishers. I'm very excited about this. They also are willing to work with me on a project-by-project basis, which is good since I might potentially work on a number of things with different artists and for different venues. It's possible that they wouldn't be able to help with some of those projects.

So, I'm hoping this step I've taken helps me achieve my goal: the ability of the Sprout to one day answer the question, “What does your father do?” with the answer, “He's a writer.”