What If There Is a Literary Agent There?

I'm preparing for a public reading at a bookstore in Ithaca, New York, and I've discovered something about myself.

I'm not particularly worried about the public speaking part. Give me a room full of people and a microphone, and apparently I'm fine.

What I'm worried about is choosing what to read.

The time limit is fifteen to twenty minutes, which sounds generous until you start trying to decide which part of a novel deserves that time. I have condensed the opening chapter of Wrenfell specifically for the reading, and I've been working through it to make sure I'm not cutting something important to make the clock happy.

But then I start thinking about Gravity, Maine. And The Ghost of Ashmere. And suddenly I'm no longer simply preparing for a bookstore reading. I'm auditioning my own novels.

Which one says the most about the kind of writer I am? Which one has the strongest opening? Which one creates the most immediate sense of place? Which one leaves someone wanting to know what happens next? Which one sounds best when read aloud?

And, perhaps most importantly: What if there's a literary agent in the room? What if? LOL.

I know that's probably not the point of the evening. I'm going there to read. People will be there because they want to hear writers read their work. It's not a secret cattle call for unpublished novelists.

But what if? That little possibility changes the way I look at everything.

Suddenly I'm listening to sentences differently. I'm thinking about where I want to stop. I'm thinking about what a stranger would understand without knowing the rest of the story. I'm thinking about whether the opening makes someone lean forward or wait patiently for me to finish.

And that's actually useful, regardless of whether an agent is sitting somewhere in the bookstore. Because a public reading forces me to make a decision I don't always like making as a writer:

Choose. I have a lot of novels in draft. I have a lot of stories I believe in. I have spent lots of time developing characters, settings, mysteries, and strange little corners of the world that, in my head, are all completely real.

But I can't read all of them. Not in twenty minutes.

So I have to decide which one gets to walk through the door with me. Maybe that's the real challenge. Not speaking. Not nerves. Not even whether the audience likes it.

It's choosing one piece of my work and saying, This. This is what I want you to see.

And yes, part of me is still thinking: What if there is a literary agent there?

Because apparently I am perfectly comfortable standing in front of a room full of strangers.

I want to make sure I bring the right novel.