July 25, 2006
Magglio Ordonez, for those of you who don't know, is the right fielder for the Detroit Tigers. I'm not a huge baseball fan, or sports fan at all, but I like baseball reasonably well, especially when the Tigers are hot, which they definitely are this year.

I watched most of the game against Cleveland last night (while reading a book). They won 9 to 7, although I went to bed in the middle of the 8th inning.

Magglio Ordonez--Maggs, as my wife calls him--is one of the stars of the team, although it's a team this year jammed with stars. Maggs had a bad night. He struck out, I believe, at 4 turns at bat. He missed a safe ball to right field by inches.

Yet he's a great ballplayer, an All-Star.

My oldest son, Ian, asked me if the Tigers had lost any games this season. (Wow, someone who knows less about baseball than me). I laughed. "Of course. Nobody goes through a baseball season without losing games. It's too long a season."

In fact, the Tigers, who are in first place in the American League, are around 32 games over .500. For those who wish I would shut up about baseball and couldn't care less, trust me, there is a point about writing coming up. 32 games over .500 is amazing. In baseball, any team that wins half their games is doing great and is at least thinking about the World Series.

When it comes to writing--sending things out and getting rejected--I've often thought about baseball players. A batter with a .335 average--meaning he (or she, I suppose)--is hitting a ball about every third time up at bat. That sounds pretty bad, except a player with a .335 average is a GREAT player, especially if you average that out over an entire season or an entire career.

And although I doubt a major league player is happy when he strikes out, he's got to understand that it's a part of the game. Was Magglio happy about last night? I doubt it. Will he come back swinging? Hey, I think so.

I don't get all my jobs that I query. Even from established clients. I certainly don't sell all the novels or short stories I try to sell these days. But I keep swinging. And the more I swing, the better the odds of me selling something.

Years ago, the worst thing I ever did was write a novel, send it out to one agent, have them slam it, then tuck it back in a folder and never market it again. Hey, I was young and didn't know any better. Now I know, keep marketing until there's no more markets.

I've had three literary agents. I went through a patch prior to acquiring my latest agent in which I wasn't getting responses or nobody wanted to read the manuscript, etc. You've been there, right? This time I sat down, steeled myself and said, "You're getting an agent. Therefor you're going to only stop looking for one when you've got a relationship with one." And that's what I did. I just kept going and voila, 4 book contracts so far.

With my nonfiction, it's shifted some because I have a stable of regular clients, a kind of A list and B list thing, and I work hard to constantly work with my A list and work hard to make sure my B list remembers I'm still out there. I'm currently busier than I should be, so I'm not really looking for new work--probably a luxury--but I don't want anybody to forget me while I'm busy with other projects. I'm still swinging.

Best,
Mark Terry