One cheerful writer with public speaking experience, reasonable expectations and nice markings immediately available to good agent. Does impressive array of tricks, including making all deadlines, accepting criticism and fetching slippers. Good with cats, dogs, children and other writers. Very affectionate. AKC registered. Housebroken but not declawed. Will insist on being allowed to sit on the furniture.

Okay, okay. The furniture thing is optional. We can work it out. Call me.

Sigh.

It's that time again. My latest book, Suzy Q. Paparazzi, is done and - if I do say so myself - is quite a hoot. All that and a barrel of monkeys - but cleaner than monkeys, and you can take it on an airplane, which is not usually true of monkeys.

But Suzy will need an agent, a nice one with good contacts and a steady supply of Milk-Bones. So here I sit, a stack of research and recommendations in one hand and the corresponding query letters in the other. There's plenty of good stuff in those letters - reasons why I wrote to the agents I did, a little about the book, a little about me, quotes from my more-successful writer friends saying nice stuff about my work. But if we were really being honest, it would be much shorter.

"The book is really, really good! There's more where that came from! You won't be sorry! I swear on my good pearls you won't be sorry."

Alas, that tends to sound a wee bit, well, desperate. And we're not going for desperate. Not yet. We're going for eager and well trained, with a shiny coat and good teeth.

If this fails, I'm planning to sit in a basket outside Creative Artists headquarters and hope the mail boy takes me in. I come with my own dry food and water bowl, you know.