The Worst Client

​Hopefully my comments regarding Agents haven’t been too snarky as agents and/or managers will be a very important part of your career. My hope is that my own blunders will keep you from making some of my mistakes. And believe me, when it comes to literary representation, I have made a few. So, let’s dive a bit deeper and talk about the other side of the relationship. Let’s talk bad clients. Now, I am nowhere near the worst, but I do have a story that illustrates perfectly that there are two sides to every relationship.
 
How many agents have I had in the course of my writing career? Well, I have officially signed with two. Unofficially, there have been others. For the most part, they had been brief relationships; wham, bam, never hear from them again, scram. There was an exception, someone who wanted to assist me in the greatest way, only to have my own ineptitude and insecurity get in the way.  Sounds tragic, I know. But you have to admit, it does have the makings for a great story.

​It was the nineties and America Online was the rage. One of the chats I frequented, besides, Men who Prefer Diapers, was Screenwriter’s Chat. The forum took place every Friday between 7 and 9pm and was frequented by such notables as Tom Clancy (yes, really), Nora Ephron (yes, really) and others. I’d mention the attendees who are still alive but, well, you know how that goes. The chats were always fun and the chance to network with real, honest to goodness paid writers was fantastic. A husband and wife team, who had quite a bit of success and even more after I met them, had agreed to read my work. To make a long story short, they liked what they saw and let me know if ever I got down to Los Angeles, they would introduce me to their agent. 

​Fresh off the success of my Dennison’s the Stand-up Chili Campaign (yes, really), I moved to Hermosa Beach, California; where everything show business related in the city is at least an hour away. I met the screenwriting couple in Pasadena (two hours away) for coffee and conversation. My screenplay had forwarded to their agent in West Hollywood and I met her shortly after. It went well. She both liked the script and seemed to have an interest in what I was doing as a writer. So far so good, right? Well let’s backtrack just a bit.
 
Shortly before I made the transition to part-time Angelino, I had arranged a meeting with a production company at Warner Brothers concerning the exact same screenplay. I arrived promptly at the appropriate bungalow (same office building as Clint Eastwood’s Malpaso Productions), witnessed the iconic actor’s hands on the steering wheel of his vehicle (that’s all I saw, I swear), and settled in for a spirited discussion on the merits of my work.

​The meeting was attending by two story executives and, for the most part, went well. They loved the pitch, liked the scripts but felt it needed a more thorough rewrite. I agreed and informed them that they would have another draft by the end of the month. As we parted, they asked if I had representation and I announced proudly that I had nothing yet but was working on it. I swear to god, the last words of the executive’s mouth, were:
 
“as long as it isn’t (insert the name of the literary agent I met with here). She is the one person in this town that we will never to work with.”
 
Da-da-da!
 
(to be continued)