Sunday, May 9, 2010

Best-laid plans

Well, the farmer's market in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, City of Assholes was a bust. Although I've sold there before with no problems, it turns out you actually have to be a "member" to sell--which involves both a fee and an inspection, which of course means backyard gardeners like me are automatically excluded. The old battleaxe who told me seemed delighted to run someone off. She must live for moments like that.

On the other hand, I got rid of a flat of peppers before she muscled in on me, and had some interesting conversations with some nice people who didn't seem to mind that I was practically pushing plants into their arms ("no, really, you can have this one for a quarter--or actually, just take it").

I don't have to be at work until noon tomorrow (although I have to stay late tomorrow night), so in the morning I plan to go to the municipal building in my little town and make sure that the farmer's market here doesn't require me to pay anybody anything first. It turns out that our farmer's market is on Monday afternoons--gawd knows who decided that--so if I'm given the all-clear, I'll need to arrange to take a few Monday afternoons off work over the summer. Twist my arm.

After yesterday morning's disappointment, of course I spent the afternoon updating my agent queries list and making new and ever-more-discouraging spreadsheets to let me know just precisely how each of my novels has fared in the agent search. Short answer: I still don't have an agent. I also sent off five more queries for Bell-Men even though I've only heard back from ten of the twenty I queried at the end of March.

Usually when I update my records like that, I get a few coincidental rejections within a few hours. Alas, this weekend I have received nothing. In every possible way.

10 comments:

Fox Lee said...

Farmer's Market nazis : P

Richard said...

Yeah, what Sin said. Farmer's Market nazis. I hate those guys.

Alan W. Davidson said...

Yep, they suck the fun out of selling stuff. THey should stick to their parking meter revenue.

K.C. Shaw said...

Natalie--No soup--er pepper sales--for me!

Lertulo--They're everywhere, too. Who knew?

Alan--lol, exactly!

Cate Gardner said...

I do believe there are many such City of Assholes dotted around the globe. Boo them. Good luck with the extra queries.

K.C. Shaw said...

I'm off to the post office to mail a few more queries (oldschool no-email types)!

Jamie Eyberg said...

Good luck with the queries. I often wonder are assholes made or are they born?

K.C. Shaw said...

This one was definitely born. You could tell she'd been an asshole for her entire life, from day one.

Danielle Birch said...

Some of the people running those places are on a bit of a power trip. You give them a clipboard and a pen and they turn into a dictator.

K.C. Shaw said...

OMG, she DID have a clipboard! I should have accidentally-on-purpose bumped her and made her drop it.