So, you’re a Literary Agent? Hmmm. That would be your degree in English Lit. on the wall? No books to your name alas, but we can’t be good at everything now, can we? It’s enough for you to know what sells.

They are not all the same are they, these literary agents? These purveyors of men’s souls. And not all singing from the same song book. I don’t know you from Adam but, as a writer, whenever I submit my anguished-over script, the sacred substance of my living experience, my life and my soul, to ‘you’, I must accept that ‘you’ are an honest man guided by the spiritual ethics of ‘your’ profession. But, the perpetual wrangling over intellectual property and the plethora of vague laws that govern it (Steven Spielberg got off scot free from pilfering another writer’s work even though is was clearly and blatantly obvious to all, even to the blind, that he was guilty as all hell) suggests the following scenario is by no means impossible or even unusual. If you are acquainted with Hollywood I am sure you will have less diffculty believing it than most. 

“Jeff?  Sorry to waken you up, old buddy. But I got this fantastic story here on my desk and I am sure you can do something with it. Yea, it’s got winner written all over it. It will  be huge if it’s let loose. Nah, nobody knows who he is. Never been published before. Yea, just what I thought. You could do something duh…  ’similar…’ duh,  I’m sure. Yea, I know but we are allowed to laugh…. So, my lawyer tells me. Yea, it’s a novel, not all that well written. But, it doesn’t have to be. We can all write for chrissakes! It’s what’s in it, Jeff!  What’s in it! The guy’s a friggin’ genius. What a film it would make! or even a whole bunch of them, or a television series or any sort of a series for that matter! You gotta read this!  Meet me for lunch. Nah. Don’t worry about that. I’ll tie him to a dumb contract or something until you get it done. I’ll get him to download the contract too from the net. Never fails. Just in case he gets the bright idea of starting a paper trail some time in the distant future. Idiot might be a better word. They’re out there Jeff. Told me all I need to know about it too. Can you believe it? How dumb is that? And there are more of them coming off the conveyor belt all the time. I have almost completly given up thinking for myself, it’s so easy. Don’t worry. It’s okay. I’m your acting editor. I just make more radical changes than most, that’s all. I have a business to run, godammit!”

Writers have no reason whatever to trust an agent and yet all of them have to. The elusive Christopher Little is an English agent bivouacked in London who is presently being sued (so far as we still know) by the relatives of the deceased writer Adrian Jacobs whose work he, or his publisher ‘associate’ Bloomsbury, or both, allegedly pilfered. Innocent until proven guilty is Christopher. The law is on his side. He is J.K.Rowling’s publishing agent: One who shuns the limelight, being supposedly shy and sensitive, we are to believe, even if it is reported that he held a massively expensive birthday party for himself not so long ago. You will notice how careful I am in choosing the words to tell you this. That’s because this particular agent has a lawyer working in his corner who takes no prisoners. Rowling’s own lawyers, Schillings, are even more notorious. It is not that either are merely practising sound economic prudence in guarding their vulnerable charge from prowling fraudsters and all that; what they are actually engaged in is avoiding public scrutiny at all costs. Indeed, establishing a norm by repetition in the process. Reminds you of the invasion of Iraq, doesn’t it? To them and their ilk this is the way of business. Do it often enough and people will eventually throw up their arms and cry. “Not again!” And then they stop throwing up their arms because such behaviour however odious and contemptible has become the norm. Not another case against Rowling! To you and I and the Man Above, such practice is  mind control, but more of that some other time. And if they want to contest this and make moves to gagg us three and clap us  all in irons, well ……..  Indeed, they are most likely reading these very words and adding them to the munitions pile they have been amassing for years to use against us. It ill behoves us to hold such a dim view of our fellow man, or woman indeed, but…………..It seems that in the name of democracy you can hold any views you like so long as you don’t get the dumb notion that you are free to express them. In modern times, Shakespeare, Shaw and Wilde would be impossible. Think about that. There’s freedom of expression for you!

Interesting isn’t it? Well it is rather… from our point of view.
How interesting can be learned from; http://www.travelswithlipo.com .

What we have to say via the above link is all true….if you can believe it, of course…. and we can tell you, even before you start…. you won’t. Why not? Not just because you have accepted the ‘norm’ and may be blissfully unaware that you have but , more imp0rtantly, because what you have to do is trust someone you have never met……….Me, the communicator of all this.  An Irishman. A bridge too far is that for many. The wise and the sceptics among you will surely find it easier.