A Shameless Titbit

How is this for spooky?

Not long after starting to flirt to get the attention of an agent for the first novel I wrote, I got a phonecall and pleasant demand to follow up the first chapter by sending the entire book.

I was delighted but then quickly gobsmacked.

On a final reading of the work before posting it off, I discovered that buried in the middle of a late chapter was a minor character whose name was exactly the same as the agent asking to see the novel (slightly different spelling but essentially the same first and last names)!

You can imagine my panic and how baffled I was.

Of course, I changed the name. I didn't want the agent to think I was shamelessly trying to sweeten him up by putting his name in my work, and I dared not tell him about the incredible coincidence in case he thought I was a fruit cake!

It was either an amazing coincidence or maybe the agent's name was already in my head when I sat down to write the chapter in question. Had I been looking through a list of agents beforehand and some names had stuck in my conscience?

One of my friends preferred to insist that it was a "sign from the universe", that my book was supposed to be in that agent's hands. That theory was put to sleep when the man in question decided not to take the book any further. My friend, forever the optimist, quickly added, "But you did delete the agent's name from your work, didn't you? If you'd kept it in, instead of getting all freaked out ... '

We will never know.