On my shelf this week:

Get a Literary Agent: Secure Representation for Your Work, by Chuck Sambuchino
Wolves of the Beyond#2, Shadow Wolf, by Kathryn Lasky
Scary Close, by Donald Miller

This week I’m reading a book about securing an agent (highly recommended—I thought I knew all there was to know about literary agents and pitches and such, but I have learned SO MUCH. It’s chapter on query letters is worth the investment alone.), a fantasy book with my 8-year-old (it has beautiful language) and a book on vulnerability and how to have intimate relationships (also highly recommended. Donald Miller has always been one of my favorites, and I was so glad to know he’d finally written another book!).

Best quotes so far:

“If you think your book has a problem, it does—and any book with a problem is not ready.”
Chuck Sambuchino

“An agent’s job is to sell your work and guide your career—neither of which includes editing. It’s your job to make your work as close to spotless as you can before submitting.”
Chuck Sambuchino

“To have an intimate relationship, you have to show people who you really are.”
Donald Miller

“The problem is this: those of us who are never satisfied with our accomplishments secretly believe nobody will love us unless we’re perfect.”
Donald Miller

“Having integrity is about being the same person on the inside that we are on the outside, and if we don’t have integrity, life becomes exhausting.”
Donald Miller

“When two people are entirely and completely separate they are finally compatible to be one. Nobody’s self-worth lives inside of another person. Intimacy means we are independently together.”
Donald Miller

Read any of these? Tell us what you thought.