Bitchy Agents.

Admittedly, I haven't been using this blog as much as I intended to. It's a work in progress.

But today is the first time I've really felt inspired to post, the first time I felt like I had something to say.

My RSS reader has something like 17 subscriptions, each one of them another publishing blog, be it author or agent, and I spend a good amount of reading them. Some of them hold contests for advice on querying or critique of x-number of pages of a first draft. Most of them report on the state of the business in relation to the economy. And more than that offer broad advice or answer questions that people e-mail in or post in comments. If you've found this blog, you've probably read some of theirs too.

There are a lot of good agent blogs out there.

But today I'm feeling particularly annoyed. Of the 8 unread posts in my feed at least three that I have read so far have followed the same trend that I see all of the time. Bitchy Agents. I understand that the nature of their job is to be critical and I certainly would never want an agent for myself that was sugar coating things but what amazes me is this trend... it's not only that agents feel the need to be blunt or critical in their posts, it's the way that it's done. It's as though everyone decided that sarcastic criticism was the way to go today (and it's not just today that I've noticed it.)

Sometimes I wonder if it's not a trend started out by Miss Snark, but personally I'm growing a little thin on it. I know, it's my choice to continue to read these blogs, but they are good blogs and I do enjoy the content, I'm just tiring of the snarky voice.

On the opposite hand I find blogs like Nathan Bransford's to be refreshing. Perhaps it's because of the male voice where most of the blogs I read are female? I don't know. I do know that his criticism always seems well worded and just as informative as others but he doesn't use sarcasm, which is instantly off-putting, to get his point across. He also seems to have a knack for delivering criticism with a proverbial-smile which I admire.

Well- there you have it. My personal rant on the sharp edge agent blogs are taking. And like any good female, now that I've ranted I'm feeling much better.