Sleep

I had an interesting conversation with an agent yesterday. Get James Bond out of your head, I mean a literary agent. The first thing she said, upon picking up the phone, was ‘you’re not my father.’

Granted, this is an unusual way to start a conversation but entirely accurate. In one sentence she rather cleverly exposed the shortcomings of the subterfuge I employed to get me past the receptionist.

In my defence I had tried to speak to her in the traditional manner, but each time she offered, via the receptionist, rather feeble excuses for not taking my call – mostly to do with meetings.

I wouldn’t say I’ve been stalking this agent, that would be going to far, but I have read her website thoroughly and even e-mailed a couple of her authors, to get a feel for her, so to speak. All of the authors responded with glowing reports about her professionalism, although one did say she was a little ‘hard’ to get hold of.

Anyway I apologised for getting off on the wrong foot, and she accepted my mitigation that her website clearly indicated that prospective authors of non-fiction should call first before submitting manuscripts. I gave her my now, well-oiled spiel…

            ‘Mmmm… the thing is Mike, I like the idea, in principle, but I’m not sure I could sell it in the current climate. Mmmm…’ I immediately pictured her taking off a pair of horn-rimmed glasses and rubbing her eyes. ‘I’m not even sure I’d get time to read it… but… Oh, I’ll tell you what, send it over, who needs sleep anyway, send it over, I’ll have a look at it…’

I put the phone down a happy man and sent the stuff over immediately, before she went into a meeting. And then it occurred to me.

It’s what she said about sleep, ‘who needs sleep anyway…’

Why do we indeed sleep? I had a look on the inter-webby, wifi thing. Plenty of conspiracy theories about sleep, but nothing rock solid – no facts.

Some eminent sorts think it’s an evolutionary throw back, and like the tails we used to sport, will disappear over time.

But, in truth, no one knows why we sleep, not even KJPBT had anything to say on the subject, although I noticed the trailer for her latest revelation about the trauma of divorce from Peter mentioned sleepless nights.

Now, if we didn’t need sleep we’d get more done. My friendly agent would easily have time to read my manuscript. One by one I’m knocking off the reasons why I can’t get published. So now, I just need to sit back and wait until evolution kicks in sufficiently for the human race not to need sleep – simples, as they say in Meerkat Manor.

Mind you, thinking about how to manoeuvre myself through the publishing minefield is, I must admit, knackering. In fact, I’m feeling a little sleepy now…