in which Bob Dylan tells us all the chill the #^$% out

As writing conference season approaches, INTERN has noticed a corresponding rise in anxiety among her editing clients and writer-friends who are hoping to woo an agent at one of those horrifying events called speed-pitching or agent-bombing or Freeze Tag: Agent Edition.

They remind INTERN of newly-minted diplomats being sent to have dinner with an inscrutable and vaguely sinister foreign dignitary, obsessing over the information they read in their briefing:

"The King of Zanzibar will be ENRAGED if you use the little spoon to put sugar in your tea."

"The King of Zanzibar will consider it a MORTAL INSULT if you look at him with your left eye."

"The King of Zanzibar will think you are a BLITHERING IDIOT if you wear any clothing that has a zipper."

When the time comes to meet the King of Zanzibar, our diplomats stumble in twitchy, one-eyed, and fumbling with buttons.

"'Sup," says the King of Zanzibar, who is sitting on the couch in a tracksuit drinking a Sprite.

INTERN was going to write a post about how friendly and non-sinister most agents are, but her good friend Bob Dylan (himself a literary agent at B.D. Literary Management, LLC) offered to do it instead. So here's Bob, telling it as it is:

I ain't lookin' to compete with you
Beat or cheat or mistreat you
Simplify you, classify you
Deny, defy or crucify you
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.

No, and I ain't lookin' to fight with you
Frighten you or tighten you
Drag you down or drain you down
Chain you down or bring you down
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.

I ain't lookin' to block you up
Shock or knock or lock you up
Analyze you, categorize you
Finalize you or advertise you
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.

I don't want to straight-face you
Race or chase you, track or trace you
Or disgrace you or displace you
Or define you or confine you
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.

I don't want to meet your kin
Make you spin or do you in
Or select you or dissect you
Or inspect you or reject you
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.

I don't want to fake you out
Take or shake or forsake you out
I ain't lookin' for you to feel like me
See like me or be like me
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.

INTERN: Wow, Bob! Thanks for being so frank about what literary agents really want from authors.

Bob Dylan: No prob, INTERN. *strums guitar*

INTERN: So you're saying all you really want to do is be friends with authors? Lifelong friends with a fruitful relationship built on trust and creativity and lots of wonderful books?

Bob Dylan: That's about right, INTERN.

INTERN: Far out.

Bob Dylan will be available for speed-pitching at BEA, Backspace, and other major literary conferences this summer*.

*neither of which, to INTERN's knowledge, actually feature speed-pitching. Except if you happen to be Bob Dylan.