I'm Getting Vibes

My question of the day: How much should our gut guide us?

Last night I watched election results come in with my laptop on my lap, looking up more agents. You'd think by this time I'd be willing to query any agent who vaguely reps what I write. If their client list sounds impressive, if they are looking for commercial women's fiction, if they like spunky, feisty main characters.... shouldn't I be frantically cutting and pasting and sending? In the words of my mom, "Maybe you shouldn't be too picky."

But I am terribly picky. And not just because I'm trying to fit my book with the agent who looks like they are the best fit, necessarily. A lot of times there is a gut feeling, a vibe I get about whether someone is right or not for me. I can look at a webpage and list of clients, and then see a photo and think, "Oh, we wouldn't be a match." I can see a name and think, "Absolutely!" Sometimes, an interview that gives a peek into their personality turns me off. But mostly, it's just a feeling. Everything about the agent may seem right on the surface, but in the end, I don't type them into my little excel spreadsheet.

Am I cutting off my foot, here? Am I limiting myself? I don't know the answer, but I have to believe that if an agent feels all wrong from the start, he or she is all wrong. And, as I informed my mom when she imparted that little pearl of wisdom about being picky, "A bad agent is worse than no agent."