A Cat and A Window

Over at Wyrdsmiths, Eleanor Arnason asked if there were things you, as a writer, feel comforted by or "need" to write. I thought about this question while I avoided writing (cleaned the dining room floor, changed the fish tank's water,) and I decided that what I need to write is a window.

As I noted in the comments, I've worked really hard over the last several years (particularly when I made the switch to becoming a full-time, stay-at-home writer,) to not NEED any talisman to write. I've trained myself to work at any time in any place. That being said, I think there are things that make me work better -- a rainy day, a cat on my lap, tea in my cup, and a window to glance out. The window, I find useful, in particular because when I'm composing I often look away from the screen to organize my thoughts. I think I think better when I get a look into the neighbor's kitchen or to rain drops spattering climbing rose stalks or something at least mildly pleasant (the snow melting, etc., although currently all the snow that's left are those horribly filthy black chunks.)

This is, of course, a luxury -- one provided for me by the fact that I can write at home, near a window. I wrote large chunks of several novels in a basement office cubicle, so, clearly, I don't NEED these things. But when I have them, they make the writing process more pleasant.

How about you?

Why Do You Hate Verbs, Artist?*

Last night I couldn't find the paperback novel I've been reading, so I picked up a book that I'd taken out of the library. It's by someone I consider a colleague and happens to be on the Nebula ballot this year.

I started reading it. Then I threw it down in disgust.

The plot sounds awesome. The prose is beautiful. But there is a distinct lack of verbs.

Why? For the love of God, why, I ask you, do people feel that it's artistic or atmospheric to have sentences (no, technically FRAGMENTS) without verbs? I absolutely hate that stylistic choice.

Though I've had this argument before -- and probably technically lost it the moment books without verbs were published and went on to win Nebulas and such -- I still maintain that writing without verbs is lazy. Yeah, yeah, poetry is built on lovely fragments. But novels aren't meant to be poetry, they're meant to be stories. Stories have action, and action words are verbs.

I'm okay with the occasional fragment, honestly, I am. But six or seven fragments to a page, not so much. (Note clever use of fragment for emphasis here.)

Seriously, as someone who writes first person almost exclusively, I understand the need to establish "voice" and it is true that people think in fragments. However, writing is artificial. Being in your head is too confusing; that is why I read your book. Writing is the process of making story make sense and pulling order from chaos. Part of that deal is providing the structure of sentences, which have a subject and a verb (though one can be implied on occasion -- usually the subject, not the verb.)

What I think bothers me most of all is that somehow this kind of sloppy writing has become a shorthand for "artistic." You drop a few verbs and people are all, "Wow, you're deep and meaningful." Except I suppose, more correctly, they'd simply utter, "Deep. Meaningful." because then there would be no verbs.

Why do you hate the English language so, Artistic Writer? WHY?

AAAAAAARRRRGH!

--- x-posted from Wyrdsmiths

To Do List

I feel much better after my brief bout of food poisioning, thank you. And now that the smoke has cleared, as it were, and Mason's vacation is over, I should probably take a moment to figure out what's on my to-do list.

1. Go over CEM of ALMOST TO DIE FOR, which is due March 16 on my editor's desk.

2. Review and comment on Kelly's proposal (chapters and synopsis) for Wyrdsmiths on Thursday night.

3. Finally make .pdfs of all my recent novels, as requested by my agent, as well as make .pdfs of the promotional postcards and bookmarks for my up-coming releases so I can send them off to the printer.

4. Continue work on "darker" proposal for my editor, who passed on the lighter cow mutlilation mystery (baffling!) to send off to my agent next week.

5. Review and consider whether or not I really have a story in the short bit I started about the space prositute, currently called "Cold Chrome." (Not sure. As previously noted, I'm a horrible short story writer. They actually take a long time for me to write because I'm terrible at figuring out structure for shorter works.)

6. Get started on the sequel to ALMOST TO DIE FOR which is due in four months.

I think that's everything on my plate right now. Luckily, a lot of them aren't super critical. I mean, I can set aside the promotional stuff for a few weeks, but I really do need to get going on both the proposal and the sequel for my editor. Obviously, I'm going to start with the stuff due first -- the copy-edited mss. and the "homework" for Wyrdsmiths.

Boy, when I look at it like this, I have a lot on, don't I?

CEM ALMOST

Of course, today, when I'm sick as a dog, I get the note from my editor's assistant that they're sending along the copy edited manuscript of ALMOST TO DIE FOR, which needs to be back on their desk on March 16.

The problem (and plus) of having so many books coming out in one year is that there's a lot of stuff that needs to get done -- all of it, right now. I spent much of the day in bed, but then, after I saw the note, I had to pull myself out of bed and try to be upright for a while -- at least long enough to download the mss.

Blurg. Pity, party of one!

What I Should Be Doing...

What I should be doing is starting work on either a proposal (of a darker variety) for my editor or beginning the sequel to ALMOST TO DIE FOR. Instead, I've been goofing around on a short story.

Remember how I said that it's a bad idea to write to market? But that I also understand the impulse because I tend to get caught up in anthology descriptions? Well, I was looking for a home for a short story of mine that I wrote some years ago at Ralan.com, and as I often do, I started wandering through their anthology section. I came across a bunch that totally caught my eye and flared up my imagination. One is looking for stories about prostitutes, another wants stories about being the last [fill-in-the-blank] on earth, and yet a third is looking for space opera. So, I said to myself, hey! What about a story about the last gigolo in space??

So I started it, but I'm terrible at short stories.

I think all the things that make me pretty good at writing novels make me fairly awful at short stories. I tend to start with a simple idea and before I know it six or seven threads have spun out. A short story should really focus on one or two, I think, to be successful. (Although, honestly, what would I know?)

I'm about two thousand words into this short story ("Cold Chrome") and it's already spinning out of my control. But I'm going to keep writing on it until I stop having fun... or Monday comes, whichever happens first. (Monday is my deadline to get back on track with all my writing work, as Mason is finally back in school.)

Tonight, I'll be at MarsCON starting at 6:00pm. See all you local folks there!

Getting Desperate

Yesterday, in the middle of the afternoon, I was hit by a craving. Was it for chocolate? No. Was it for Doritos? No. Was it for a trashy novel? No.

All I wanted to do was write.

But, alas, Mason is still off school for another couple of days. And, wouldn't you know it, my usually fairly self-sufficent child had one of those days when he really just wanted to hang with his ima. I held off until late night, and then... had no energy. I wrote a paragraph and then completely pooped out.

Luckily, I still kind of have the itch this morning, and Mason has decided to watch TV. So, without further ado, I'm off to scratch, as it were!

What I Did On Winter Vacation

This is Mason peeking out of the gigantic snow fort we built in our backyard over Mason's winter intersession break. (For those of you just tuning in, my son goes to a year round school, and doesn't have traditional summer vacation, but, instead, gets months off in different times of the year [inclucing summer, just not all three months.])

Garnet in Paperback?

I'm not sure how official this is, but I just heard from my editor that the Garnet Lacey books have been "bought" in-house by Berkley Sensation for release in a mass-market paperback edition. I guess the tentative date for the first book to hit the shelf is December of 2011.

I have no idea if they'll have new cover art or what, but I think this is pretty awesome news. I'm a big fan of the paperback size books, myself, so yay!

Also, I've run out of newbie questions to answer. Anyone out there have any questions you'll like me to answer? The more the better! Otherwise I'm going to have to make some questions up....

A Book Recommendation

A friend of mine is getting a submission package ready for an agent, and it occurs to me that I should share the book recommendation I gave her to everyone:

YOUR NOVEL PROPOSAL: From Creation to Contract by Blythe Camenson and Marshall J. Cook.

Every time I sit down to write a proposal I review this book's chapter six: synopses (which, since much of the other information gets out-of-date quickly, is worth the price of the book). The book gives sample synopses, talks about what needs to be in a synopses, what it's used for, and how to format a synopsis. It's really awesome. It seems to be out of print, but I had no trouble getting a used copy a few years ago when I thought I lost my original.

I liked this book so much, I bought it twice! :-)

Web Site Updated

This hardly constitues breaking news, but I finally found time today to update my web page. There's now an excerpt of HONEYMOON OF THE DEAD available, as well as order information for ALMOST TO DIE FOR and the German edition of TALL, DARK & DEAD.

Newbie Question #22

22. I’m pretty nervous about writing my book and trying to get it published. I guess I don’t have much for self-confidence when it comes to this. Do you have any advice?

Unfortunately, Shelly, I think the one thing aspiring authors need is an abundance of self-confidence. Your belief in yourself and your writing is what is going to get you through those rough rejections that can feel so incredibly personal.

But even if self-confidence doesn’t come easily to you, I think there are things you can do as a writer to help bolster your belief in yourself and your abilities.

1. Always remember that writing is a learning process and, like any craft, it’s going to take time to master. Be in it for the long haul. People like to talk about talent, but I think the idea that some people are born writers (or painters or whatever) is a destructive, hurtful myth. You can learn to be a good writer, and, no matter how long you’ve been writing, you can always improve your craft. Even with nearly twelve published novels under my belt, I’m still learning – and, more importantly, I still stumble and fumble a scene or a character or a bit of plot. That’s why I still go to a bi-monthly writers’ critique group and listen to what my peers have to say when I hand out my chapters. (1 a.) Similarly, you should strive for it, but don’t sweat perfection. You can never write the perfect book for everyone. Someone somewhere is going to bounce off your work. Just write the best book or story you can at this moment, finish it, and send it off. Then go on to the next one with what you learned from the last. (1 b.) Hopefully, you love the learning process as much as I do, because this process should be fun. If possible, it should be one of the main parts of what feeds and drives you forward.

2. Dance on your rejections. Just yesterday I went to a party at a friend’s house where he was celebrating his first official rejection for his novel. As he put it in his invite, he’s now officially “in the game.” This is a healthy attitude, because as the old adage goes “persistence is more important than talent.” (I might not believe in the myth of talent, but I do believe persistence pays off.) I also believe in celebrating every moment of writing. I’d have a party for finishing, party for sending it out, a party for the first rejection, and, of course, a huge blow out if it ever sold.

3. Cultivate supporters. In order to have a party for every step of the way, you need to have people in your life who will show up to toot your horn (and listen to you whine.) Find other writers – on line or in person. Having fan friends or lovers is good for the ego to a certain extent, but only another writer will really understand all the ins and outs of “rejectomancy” (my friend Kelly McCullough’s word for the practice of trying to figure out how close you got to the editor’s desk by overanalyzing obscure clues – the yellow form letter? Blue?) If you’re a romance writer, join RWA. It’s an amazingly supportive organization. If you’re a mystery writer, join Sisters in Crime or Private Eye Writers of America or whatever local group you can find a chapter for. Science fiction writers have SFWA. If you can’t find a writers’ group, find a readers’ group at your local bookstore… or, if you live somewhere too small to support any of that, find a critique group on line. And remember that it goes both ways – you need to support your writer friends too!

4. Write for yourself. It’s tempting, particularly in romance (though I fell into this trap in science fiction too,) to try to “find the market and write to it.” I love to read descriptions of themed anthologies, but every time I sit down and try to write a story aimed at a specific market, I fail. I usually just can’t find that “spark” that keeps me going. Other people’s ideas aren’t mine. If I’m going to write, it needs to be important to me – my stuff, my ideas, my obsessions, my weirdness. If I’m writing about themes that matter to me, or about the things that make my juices flow – well, that first big hurtle of putting my butt in a chair becomes that much easier, you know?

I think if you can cultivate these four things, you’ll go a long way. If nothing else, you’ll be happy doing whatever it is your doing, no matter if you achieve traditional success or not.

Newbie Question #21

21. Do you have any favorite authors? Books?

Do I? OMG, do I.

Even though I'm a very slow reader (dyslexia), I read all the time. Some of the good ones that I finished lately are:

Cherie Priest, BONESHAKER

Neil Asher, GRIDLINKED

Daniel Key Moran, THE LONG RUN

But, beyond that, I'm reading a lot of my local authors too -- my fellow Wyrdsmiths who have books out are Naomi Kritzer, Kelly McCullough, Eleanor Arnason, and Doug Hulick (forthcoming). I could probably go on and on... and maybe over the weekend, I'll compose something a little less off the top of my head of people I'd recommend.

Newbie Question #20

20. What is the hardest part of writing for you? The easiest?

Sometimes the hardest part for me is the actual sitting down to write bit. But, after I've conquered the sheer discipline of making time and space in my life to write, I find plot the hardest.

This is one of those reasons why I tell my students to have some kind of plan before they write -- that's MY problem. If I don't have a plan/plot outline, I would very happily have my characters meander through a sort of endless soap opera. There would be a lot of drama, but no real movement forward, you know?

As I said at a talk I did at the public library on Sunday, I'm pretty good at dividing threads of plot, complicating things, making my character face hardships that require them to consider "what's at stake?" -- but I have a harder time pulling bits back together and tying up all the story lines. If I don't pre-think those aspects of plot, I can get really tangled up.

The easiest part is characters. I'm one of those people who have always shared a large percentage of my brain with imaginary friends. When it was socially acceptable to do so, I roped my friends into playing complicated games with superheroes (and their Barbies) and other kinds of pretend. When it became awkward to ask people to romp in the woods pretending to be knights and princesses, I started keeping those people in my head. There's only so much room in my brain, so they quickly dribbled out onto notebook paper. This is all that practice writing I talked about, but which I sometimes still do as I'm falling asleep at night.

Almost all of my characters have lived in my head for some time (some for years -- I had Sebastian since high school) before they appear on page. I think this is why I sometimes get the comment that my characters seem very three dimensional. They have an entire life already lived before they even become text in a book.

Newbie Question #19

19. Do you typically do a lot of research for your books?

I do... though the process is very different if I'm writing science fiction or if I'm writing fantasy/romance.

Remember earlier how I said that a good writer should be reading stuff all the time? When I'm writing science fiction, those things I've read in the past are often at least partially responsible for the germination of the idea of whatever I'm writing (novel or a short story.) Kind of like unfocused, pre-research. :-)

Science fiction often requires a person to have friends in specialized fields. I actually think that it's very difficult (though some do it very well) to write in your area of expertise. Physicists often make crappy science fiction authors because they know too much about how things really work and they have a hard time breaking outside of what is TRUE, acceptable or fact. Apparently, William Gibson famously wrote his cyberpunk novel NEUROMANCER on a typewriter. Often I think it's best if you know "just enough to be dangerous."

Because out there just beyond what is true, acceptable and fact is where the fun stuff lies. Here there be Dragons....

On the flip side, I think that books (science fiction or fantasy) come alive when you fill them with the bits of arcane knowledge you've gleaned over your lifetime. Like all those mysteries where the heroine is a knitter or a scrap booker or what have you, and your reader gets a glimpse into the life of whatever it is you're into. Because people read for a lot of reasons -- escape, yes, but to experience someone else's life, more, IMHO.

So it really helps make a book have life if you can offer up real bits of things. I once took a gun safety course so I could feel what it was like to shoot a big old gun as a smallish five foot something woman. People always talk about recoil, but I didn't experience it the way I was expecting and so being able to have an actual sense impression of spent casings (particularly smell), etc., I think added an extra dimension to my description. This is also, btw, how you avoid cliches in your writing. Cliches are shorthand for experiences, and if you have something different you can point out about something people have read a thousand times... it breaks through cliche.

Plus, research is fun. Just don't let not knowing stop you from writing. Find someone who knows what you want to know and talk to them, read books by people who have experienced things you want to know about, live a little, and then, make some sh*t up.

Newbie Question #18

18. How long did it take to publish your first book?

It typically takes a year from delivery of the manuscript to my publisher before it hits the shelves ready for you to read.

But, again, I think that's not really the question you're asking. I think what you want to know is how long did it take for me to sell that first book I finished.

Here's some bad news. I never sold the first book I finished. I worked on that novel (Sidhe Promised) for four years. I put it through workshop/critique group; I sent it to a dozen or more agents; I entered it in contests. It never sold.

I still think it's a pretty good book, but it just wasn't the one that broke out. It's in my basement in a file cabinet. Taking the advice of Lois McMaster Bujold who I interviewed at an event at a Barnes & Noble, I started the next book while that one was shopping around. (Her point? It takes a long time for editors and agents to reject you, you might as well do something other than twiddle your thumbs.) So I started writing a science fiction novel I was calling "Dancing on the Head of a Pin" about some angels and a private detective.... it took me about a year and a half to write that one. It later became my first published novel, Archangel Protocol.

The process of what happened once I convinced an agent to represent me is chronicled in my alter ego's FAQ.

Newbie Question #17

17. What should my manuscript look like?

There's a lot of debate about this (much more than you'd expect, and people can get really wound up about it.) HOWEVER, it is my contention that knowing manuscript format *is* the very secret handshake that everyone is looking for.

Science fiction author Vonda N. McIntyre has made you a lovely .pdf in manuscript format that explains manuscript format. People like to argue about this. Do I have to? Courier is ugly! So and so says I can send it however I like on their website. To which my answer is always: suck it up and send it in manuscript format. If nothing else, sending it the "old-fashioned" way shows that you're at least familiar enough with the business of writing to have stumbled across the way everyone used to do it.

The exception being in those rare cases when you're writing for a specific market (I'm thinking of an electronic magazine, like weekly science fiction magazine, Strange Horizons,) which may have it's own rules. In those cases, do what they say.

I confess that I don't much like the way Courier 12 pt, double-space looks either. So I write the book in whatever my current favorite font is (Georgia) -- single space (because it looks more like a book to me, and I just find it more attractive. I've got to stare at it for months, after all). Then, just before I send it in to the publisher I switch over to Courier 12 pt, double-space.

This is one really simple thing you can do to look professional. Why not just do it?

Newbie Question #16

16. Have you ever doubted yourself while writing? If so, how do you get over it?

I doubt myself all the time, just ask the folks in my writers' group. I constantly complain that I don't know what the f**k I'm doing or that my stories suck, etc., etc. I get over my doubt by tapping my support network -- my writers' group and my partner. (Because, if nothing else, my partner will say these magic words: "We need the money." Works for me every time. :-)

But I think this is actually a question about writers' block, which is I think a more delicate and harder question to answer.

There are a lot things about this business that can freak people out to the point that they can't write. Most of the really hard ones, IMHO, come after you publish that first book, but there are a few potential killers early on.

One of the reasons I find writers' critique groups of any kind (in-person or on-line) so vital to a writer's career is because they help prepare you for the first and foremost challenge to your ego, and that is: criticism.

People are going to hate your precious babies your entire career. They just are. (I just stumbled across a rather nasty review of Tall, Dark & Dead just today.) But, before you have the cache of a New York publisher's approval, rejection is even harder to take.

If you can't handle criticism or rejection, surviving as a writer is going to particularly difficult. My advice is to find a writers' group and practice taking those slaps in the face and pulling yourself back up on your feet. It's a skill set you're going to use all the damn time.

The other big one you're going to face is rejection. Publishers (and literary agents) are going to turn you down, early and often. It may take several years and dozens of books before you break in. This is why it's important to love what you do. If you like to write, it's easier to pick up your keyboard after you have that big huge weep fest after the sixteenth rejection for your beloved book comes in the mail (when you were SURE this would be the one).

My advice is to practice this attitude: "OMG,I suck; Damn, I'm a genius!" Seriously, I think you have to be a bit unstable to be a good writer. You have to be able to accept that you suck (so you can LISTEN to critique and learn from it), while simultaneously believing you are the best writer who ever lived (so you can get the morning after a crushing critique/rejection and write once again).

The other things that I, personally, found nearly crippling is the stuff that happens after you publish. The first negative review hurts. There will be one and it will feel horrible. You'll believe every word (when, ironically, you didn't believe a word of the praise in the positive reviews.) If you're me, you'll memorize the meanest thing the reviewer wrote and be unable to forget it. Ever. Ask me if we ever meet. I can still give it to you verbatim.

The other thing is what I call "second book-itis" or pysch out. After the adrenaline rush has coursed through your veins after the sale of that first novel, you suddenly realize you're contracted for another book THAT PEOPLE ARE ACTUALLY GOING TO READ. If you're like most authors, you probably lived with that first novel for years before anyone bought it. You had lots of time to massage it and make it the best novel you possibly could. Usually, too, the publisher has contracted you for another book -- either a sequel or something else. Either way, you're sitting down to write that next book (usually before the first one has come out) and, if you're me, you're absolutely frozen by the idea that it could really, really SUCK and kill your career before it's even started.

That one is the hardest one for me. I don't have any good advice except to say that you'll just have to push through. I tend to get over the "OMG people are going to read this" thing (which I often still get) the same way a lot of actors get over stage fright. I lie to myself. I tell myself that no one is going to read the book but me and maybe my editor. I trick myself into believing this by writing most of my book in something other than manuscript format and in a file named something like "New stuff."

I'm sure there are other reasons people get hit with writers' block, but these are the ones I've dealt with. What about the rest of you out there? What freezes your brain?

Newbie Question #15

Does this process ever get easier?

Parts of it do, but on the whole, not really, no.

For me, every book is a new learning process. I never really have seemed to settled on "how to write a book." And, there's always some point at which I have an ah-ha moment that you'd think I'd have learned years ago.

BUT, that being said, there are a lot of things that do get easier. For instance, I no longer blink at the idea of writing 2,000 words in a day. Sitting down and getting started isn't the chore that it used to be (of course part of that may be because it's my job now in a way that it wasn't before, but I do find that a blank page no longer fills me with a low-grade terror.) I'm not scared I'm going to write myself into a corner. I trust my characters, my instinct, my story-telling, my audience.

One of the most helpful things about writing that I ever read was this idea of "killing your Muse." Stephen King wrote in his book On Writing that if you sit down to write every day at the same time, your Muse will find you. And you know what? He's right. For me, it doesn't have to be the same time of day any more (thank Goddess), but it does have to be every day.

My friend and fellow writer, Naomi Kritzer, and I have talked about the fact that if you get out of the habit of writing something every day, even as professional writers, it can be very hard to start up again.

When I first started writing, I set myself a very minor word count goal. I told myself I needed to write at least 425 words every day. I don't know where I pulled that number from, but it used to sit on my desk. I didn't always make it, life being what it is (and I had a full-time job then). But it was a good discipline to shoot for that. The more words on page, the more progress made.

Also, it helps to know that some days are just hard... for everyone. I interviewed Neil Gaiman for Science Fiction Chronicle several years ago, and one of the things he said that really stuck with me is that he had days when writing was really difficult, but when he looked back at the words he couldn't tell which were the hard ones to write and which flowed like honey from his fingertips. Words are words and words on page are progress forward.

So, no, things don't necessarily get easier, but writing every day helps.

Newbie Question #14

14. How & why did you become a writer

“Why” is a lot easier to answer: I became a writer because I write, which is to say that there’s a pretty high percentage that I’d be writing stories right now even if I had never sold that first professional piece (or, god forbid, never sold another one again.)

Hopefully, that’s the reason you’re a writer too. Because if you’re in it for the fame, the glory, or the wads of cash you imagine you’ll be getting, you’re going to be wildly disappointed. I mean WILDLY.

Writing is a job. It’s a really hard job to get, and it’s an even harder job to keep. If you love doing it for its own sake, well, at least no one can take that from you, you know? Just the other day, I was hanging out with some writer friends at a coffee shop where we’d all gathered to work together, and we were all engrossed in our writing. Every once and a while one of us would pop up and excitedly share some clever or funny line she’d written, and I thought, “damn, but this is the life.” I’m a writer because I love writing. The act of writing can make me really happy. I amuse the piss out of myself. In the book I’m working on now, I’ve written so many scenes where I think, “Wow, that is _so_ just for me.” That might not seem the best attitude when you’re trying to sell commercially, but I think, actually, it’s quite healthy. Because at the end of the day, you’re writing for yourself. If you can’t take pleasure in your own words, what the hell is it for, anyway?

“How” I became a writer has two parts. I started writing in middle school when I was also, not surprisingly, devouring books by the shelf-full. I got particularly into one series by and author (Katherine Kurtz's DERYNI boosk) who was publishing at the usual timetable of a book a year. I just couldn’t wait. I started making up what I was going to happen to my favorite character in-between books. This is what’s called “fanfic,” but I grew up before the age of the Internet so no one ever saw what I wrote but me and the zillions of notebooks I filled.

I did this also with Anne McCaffery's DRAGONRIDER series. So I did a lot of what you could call practice writing. I used someone else's well developed characters and world, and practiced dialogue and scene setting and plotting (although at first most of my stories were very soap opera-like). This writing was pretty dreadful. BUT it was a good start at learning the craft of writing.

I did this sort of practice on-and-off throughout my life until sometime after college, when it occurred to me that a person could take a class in writing science fiction and fantasy. (By this point, I should note, I'd mostly begun trying out original characters/stories.) I've chronicled what happened after that on the FAQ page of my alter ego's website.

Newbie Question #13

13. Will an agent expect me to sign a contract? Should I sign one?

You know, honestly, I don't really know. I know that I requested and signed a contract with my first agent, and I didn't with my second.

This is also one of those questions that may be different depending on the genre you write in. There seem to be to be a lot more "handshake contracts" in science fiction/fantasy, though I'm not saying this is necessarily a better thing.

A contract with your agent is, however, very likely a GOOD THING. It's wise to have certain things spelled out in black and white, particularly if you've never entered into this kind of relationship before. It's good to know, for instance, under what conditions you can terminate your relationship with your agent (and visa versa.)

I think just as critical is to have a conversation in which you discuss beforehand what sorts of things your agent will and won't do for you. Will they share rejections? Will they give editorial advice? How often can you expect to hear from them?

Those things won't be spelled out in a contract, but they're good to know for your own sanity.