No, No, a Thousand Times No

The most wonderful query letter in the world is batting 000.000. I have noticed a certain near hysteria mounting in the agent's kiss -off letters. To a man and a woman, they bemoan the current state of publishing and the "market." They profess to have no time to advise you who might look more kindly on your query. Hell, they don't even have time to scrawl their initials. No new clients, cutting back on clients, and then the polite blather about continuing to look elsewhere, maybe somebody, someplace is actually looking for clients.

And yet....the Publisher's Weekly that arrived today was chock full of reviews of first novelists. Some agent somewhere had taken chance on a writer who was new and different. Good reviews, too. Of course Brooke Shields and Jane Fonda and James Patterson are on the best seller list. James Patterson's book pretty well trashed in PW. Have to confess I have never read one of his. Started one once and people were hacking each other up with machetes on the first page, and I can open any newspaper and read about people (usually men for some reason) hacking each other up with machetes or swords and so that was not up my literary alley. Nor are romances. My stuff is anti-romance. Girl never gets boy. Leaves him if she does. Lots of bad choices. Rueful decisions.

Some author flogged a book for ten years before it actually sold and it sold for big bucks, so that is another reason to suck it up. Thought of a good idea for a cookbook. Wonder when I would have time to do a book proposal.

I have a big bag of fruit and vegetable scraps for the cows tomorrow. They huddle together after the psychic shock of two of the herd being sold. The standoffish one even ate out of my hand last week. When I try to scratch their heads they get a wild look in their eyes. But they do like orange peels, lemon peels, even lime and grapefruit peels. It is nice to find a use for something, even a lemon rind.

Now it is time to plant the garden. I go forth joyfully with spade and trowel and one of those plastic things you kneel on. My dad always called it a prayer rug. Gardening is a form of prayer and a great leap of faith that is usually justified. Maybe writing is too. I dunno.

aloha

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