"The Selectivity That The Market Demands"

Saturday and Sunday I scrounged up three more literary agents to query. Two were just agents who handle mysteries, which is to say I couldn't find out enough about them to write a "personal" letter. The third received something better than the standard query letter, because I actually knew something about him. Whether this will pay any dividends or not, I can't say. So far, it hasn't. Keep reading.

Today's mail had a reply, if you want to call it that, from a query to an agent I sent out a couple weeks ago, a nice personal letter that had required a lot of research. What was the response? Not even a signature. Not one word. Just a printed note enclosed.
"Thank you for the query to the "Tell Everyone to Fuck Off Literary Agency."
Due to the current status of the publishing industry -- and the selectivity that the market now demands, we regret that we cannot consider your material at this time. Bet of luck placing your work elsewhere."

The "selectivity that the market demands." Well, I guess that's the key phrase. Lately, I have read some pretty mediocre stuff. My nightstand is littered with books that I got 70 pages into and put down. Sometimes I finish reading, sometimes I don't. Makes one wonder about "the selectivity that the market demands."

The thing is, if no one will read the damn manuscript how can they know whether it meets that selectivity? This was a big problem with The Shadow Warriors, and I'm starting to believe that no one wants to read computer crime in fiction, even if it just frames the story, not a whiff of it, never mind you can't pick up a newspaper or magazine without some mention of everyone's records getting hacked into or viruses, worms and Trojan horses. Maybe what sells is sex on the internet or identity theft (had mine stolen again) but that is so old hat. A lot of literary agents are technophones and Luddites, which doesn't help.

Two of my war stories. 1) went to a mystery writing conference and signed up for one of these sessions where you pitch to the agent. Got a wake up call when said agent spoke on a panel and professed major ignorance of technology. When I talked to him, he was very nice and said he had been exaggerating yada yada and please send the whole manuscript--he would like to take a look at it. Said he was very busy and please be patient. I sent the book in and waited. Waited some more. Twenty-two (22) months later I am still waiting, emails and phone calls unanswered. How patient is very patient?
2) Went to another mystery writing conference (remember, the name of this blog is suck it up) and had another pitch session. Got about three sentence in and the agent (also very nice) said, "I find computers boring and I think other people do, too." End of pitch. Jesus.
O.K., the third and last story. Get out the violins. Pour some wine. Grab your handkerchief. Years ago, with my first never published book, I went to another writing conference and had a session with a moderately well-known author who had read my stuff. He said, "this is the best thing of all the work I have read for this conference . You won't have any problem getting this book published."

Well, guess what?

Suck it up.

I should feel better after a good rant, but I don't. I'll work on my new book which no one will ever read either. After all, a writer writes.

Salmon Croquettes better than Mom's

Here is the recipe:

• 15 ounce can of salmon. Buy the expensive stuff or use leftover grilled salmon.
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 T. fresh lemon juice (you wouldn't use bottled, would you? Ick!)
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/4 t. ground black pepper (freshly ground)
• 1 T. cream or milk
• 1 T. fresh parsley, finely chopped
• a sprinkling of regular bread crumbs , about 1 tablespoon
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon curry powder depending on your liking of curry
• Panko crumbs (Japanese bread crumbs ) for coating
• 1/4 cup canola oil for frying

Mash the drained salmon in a bowl. Add chopped onion, lemon juice, egg, pepper , parsley, curry powder, cream and bread crumbs.

Mix well and gently. Form into six croquettes (patties).

Press the patties into the Panko crumbs, making sure crumbs adhere to both sides.

Heat oil in skillet over medium heat. Fry croquettes on one side until nicely browned, then turn and fry on other side. Serves 3 - 4 depending how hungry everyone is.

I like to serve the croquettes on a bed of steamed baby spinach with a few small boiled potatoes on the side. This menu tastes even better with a nice white Zinfandel.

Does an email post actually work?

Stay tuned for salmon croquettes recipe, the kind served years ago in diners in the northeast. Only better.

I am totally psyched that I can create a blog entry via email. This is so cool.

Cleaning off my desk top, I found a note: "Mangler Vanilla Fun House Goldstar" What the hell is this? Little light bulb in brain turns on. Ah! Prospective hacker names for my in process book. Picked "Mangler". If anyone can contribute a good hacker name that has no particular gender, and I use it, you will get a mention in the credits at the beginning of the book.

Must do tasks for the rest of the day:

• feed the Scottish highland cattle
• write to 2-3 more agents
• sort tax stuff and prepare for accountant
• make Vietnamese shrimp and vegetables
• finish cleaning off desk

Onward

Grapeshot

Photos of Tsunami Relief Effort

The photographs detail the tsunami relief effort experience.

http://projects.mindtel.com/2005/01.tsunami-relief/warner/

http://projects.mindtel.com/2005/01.tsunami-relief/warner/BandaAceh2.html

http://projects.mindtel.com/2005/01.tsunami-relief/

The photographer writes: Feel free to share these images. It is good for folks to see these. They help understand...doing good and doing it well

My friends the Scottish Highland Cattle

Before we left for Montreal, we drove by the pasture to drop off all the fruit and vegetable scraps. Jewel, last year's calf, saw me get out of the car and uttered a bleat of recognition. She bleated again and came running toward me. The rest of the little herd followed, except the one who keeps to herself. Big mystery there.
Jewell wasn't so keen on the cabbage, but she really liked the orange skins and the lettuce. She let me feed her by hand for the first time ever. I'm a new friend.

The bull has been better behaved the past few visits, and lets the others eat, too. Not such a bully. How long will it take to understand cow culture? It's taken a lifetime to grasp all the little eccentricities of cat behavior, and I'm still learning.

Maybe a new calf will join the herd something this spring. Last year Jewel was born in a late March snowstorm, and for days the herd clustered around her, I guess to keep her warm.

Back to work, as yet another snowstorm threatens. Would that it brings a new calf!

Old myths die hard

Myth #1: "Up north" they know how to drive in snow and bad weather.
Myth #2: "Up north" they know how to keep the roads free of snow and ice.

Kids, we drove back from Montreal on Monday and the worst drivers (saw about 20 on them in the ditch) had license plates from "Up North." They can't drive in bad weather for nothin.' The first roads bare to the pavement were those in good ole Massachusetts. Half the roads between here and there didn't look like they'd ever seen a salt truck or a plow.

How was Montreal? Cool. And cold. Butt-chilling below zero. After some false starts, we discovered the underground city and hardly ever had to go out again. Being 1/4 French Canadian, I always feel a little nostalgic about French Canada. They know how to live. We stayed in a hotel with lots of families with beaucoup little kids and everyone was behaving himself and herself so nicely. We swam outdoors in the below zero weather in a heated pool. Really cool. Loved the Museum of Modern Art. Loved the French meal Saturday night, loved the old city, loved the way lots of people spoke Franglish. I'll post a picture or two when I can wrest them from Significant Other's computer. He won't release a picture until it's photoshopped to the nth degree. New verb. To photoshop.

Sunday afternoon we decided to do some walking and museum going and this fashion-screwup spurned her comfortable yet stylish walking shoes for workout shoes, you know the kind, big, white, ugly sneakers. Mon Dieu! Quelle embarassment! I was the only person in downtown Montreal with white shoes, the ugly American to the max. And I laugh at the tourists on Newbury street who don't know any better. The only thing worse would have been the weird pale gray or tan shoes that were popular in Europe among the geriatric set a few years ago. They are perfect when your ankles start falling down around your feet, and you sole focus is on comfort. Fashion goes out the door, way out the door. I am resolved never to do this again anywhere in the entire world or outer space.

No news from agents and/or editors. Need to send out more letters. Need to get going on current book. Need to finish short story. Need to write.

Alors, then.

Grapeshot

Two rejections and one acceptance

Heard from two more agents. One, I realized after some some research was not the right agent, and yes, she wrote and told me just that. 2nd one I sent a nice personal letter to, and he wrote a nice personal letter back saying he was too busy. That translates as "if your project excited me, I would not be too busy." A nice personal letter counts for something. I wrote another nice personal letter, and have 8 more people to hear from. 15 rejections to date. The Shadow Warriors garnished 50 before a little internet publisher accepted. The acceptance was a poem on the Burning Man web site. "I went to Nevada," a very personal poem written from the point of view of someone I really dislike, so this is interesting.

What else? Worked on the ending of World of Mirrors. By now it's been sent through the writing group twice, and I am rather fond of it, because it has emotional truth about the reuniting of the Germanies and craziness and all that good stuff. The writing group still likes the Wisconsin book best, but it needs more polishing.

And still: a scary story about a guy who went to work for Google and started a blog with some of his thoughts and a short time later was out on his ass. So don't expect me to blog my company. Corporate America is a disfunctional schizoid place nowadays, and I wouldn't write about it except in fiction. The Wisconsin book is a tell all about a very bad project, but I don't work for them anymore. I moved things around a lot, and the disguise is deep.

The Highland Cattle hang out in the snow and I take fruit and vegetable scraps to them. Biggest hits are lettuce and clementine peels. Go figure. Potatoes were shunned, and onions aren't real popular. I want to crawl through the fence and hug those calves, which would be about as stupid as blogging one's employer.

So now it's off to Montreal for a few days in a cold climate with lots of food, wine, shopping, art, music, lights and relaxation, not necessarily in that order. Report on Montreal when I return.

Garden Variety Cat Blog. Thisbe, who likes the high ground, a good brushing and sleeps on the bed every night.  

Jewel, the Highland Scottish Calf and one of the herd. Jewel saw the light of day in a snowstorm last march. Now she has small horns but is still enjoying her calfhood with bleats and her younger cousin.  

Tales from the Playa

Link to a "Burning Man" poem. Surely, you know who, what and where Burning Man is? No, follow this link.

http://www.burningman.com/blackrockcity_yearround/tales/

Grapeshot with windy hair  

Back and Alive

A tsunami survivor's tale: forwarded by my son

..... back and alive.... Sitting around, day after Christmas, just staring at the TV –some movie we’ve seen before. Mid-morning, post-breakfast stupor controlling Karin andme. The power flickers and we moan. We ’ll have to get up and dosomething? Then we hear some yelling outside. I look out the front door, still puffed up with pride about our new house,just 400 feet back from the beach. People are running up our streetyelling. It looks like a fire at the large two story resort thateffectively blocks our view of the beach. Smoke and dust coming up and allthese people. Then a small line of really brown water comes rolling towards us. That ’sweird. But I reckon it must be some strange full moon high tide. So we goupstairs so we don ’t get wet. I look out the window and try and take some pictures. There is a quietrumble to it, like those white noise generators that are supposed to helpyou sleep. The water is getting higher and higher and then it destroys ourfriends cement bungalow! Then our front door caves in, and then water iscoming up the stairs! HOLY SHIT. This was the last point my brain workedfor a long time. We try and throw a mattress out the window to float on, but the water isrising too fast, and out the window we climb. It ’s all going so fast. It’s faster than conscious thought and by the time we are on our secondstory roof, the water is coming out the window. We jump. Karin doesn ’t jump at the same time or did I jump too early? We ’reseparated. I scream her name, but the crashing roiling water mutes me. Ican ’t hear her. I scream and scream until I get hit by something andpulled under. I can ’t swim to the top, I pull myself through trash andwood to the surface and off I go. Ahead are trees wrapped in flotsam and as I look a Thai guy is strugglingto get free of it, as I pass by at 30 MPH I realize he is impaled on apiece of wood and can ’t even scream. My brain shut down when Karin disappeared, and now all I can do issurvive. Something triggers and I swim. I swim to avoid the trees whichwill trap me, possibly kill me. It seems that I am atop the crest of thetsunami, which is less like a wave than a flood. From on high I can see the water hit buildings, then rise, then watch thebuildings collapse into piles of concrete and rebar. I swim to avoidthese. Left and right I paddle, looking ahead the whole time trying tofigure the hazards. None of this is conscious, this isn ’t me thinking itout, it ’s some recessed part of the brain coming out and taking control. I was busy seeing the weird things, like massive diesel trucks beingrolled end over end. Or the car launched through the 2nd storey wall of aformer luggage shop. Or the person high up in a standing tree in a luridorange thong. Or the older foreigner that got stuck in the wood and steelwrapped around a tree, and then his body torn off while his head remained.I couldn ’t scream. I was pulled under, my pants caught on something, I decided that this wasneither the place nor time for me to die, and ripped my pants off. Isurfaced into a hunk of wood which cut my forehead. A 5 gallon water bottle sped by, and I wrapped myself around it like ahorny German Shepard on a Chihuahua. I was passing people with bleedingfaces and caked in refuse. Some people reached out to me, and I back, butthe water was too fast and erratic. Some people screamed for help and Itold them to swim. Some people just stared with empty eyes, watching whathappened, but seeing nothing. Some were just floating bodies. At some point, I passed a guy, cut on his cheek, holding onto big piece offoam. We just made eye contact and shrugged apathetically at each other.Then I turned ahead to watch fate. When I looked back he was gone. Trees were pulled down, and their flotsam added to the flow. I was hit bya refrigerator and pushed towards a building that was collapsing. I swamand swam and swam and swam and still was pushed right towards a huge clumpof jagged sticks and metal. I was pulled under, kicked towards the mass,cut my feet and kicked again. I popped up on the other side, spun aroundand pulled under again. Down there, I knew it was not the time, and I pulled my way up through thefloating rubbish of my former town. I pulled and pulled and my lungs achedfor air. I flashed on Star Wars, the trash compactor scene, and had somebig grin in the back of head as I popped up. Sucking shitty water and airdeep in my lungs. This went on for weeks. Time simply left the area alone. I grabbed theedge of a mattress and floated. Breathing, just breathing. Awarenessbrought back by the sound and look of a water fall. Trying to push up ontothe mattress more and more, and it took my weight less and less. Tumblingover the edge, sucked under again, and out I shot, swirled into a coconutgrove, where the water seemed to have stopped. There was even a dyke likewall around the grove. The water spun and churned, but went no where, and got no higher. It wasn’t swimming, or climbing, but something in between. I made my way to theland. Every step had to be careful with broken glass everywhere, and sheetmetal poking out. It was a long slow struggle. The low rumble had stopped, and now is the occasional creak of wood onwood and metal scraping. Moans came across the new brown lake. A small boywas in a tree crying, asking for his parents in Norwegian. I climbed up onto the dyke and looked around. I screamed out for Karin,only getting responses in Thai. I stood there, panting, trying to find athought, anything. As I came back to earth I needed to pee. The firstthing I did after surviving the tsunami was piss! Along limps an olderThai guy, finds me, naked atop a dyke amid the destruction, covered in mudand filth –pissing. He didn ’t even smile …nor did I. I spent the next minutes running from high point to high point screamingout for Karin. If I made it, she could too. There was no response fromher. I found plenty of other people, and helped who I could, but alwayslooking across this vast area of new lakes for her head. Through the trees was a PT boat, a large steel police cruiser. The boatand I had been brought more than a kilometer (2/3 mile) inland. I was standing near a tree, hoping for a clue, anything to say she was outthere somewhere. A small boy in a tree whimpered, and I pulled him down.We went inland. There were houses, still standing, a whole neighborhoodatop a rise that was untouched. Just feet away were cars wrapped aroundtrees. I handed them the boy. I had finished my medic training exactly one month before, so I went towork. Pulling people out of mud, from under houses. One car, uprightagainst the trunk of a tree still had the driver. He was dead. It went on.Before this I had only seen a dead body once or twice. That was remediedvery quickly. I pulled people out of the water, only to have them chokeand die right there. I would take someone ’s pulse, scream for help, thenfind that they had died before we could do anything. It was beyond anynightmare or fear I have ever had. An older Thai woman came up to me with a pair of shorts and averted eyes.She was ashamed that I was totally naked. I smirked and slipped them on.She smiled and scurried away. Was it the bright white ass or the fearshriveled cock that had embarrassed her? Roaming the former streets looking for foreigners to send to the higherground, a place where we could all meet and tend to wounds. After an hourthe Thais came screaming out of the mud saying there was another wavecoming , and flying into the hills. We were left alone. Those that couldwalk did, the rest were carried. We made a new base, higher and safer. Andthe same thing happened again. And again. Eventually we ended up in the jungle at a park, where there was water andhigh ground. It was messy. Eventually there were about 300 foreigners,about 120 of whom were injured pretty severely with broken limbs and ribs,near-drownings, everyone had gashes of some kind, severed fingers or toesand shock everywhere. There was no medicine, no tools, no scissors, no bandages. Nothing butwell water (of questionable cleanliness) and some sticks and clothes. Itried to find anyone medically trained. It was only the diving instructorswho all had basic first aid. So we cleaned with the water, we broke sticksand set bones and talked people into a relatively calm place. If someonewas severely cut, we used their own clothing to mend the wounds. It was ahorror story. The floor was covered in blood, people were moaning, orvomiting or asking us to help them. And more arrived with every new waveof cars and trucks fleeing the “next wave ”. After hours of this, we got news of helicopters evacuating the injured. Soeveryone rushed towards the trucks. I had to scream and push and pullpeople out of the way. The ones who needed the evac the most were the oneswho couldn ’t get to the trucks. After twenty minutes of sorting throughthe priorities, and feeling like we had a handle on it, someone brought meto a girl who was bleeding severely out of her thigh and was in shock. Noone had brought her to our little clinic area, they had left her in theback of truck. Finally, after a few helicopters had pulled out the worst, I headed backdown. Through rubber tree plantations, and coconut groves we drove. It seemedquiet and relaxed. At the last corner it was devastation. The road wasclear and dry up to a certain point and then it was a horizon of rubble. Ishuddered. Someone on a scooter came up and asked for a doctor. Everyone looked atme! I jumped on and they took me up roads I never knew existed, and overbridges that were barely standing until I was brought to five foreignersin the middle of nowhere. One of them was a good friend and divinginstructor. It was the first person I had seen that I knew. It was a totaljoy. He was banged up pretty bad, but he got out and sent off to thehospital. Then the Thais came roaring up the hill, saying there wasanother wave. We had to carry four more people with broken bones(including a broken hip) up a hill. There was no wave. There never was. I stumbled back down, wandering through the town looking for people tohelp. I found only bodies. I found one with a tattoo like Karin ’s on ascooter under some rubble. I pulled her out, and it was a Thai woman.Still griping her scooter, mouth agape. Eventually I made my way back to the dive shop I worked at. We had alwayswhinged about how it was too far off the main road, but it survived. Itwas a center for the survivors. I walked up to find friends alive andthings clean and organized. I had been able to keep on, doing what I could to help people, to closeout my mind to what was around me and look only at what I was doing, tonot see the dead people, to not worry about where Karin was. I had heldtogether so well. When I found out Karin was alive it all fell apart. I could smell thedestruction, the horror I had just walked through, just lived through,that she had lived through. My body shouted out all the bruises and cuts Ihad ignored. It all struck me and threw me to the ground. It was too much–I could no longer accept this. We hugged and ate and slept. My feet were cut up, I had small cuts allover my body, and a sinus infection from all the bad water. Karin had gotten hold of a coconut tree, wrapped herself around it andnever let go. She had a few bruises and small cuts and a black eye. I wasecstatic to see her like that. First time I ’ve been happy to see a womanwith a black eye. Most of the rest of our friends had come through. They had set up firstaid stations and help stations, organized food and created a center forpeople to meet. The diving community came together and became our support,our medical care, our food - they did everything they could to help andthen some. I can ’t help but give massive appreciation and even a bit of awe toseveral people. Whether you know them or not, these are the true heroes.Keith –he was tireless - for days, running around, getting medicine, doingfirst aid, cooking food, getting clothes, talking to the forlorn,coordinating doing everything he could. His energy was endless and bright.Jim and Andrea opened the doors of their shop, and clothed and housedeveryone they could. Joakim ran about grabbing people, helping wherever hecould, evacuating people to the next town, the whole while wondering aboutthe safety of his own family. And the two DMT ’s that helped me out –twoguys who had just taken a first aid class and then had to deal withmassive trauma, death and chaos. And all the others –this was not the workof just one or two people. Of course the diving community at large shined like a beacon over themadness. When there was no one else, they all stepped forward. I can ’thelp but swell with pride to count myself among them. The next day I went back to where my house had been and surveyed thedamage. One bungalow nearby had been lifted up and dropped on top ofanother. The whole beach was visible, meaning all of the two or threestory hotels that had lined it were gone. There was a jet ski just nearour house. The bottom floor of our house was gone, the upper floor wasmissing a couple of walls. The only thing left, was a plastic Jesus doll Ihad bought as a joke. So I was left with nothing in the world except my own plastic Jesus. The level of destruction is virtually impossible to describe. On our beachwe had approx. 2500 hotel rooms. It looked to me, that maybe 50 couldstill be called hotel rooms. The week between Christmas and New Year ’s isthe busiest of the week. Without warning, without an evacuation plan thesurvival rates were minimal. The wave at our house was about 7 meters high(20 feet) and in some places it was 10 meters (30 feet) high. It wiped outthe third floor of most resorts. The number of dead is astronomical,several thousand on my beach alone. By the second day you could smell it,and in the short walk to my former house, we passed about 10 bodies juststrewn about. Our final glance of the town was a cattle truck stacked full of wrapped upcorpses. We wanted to go home. In Bangkok most people got help pretty quick. The Swedes, Germans andEnglish had charted flights for their citizens to get home. The Thaigovernment gave free hotel rooms to survivors and there were lists ofplaces to get food. EXCEPT the Americans. I went in to find out what help I could get –I wasable to get a replacement passport, a toothbrush and a paperback book.They said it was not their policy to arrange flights home. I was cut up,still covered in a pretty good layer of mud, I had no home, no money, noclothing (except some borrowed off Keith) nothing at all, and they coulddo nothing to help. They did offer to let me borrow money, but they would have to find threepeople in America who would vouch for me, and that process should takeless than a week. In the mean time I was fucked. I was destitute andrejected by the embassy. Karin was with me (she ’s Swedish) and said thatI could still try and emigrate to Sweden. I was VERY tempted. In these last days, watching politicians go on about helping and givingaide, but they won ’t even take care of their own citizens? I am very,very angry. All the other nations of the world were taking care of theirown citizens! Eventually I got a flight home with JAL –that would be JAPANairlines –not even an American company, but a JAPANESE company helped meget home. I am still listed as neither found nor alive. Before I left I had spokento the embassy twice on the phone, giving my name so I would be listed asalive so my family would not worry. I went to the embassy twice, once toget a passport to replace the one lost in the tsunami, and they neverlisted me as alive or found. I flew out of the country using said passportand am still not found. I went to the hospital three times, and, as ofyesterday I am now listed as injured (having been in the states three daysalready). My family is now waiting to see how long it will take beforethey are notified about my status. So am I. It does raise a good question –if I am missing or dead, do I have to paytaxes? While spiteful about the embassy, I am grateful to be alive, and thatthose I care about are still alive. I still look around and am in awe atwhat just happened. I really feel like someone has slipped me some roofiesand I woke up in America. No real moral to this story …yet. While I am fairly devoid of cash right now,
Most of our community, while surviving, lost everything. This is agreat site with some news of the area and those affected. My story is just one, there and 100,000 ’s more far worse off –I hadsomewhere to fly to. Donations should be sent to good charities, ones thattruly help. Doctors Without borders www.doctorswithoutborders.org and the Thailand Red Crosswww.redcross.or.th/english/.../index.php4 were both there fast and helpingout immensely. I can ’t speak, or even dream of what it must be like inSri Lanka and Indonesia. Breathe … =====

AOL Journal Refugee

In June I started an AOL Journal about my trials and tribulations trying to get a novel published. I called it Publish or Perish and in 8 months I had about 300 hits (maybe). Recently the light dawned that my journal was kind of edgy and even had the occasional swear word and everyone else was writing touchy-feely stuff that, while it didn't exactly trigger my gag reflex, it was, well, touchy-feely, while I felt gritty and existential. So, I'm off to blog here, and we'll see what happens. I changed the name from Publish or Perish to Suck It Up, because that more accurately portrays what life in the pre-published lane is like.

When I'm not caterwauling about publishers and editors and agents and THE UNFAIRNESS OF IT ALL, I talk about my life in suburban Boston and the Scottish Highland Cattle that live down the street and whatever else strikes my fancy. Another thing about AOL was I would have felt kind of weird discussing politics or whatever, and so this little birdy is ready to fly.

Aloha