I wanted to root for Kansas City, because I know my grandpa, a onetime
manager of the Kansas Wheat League, would have loved to see Kansas City win. My oldest son is also for KC, having gone to college in Missouri. But the Giants
kept pulling me toward them. Being of a (sometimes unfortunately)
analytical mind, I had to figure out why.
In 2010 I traveled to San Francisco to attend Bouchercon, which is the
be-all, end-all of mystery conferences. I didn't have a book out and
didn't ask to be on a panel or ask a bookseller to flog my old novel,
but I was hoping to have fun and meet some folks, network and eat,
breathe and sleep crime fiction for a few days.
We didn't stay at the conference hotel, but parked ourselves across
town at the Seal Rock Inn, a funky place where Hunter Thompson
wrote one of his books. The rooms are big, the parking is free, the restaurant serves a mean breakfast and
down the hill sits the historic Cliff House for drinking and dining.
I went to a great pre-conference workshop and I'm still digging out
Elizabeth Lyons' advice whenever I begin to write something. Next
came the Noir Evening somewhere in North Beach with the Ramshackle Romeos
providing the music. Famous and near-famous writers read noir passages, and it was so
cool except for my excruciating jet lag that had me dozing off at nine p.m.
A first-ever trip to City Lights Bookstore, long a dream of mine came to
pass. We ate at The Stinking Rose, a garlic lover's paradise.
But the confernece? Disappointing and kind of blah. I would see someone I knew across the
huge room, wave, and never see that person again. I met no one. Hardly
talked to anyone. All the so-called mid-list writers were courting the
a-list writers, and well, I suppose I was a no-list writer, or a
low-list writer. Low, as in lower than whale shit. The same conference in
Chicago had been friendly and fun. This was neither. And there was the
one-hour bus ride across town every morning. Was the ghost of Hunter
Thompson traveling along making snide remarks about my writing? Chastising me for wanting to be part of things? That's how it felt. Alienation was my constant companion. Sometimes one just has to suck it up.
The Spanish Civil War Lincoln Brigade Monument in the neighborhood of the conference hotel was unexpected. And moving. Only in San Francisco. The city itself was splendid. No complaints about SF.
Then, like the surf crashing into the Seal Rocks, a huge feeling of relief washed over me
when Bouchercon was over. We spent a day or so sightseeing, and ended
up in the late afternoon in the bar of the Cliff House, watching the
Giants play. Everyone was friendly, just what I had been missing. We focused on the game. The food
rocked, the drinks rolled and for the first time all week I was enjoying myself. Loved every minute. Go Giants! And they did win everything including their first world series since moving to the West Coast in 1958.
Bouchercon is in California again, but I'm not going. Been there. Done that. But I
rooted for the Giants again this year, recalling the happy confines of the
Cliff House bar and the excitement and camaraderie and cheering. Sometimes a trip takes an unexpected turn. And sometimes you have to face the fact that you are a minnow in a big lake and that the muskies and the catfish and the pike will swim on by. Observing the feeding frenzy is not always a bad thing.
Showing posts with label Sucking It Up. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sucking It Up. Show all posts
Saturday, November 01, 2014
Monday, April 12, 2010
A six percent chance and the definition of insanity
My entry to a contest for a spot in an anthology has a six percent (6 %) chance of winning. That is actually better than the odds of being published as a novelist.
At the end of the month, I travel to the Big Apple from Beantown for Edgar's Week. This year I'll be pushing my suspense novel (hopefully finished by then), the last of my crime fiction writing. It's been an interesting eighteen (18) years. This last book wasn't supposed to be, as I had intended to write my Southern California in the late twenties novel, but the damn character came to me, sat on my shoulder and started telling her story. Of course, she didn't tell all of it, and I had to fill in a lot of blanks. I have no feeling for how good it is. My writing group has gone from enthusiasm to neutrality, shall we say. Significant Other like my earlier novels, but is not all that enthusiastic about this one. Actually, he liked Promiscuous Mode and the Shadow Warriors.
I don't know why I stuck with crime fiction for so long. Some time ago I realized that the parts of my novels I enjoyed writing most were not the cop scenes, the action scenes or the crime scenes, but more the stuff of everyday life. By then I had so much energy tied up in Mystery and Suspense that I kept at it.
"They" say the definition of insanity is to keep repeating the same act, expecting different results. That's me and my so-called writing career. So onward, to finish In Flight and then to Such Stuff As Dreams.
I have some short stories to write, and a decision to make about the last crime fiction story I had to truncate to keep the word count down to the contest level. I spent 3 weeks cutting words. Should I write the story to its "proper" length? Dunno. Looking forward to penning the short stories, some of which are about animals.
Speaking of which, we have a huge red-shouldered hawk in the woods by the slough, stalking the birds. I shudder for my poor little terrorized gold-finches, titmice and chickadees, to say nothing of the doves, the robins and the sparrows! And all the other feathered friends. I know. I know. Hawks gotta eat, but they can go to another yard, and not treat ours as a smorgasbord table.
Loved watching the Masters this week and am still so happy that Phil Mickelson won. And how about them Red Sox? Now if Big Papi could just hit a few out of the park. One can waste so much time watching sports. Still, the drama and conflict and effort remind me of writing fiction.
Wish me luck in my new non-crime writing career. I can go where my whimsy takes me, and have learned good rules about suspense and conflict and plotting which will serve me in other genres.
Sucking it up, as per usual. Yup. Yup.
Grapeshot
At the end of the month, I travel to the Big Apple from Beantown for Edgar's Week. This year I'll be pushing my suspense novel (hopefully finished by then), the last of my crime fiction writing. It's been an interesting eighteen (18) years. This last book wasn't supposed to be, as I had intended to write my Southern California in the late twenties novel, but the damn character came to me, sat on my shoulder and started telling her story. Of course, she didn't tell all of it, and I had to fill in a lot of blanks. I have no feeling for how good it is. My writing group has gone from enthusiasm to neutrality, shall we say. Significant Other like my earlier novels, but is not all that enthusiastic about this one. Actually, he liked Promiscuous Mode and the Shadow Warriors.
I don't know why I stuck with crime fiction for so long. Some time ago I realized that the parts of my novels I enjoyed writing most were not the cop scenes, the action scenes or the crime scenes, but more the stuff of everyday life. By then I had so much energy tied up in Mystery and Suspense that I kept at it.
"They" say the definition of insanity is to keep repeating the same act, expecting different results. That's me and my so-called writing career. So onward, to finish In Flight and then to Such Stuff As Dreams.
I have some short stories to write, and a decision to make about the last crime fiction story I had to truncate to keep the word count down to the contest level. I spent 3 weeks cutting words. Should I write the story to its "proper" length? Dunno. Looking forward to penning the short stories, some of which are about animals.
Speaking of which, we have a huge red-shouldered hawk in the woods by the slough, stalking the birds. I shudder for my poor little terrorized gold-finches, titmice and chickadees, to say nothing of the doves, the robins and the sparrows! And all the other feathered friends. I know. I know. Hawks gotta eat, but they can go to another yard, and not treat ours as a smorgasbord table.
Loved watching the Masters this week and am still so happy that Phil Mickelson won. And how about them Red Sox? Now if Big Papi could just hit a few out of the park. One can waste so much time watching sports. Still, the drama and conflict and effort remind me of writing fiction.
Wish me luck in my new non-crime writing career. I can go where my whimsy takes me, and have learned good rules about suspense and conflict and plotting which will serve me in other genres.
Sucking it up, as per usual. Yup. Yup.
Grapeshot
Thursday, January 21, 2010
RIP Norfolk Pine and World of Mirrors
The little Norfolk Pine I rescued from the neighbor's trash expired. It was not supposed to be exposed to temperatures less than 45 degrees, and I fear it maybe suffered even freezing or below. I rescued the 20 new ornaments, and now it looks like the giver has moved out and the giftee is hunkered down alone.
Am I I'm becoming a charicature little old lady that peers out from behind her shades? I don't. At least not much. We writers are always interested in a "story," and if there is a story happening next door, well, we speculate. And dramatize. I am always telling myself stories, in my dreams and in waking hours. Most of them I don't write down, but I remember them.
Some of them are sad. Some are funny. We went to the local flu shot clinic today, and while we were in line, Significant Other joked, "I don't hear any screaming." He spoke too soon. There were quite a few children and one perhaps six year old boy screamed bloody murder at the H1N1 shot, and then was lined up for the seasonal flu. Now logic would say, if hundred of people including kids were getting the shot, and none of them were so much as wincing, well, then, maybe the shot didn't hurt.
He was gripped by an unreasoning terror, and knew this would be the most painful thing imaginable. He yelled pretty loud, but not quite as loud when the seasonable flu shot was given. It reminded me of the day at the vet's (talk about stories) when a Vietnamese pig was given a shot. One understood immediately and viscerally the expression, "screaming like a stuck hog." Yup. That's what this kid sounded like.
So, World of Mirrors received its 97th rejection today, and I thought about formatting it for a sort of picky publisher or not. NOT. RIP World of Mirrors. But since so many people ask when the next book is coming out, well, WOM will soon get its own blog and I'll publish it in scenes along with photos and historical commentary, maps, whatever. I'll try to publicize this event and hope that readers will enjoy the experience. This is not what I had hoped for this story, which is really fun and exciting and a little different. Some agents and publishers didn't like it because the KGB played a minor role, and I wrote it when no one liked foreign settings, and now the technology is so old that it's a technology historical suspense yada yada. You can see that the subgenre is so sub sub sub that well, WTF?
If I get a lot of interest, I'll publish it on Amazon or Lulu or somewhere.
We made another trip to East Germany and I read about twenty books to do the research and get everything right. All for naught. I'll put a link to the story on this blog, and tweet it, facebook, yada yada. A media blitz, or sorts.
It actually feels like someone died, and I guess that was the dream and all that work, the blood, sweat and tears in vain. Sad. Sad.
Anyway . . . I'll persevere with the other books. This business of marrying technology to fiction turned out to be a major bummer.
Enough whining. Onward. After all, I 'm not the little Norfolk Pine put out with the post-holiday garbage.
Grapeshot
Am I I'm becoming a charicature little old lady that peers out from behind her shades? I don't. At least not much. We writers are always interested in a "story," and if there is a story happening next door, well, we speculate. And dramatize. I am always telling myself stories, in my dreams and in waking hours. Most of them I don't write down, but I remember them.
Some of them are sad. Some are funny. We went to the local flu shot clinic today, and while we were in line, Significant Other joked, "I don't hear any screaming." He spoke too soon. There were quite a few children and one perhaps six year old boy screamed bloody murder at the H1N1 shot, and then was lined up for the seasonal flu. Now logic would say, if hundred of people including kids were getting the shot, and none of them were so much as wincing, well, then, maybe the shot didn't hurt.
He was gripped by an unreasoning terror, and knew this would be the most painful thing imaginable. He yelled pretty loud, but not quite as loud when the seasonable flu shot was given. It reminded me of the day at the vet's (talk about stories) when a Vietnamese pig was given a shot. One understood immediately and viscerally the expression, "screaming like a stuck hog." Yup. That's what this kid sounded like.
So, World of Mirrors received its 97th rejection today, and I thought about formatting it for a sort of picky publisher or not. NOT. RIP World of Mirrors. But since so many people ask when the next book is coming out, well, WOM will soon get its own blog and I'll publish it in scenes along with photos and historical commentary, maps, whatever. I'll try to publicize this event and hope that readers will enjoy the experience. This is not what I had hoped for this story, which is really fun and exciting and a little different. Some agents and publishers didn't like it because the KGB played a minor role, and I wrote it when no one liked foreign settings, and now the technology is so old that it's a technology historical suspense yada yada. You can see that the subgenre is so sub sub sub that well, WTF?
If I get a lot of interest, I'll publish it on Amazon or Lulu or somewhere.
We made another trip to East Germany and I read about twenty books to do the research and get everything right. All for naught. I'll put a link to the story on this blog, and tweet it, facebook, yada yada. A media blitz, or sorts.
It actually feels like someone died, and I guess that was the dream and all that work, the blood, sweat and tears in vain. Sad. Sad.
Anyway . . . I'll persevere with the other books. This business of marrying technology to fiction turned out to be a major bummer.
Enough whining. Onward. After all, I 'm not the little Norfolk Pine put out with the post-holiday garbage.
Grapeshot
Monday, September 28, 2009
Red Sox Nation and Jerk Chicken
Tonight we're trekking to Fenway park with tickets for the EMC boxes, great seats that I would never have anticipated plunking my fanny down in. It's supposed to rain, and this will be, I hope, the night the Sox clinch the playoff berth. We have been watching all the games religiously, to the detriment of housework, writing, exercise, reading, well. . . you know. Rabid Red Sox fans. I'll wear my red sweater and maybe even my 2004 World Series shirt.
Yesterday I finished reading my WIP. Was very discouraged about how BAD some of it read, then all of a sudden, the story perked up and the prose was flying, and then it calmed down some, but of course, the good thing is that I can recognize draggy passages and fix them. I also read the first 20 pages of World of Mirrors and still like that book a lot, although it has been a hard sell. I still have hope. Sucking It Up becomes a lifestyle.
I took a main course salad to a meeting yesterday that is worth repeating. It was called a Caribbean Jerk Chicken Salad, and I found the recipe on the Internet. I made my own Jerk Seasoning, and this being New England I didn't grind up any habanera peppers, nope, just good old cayenne. The salad called for mesclun lettuces, baby spinach, apple, blue cheese, raisins, walnuts and red onion. And the chicken. I mean, what's not to like? We had it for dinner (leftovers) last night and also for lunch today. I just keep adding lettuce and baby spinach to the wilted greens in the bottom.
Here is the recipe: http://www.marjacpoultry.com/recipes/recipe-caribbean-jerk-chicken-salad.html
For the Jerk Seasoning, here is the recipezaar recipe:
http://www.recipezaar.com/Dry-Jerk-Seasoning-229443
I had the ingredients on hand, and saved myself a few dollars. Spices and seasonings are always better fresh, but then, you knew that.
I buy dried chive from Penzey's spices, http://www.penzeys.com/
They may even have a Jerk Seasoning if you don't have everything on the list. Penzey's rubs are the best, and I love Barbecue of the Americas and Northwoods Seasoning and a bunch of others.
Yours in soup and salad and fiction,
Grapeshot
Yesterday I finished reading my WIP. Was very discouraged about how BAD some of it read, then all of a sudden, the story perked up and the prose was flying, and then it calmed down some, but of course, the good thing is that I can recognize draggy passages and fix them. I also read the first 20 pages of World of Mirrors and still like that book a lot, although it has been a hard sell. I still have hope. Sucking It Up becomes a lifestyle.
I took a main course salad to a meeting yesterday that is worth repeating. It was called a Caribbean Jerk Chicken Salad, and I found the recipe on the Internet. I made my own Jerk Seasoning, and this being New England I didn't grind up any habanera peppers, nope, just good old cayenne. The salad called for mesclun lettuces, baby spinach, apple, blue cheese, raisins, walnuts and red onion. And the chicken. I mean, what's not to like? We had it for dinner (leftovers) last night and also for lunch today. I just keep adding lettuce and baby spinach to the wilted greens in the bottom.
Here is the recipe: http://www.marjacpoultry.com/recipes/recipe-caribbean-jerk-chicken-salad.html
For the Jerk Seasoning, here is the recipezaar recipe:
http://www.recipezaar.com/Dry-Jerk-Seasoning-229443
I had the ingredients on hand, and saved myself a few dollars. Spices and seasonings are always better fresh, but then, you knew that.
I buy dried chive from Penzey's spices, http://www.penzeys.com/
They may even have a Jerk Seasoning if you don't have everything on the list. Penzey's rubs are the best, and I love Barbecue of the Americas and Northwoods Seasoning and a bunch of others.
Yours in soup and salad and fiction,
Grapeshot
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Sucking It Up Again
Last week, in a query frenzy, I sent out queries for World of Mirrors, Promiscuous Mode and Festival Madness.
Today, the rejections started coming in like kamikazes after a battleship. Poor old World of Mirrors, which I rewrote numerous times, has ninety-three (count 'em) rejections. I need to get 114 before I throw in the towel. Harry Hunsicker who went on to publish several well-received books and become an officer in MWA got 113 rejections before he found an agent. Persistence wins the day. I guess. This is really a cool novel--an honest-to-god original story , with fun (read bad) characters, a suspenseful plot and a slice of history on a beautiful island. So whatchagotta do? Dunno. It's hard to let this book die.
I'm having trouble finding agents who might like Promiscuous Mode with its funky locale, business setting and lighthearted adultery. Cripes, it even has a cat and casinos. BTW, a relative reports the sleazy casino I wrote about has been gussied up and has a fancy hotel across the street instead of El Sleazo Motel. I like the lowlife locale better. My writing group loved this book; even Significant Other says it's his favorite, but so far fifty-eight rejections.
Festival Madness is coming up on the rail, rejection-wise. forty-nine to date. If the agent never responds, I count that as a reject. And with Burning Man next month I should query a bunch more agents.
Have you been doing the math? That's 200 rejections, a universe of sucking it up. And still, I'm writing another novel and have one on the horizon after that. Maybe yet another. Crazy Grapeshot, must be the world's biggest masochist. Not.
So. I made pizza tonight for us and the two guests. We always do a lot of toppings, with fresh veggies ascendant, and beaucoup cheese. Always tasty. I can control what comes out of my kitchen. Actually, I can control my writing but not its acceptance.
I'm going up to watch the Red Sox in the All Star game. Tomorrow we're trekking to Plimouth Plantation and the Mayflower.
Thisbe is curled up by my feet and having a cat nuzzle your toes makes up for a world of pain.
Two hundred rejections! OMG.
Today, the rejections started coming in like kamikazes after a battleship. Poor old World of Mirrors, which I rewrote numerous times, has ninety-three (count 'em) rejections. I need to get 114 before I throw in the towel. Harry Hunsicker who went on to publish several well-received books and become an officer in MWA got 113 rejections before he found an agent. Persistence wins the day. I guess. This is really a cool novel--an honest-to-god original story , with fun (read bad) characters, a suspenseful plot and a slice of history on a beautiful island. So whatchagotta do? Dunno. It's hard to let this book die.
I'm having trouble finding agents who might like Promiscuous Mode with its funky locale, business setting and lighthearted adultery. Cripes, it even has a cat and casinos. BTW, a relative reports the sleazy casino I wrote about has been gussied up and has a fancy hotel across the street instead of El Sleazo Motel. I like the lowlife locale better. My writing group loved this book; even Significant Other says it's his favorite, but so far fifty-eight rejections.
Festival Madness is coming up on the rail, rejection-wise. forty-nine to date. If the agent never responds, I count that as a reject. And with Burning Man next month I should query a bunch more agents.
Have you been doing the math? That's 200 rejections, a universe of sucking it up. And still, I'm writing another novel and have one on the horizon after that. Maybe yet another. Crazy Grapeshot, must be the world's biggest masochist. Not.
So. I made pizza tonight for us and the two guests. We always do a lot of toppings, with fresh veggies ascendant, and beaucoup cheese. Always tasty. I can control what comes out of my kitchen. Actually, I can control my writing but not its acceptance.
I'm going up to watch the Red Sox in the All Star game. Tomorrow we're trekking to Plimouth Plantation and the Mayflower.
Thisbe is curled up by my feet and having a cat nuzzle your toes makes up for a world of pain.
Two hundred rejections! OMG.
Sunday, May 03, 2009
Edgar Winners
I wasn't at the Edgar's banquet on Thursday, but MWA announced the winners right afterward.
Ta Da!
The Grand Masters were James Lee Burke and Sue Grafton--there couldn't be better picks than those two.
BEST NOVEL Blue Heaven by C.J. Box
BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR The Foreigner by Francie Lin
BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL China Lake by Meg Gardiner
BEST FACT CRIME American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century by Howard Blum
BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL Edgar Allan Poe: An Illustrated Companion to His Tell-Tale Stories by Dr. Harry Lee Poe
BEST SHORT STORY "Skinhead Central" - The Blue Religion by T. Jefferson Parker
BEST JUVENILE The Postcard by Tony Abbott
BEST YOUNG ADULT Paper Towns by John Green (BEST PLAY The Ballad of Emmett Till by Ifa Bayeza
BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY "Prayer of the Bone" - Wire in the Blood, Teleplay by Patrick Harbinson
BEST MOTION PICTURE SCREENPLAY In Bruges, Screenplay by Martin McDonagh ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD "Buckner's Error" - Queens Noir by Joseph Guglielmelli
RAVEN AWARDS Edgar Allan Poe Society, Baltimore, Maryland Poe House, Baltimore, Maryland
MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD The Killer's Wife by Bill Floyd
Sue Grafton and James Lee Burke are so gracious and witty--I enjoyed sitting in on their Symposium interviews. Each one signed a book for me. James Lee Burke admitted he had waited nine years between publication of books 2 and 3 and submitted the book 111 times. So let Suck It Up forever be the motto. We never think of published authors having these issues. The book went on to win (I believe) a Pulitzer. So take heart, ye weary writers.
I rode busses in NY and didn't worry too much about the flu because I had my tiny bottle of hand sanitizer with me.
In my next blog, I'll discuss trying to get out of a restroom without contaminating your just-washed hands. This ain't easy.
Grapeshot
Ta Da!
The Grand Masters were James Lee Burke and Sue Grafton--there couldn't be better picks than those two.
BEST NOVEL Blue Heaven by C.J. Box
BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR The Foreigner by Francie Lin
BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL China Lake by Meg Gardiner
BEST FACT CRIME American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century by Howard Blum
BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL Edgar Allan Poe: An Illustrated Companion to His Tell-Tale Stories by Dr. Harry Lee Poe
BEST SHORT STORY "Skinhead Central" - The Blue Religion by T. Jefferson Parker
BEST JUVENILE The Postcard by Tony Abbott
BEST YOUNG ADULT Paper Towns by John Green (BEST PLAY The Ballad of Emmett Till by Ifa Bayeza
BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY "Prayer of the Bone" - Wire in the Blood, Teleplay by Patrick Harbinson
BEST MOTION PICTURE SCREENPLAY In Bruges, Screenplay by Martin McDonagh ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD "Buckner's Error" - Queens Noir by Joseph Guglielmelli
RAVEN AWARDS Edgar Allan Poe Society, Baltimore, Maryland Poe House, Baltimore, Maryland
MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD The Killer's Wife by Bill Floyd
Sue Grafton and James Lee Burke are so gracious and witty--I enjoyed sitting in on their Symposium interviews. Each one signed a book for me. James Lee Burke admitted he had waited nine years between publication of books 2 and 3 and submitted the book 111 times. So let Suck It Up forever be the motto. We never think of published authors having these issues. The book went on to win (I believe) a Pulitzer. So take heart, ye weary writers.
I rode busses in NY and didn't worry too much about the flu because I had my tiny bottle of hand sanitizer with me.
In my next blog, I'll discuss trying to get out of a restroom without contaminating your just-washed hands. This ain't easy.
Grapeshot
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Earth Day Disaster
My seedlings all died on Earth Day: the tomatoes, cukes, beets--all broke off at the surface of the potting mixture and expired. Too sad. Too much water? Who knows? I'd been nuturing them for two weeks. I replanted the seeds in a different medium. The beans never came up, either.
Mesclun is growing outside, and I'm planting spinach and beets tomorrow.
Alas, horiculture. Sucking it up over something besides writing. That, too. April really is the cruellest month.
Mesclun is growing outside, and I'm planting spinach and beets tomorrow.
Alas, horiculture. Sucking it up over something besides writing. That, too. April really is the cruellest month.
Monday, December 01, 2008
Why didn't I think of that?
Ah, when the dream dies, it dies slowly and painfully. My dream isn't dead yet, but I must tell you that except for my food writing class and my robotic fish short story, I haven't had much joy as a writer lately. I'm not alone.
Here is a lady with class and imagination and yes, even chutzpah. I can't imagine why her novel didn't sell, but I have come to realize that NOT ALL GOOD BOOKS WILL BE PUBLISHED. For whatever reason. So she's giving her book a funeral. How cool is that? God, I'm about ready to bury World of Mirrors, my East German book, but I keep thinking that someone, somehow will love it.
This is what you do when you decide to give up the battle.
http://www.mydreamisdeadbutimnot.com/
RIP
Grapeshot
Here is a lady with class and imagination and yes, even chutzpah. I can't imagine why her novel didn't sell, but I have come to realize that NOT ALL GOOD BOOKS WILL BE PUBLISHED. For whatever reason. So she's giving her book a funeral. How cool is that? God, I'm about ready to bury World of Mirrors, my East German book, but I keep thinking that someone, somehow will love it.
This is what you do when you decide to give up the battle.
http://www.mydreamisdeadbutimnot.com/
RIP
Grapeshot
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Wanna Be Need Not Apply
Ugh! I've started down the "Looking for an Agent" path for Festival Madness. I have compiled a new list. As always, it seems promising, but while compiling, I once again ran into the situation where some agents forbid queries by the unrecommended, unpublished writer. No self-published or POD writers, either. POD is a technology and it is hard to see why there is a taint to a technology, but so be it.
I am vindictive enough to hope that all of these so snooty, exclusive agents miss the next Dan Brown, Ernest Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, Sue Grafton, Janet Evanovich and Joseph Conrad.
Anyway, there is now a list and "how to contact" advice and all those good things, so just do it, as the commercial advices.
Email contacts, while quick , seem fraught with danger. They don't friggin' answer if they don't feel like it. Did the agent even receive the email? Off into cyberspace. It ain't fun. It ain't easy. It definitely ain't for the fragile ego or the faint of heart.
Onward.
The world I must live in always seems to encompass an exclusivity beyond me. As a kid, I lived places where you were shit unless you were born in that town. In college, I came from the wrong state, wrong high school, belonged to the wrong literary society. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
When I was a young suburban mom, for a few years, things were O.K. Right house, right neighborhood, right everything. Not exclusive, but welcoming.
Moved to Boston. Right suburb, wrong precinct. Not a native. Not a Brahmin. Not ethnic. Not Catholic, not much of anything. Most of my friends (not quite all) are from somewhere else. Boston is not a friendly town.
As a computer programmer, I wrote in COBOL, the least respected language, old mainframe technology. The sneering never stopped. Of course, the paychecks didn't either.
Became a writer. A genre writer. Oh shit, now it's worse than junior high. Not published properly, not young and skinny, not ethnic, nor foreign, not literary, not visible. There is the story oft told at writer's conferences that one day a published writer will ask to see your work, offer some pithy comments and will recommend you to his/her agent or publisher or whatever. Folks, this is bull. Everybody is running scared and well, it's like the convoy driving down a dangerous neighborhood in Baghdad and you are in Arab dress and thumbing a ride. Will the convoy stop?
So, gloom and doom. I must be the world's biggest masochist, because after four books, I'm en route to promote the 5th. Why? Why? Why?
Dunno. Just gotta do it. Must have succumbed to Festival Madness. (!)
Grapeshot
I am vindictive enough to hope that all of these so snooty, exclusive agents miss the next Dan Brown, Ernest Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, Sue Grafton, Janet Evanovich and Joseph Conrad.
Anyway, there is now a list and "how to contact" advice and all those good things, so just do it, as the commercial advices.
Email contacts, while quick , seem fraught with danger. They don't friggin' answer if they don't feel like it. Did the agent even receive the email? Off into cyberspace. It ain't fun. It ain't easy. It definitely ain't for the fragile ego or the faint of heart.
Onward.
The world I must live in always seems to encompass an exclusivity beyond me. As a kid, I lived places where you were shit unless you were born in that town. In college, I came from the wrong state, wrong high school, belonged to the wrong literary society. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
When I was a young suburban mom, for a few years, things were O.K. Right house, right neighborhood, right everything. Not exclusive, but welcoming.
Moved to Boston. Right suburb, wrong precinct. Not a native. Not a Brahmin. Not ethnic. Not Catholic, not much of anything. Most of my friends (not quite all) are from somewhere else. Boston is not a friendly town.
As a computer programmer, I wrote in COBOL, the least respected language, old mainframe technology. The sneering never stopped. Of course, the paychecks didn't either.
Became a writer. A genre writer. Oh shit, now it's worse than junior high. Not published properly, not young and skinny, not ethnic, nor foreign, not literary, not visible. There is the story oft told at writer's conferences that one day a published writer will ask to see your work, offer some pithy comments and will recommend you to his/her agent or publisher or whatever. Folks, this is bull. Everybody is running scared and well, it's like the convoy driving down a dangerous neighborhood in Baghdad and you are in Arab dress and thumbing a ride. Will the convoy stop?
So, gloom and doom. I must be the world's biggest masochist, because after four books, I'm en route to promote the 5th. Why? Why? Why?
Dunno. Just gotta do it. Must have succumbed to Festival Madness. (!)
Grapeshot
Friday, April 11, 2008
Festival Madness Gets Its First Rejection
Each book, one thinks, "this time it will be different," but there's a sameness to rejection, like waves lapping on the beach.
There are agents who have one or two "token" female clients and the rest are male and these agents generally like "guy books," with guy humor and guy adventures and guy stuff, so why did I even approach this agent? Well, he was at Sleuthfest, and that's the only reason.
And of course he said that,"your idea does not sound like something that I would be interested in representing." So there.
The trouble is, this isn't obviously a "girl" book, either, unless you associate girl's with technology and Molotov cocktails and adulterous behavior. Not chic lit. Not hen lit. Not cozy, not traditional. Not saleable? Well, we shall see. One of these days I'm going to have to scream, "fuck it!' and either a) stop writing and earn real money or b) suck it up and learn to write commercial fiction in a genre with the convensions observed. Anyone reading my books would understand that isn't exactly possible in any sincere kind of way. One of the things I really really like about Antonioni's movies is that he has alienated women and that's something you don't see very often and they aren't alienated in a femaley, touch-feeley way but honest-to-god-alientated. Love it.
God knows, World of Mirrors with it's now 60+ rejections does not appear to be saleable with the East German locale and the technology and history and bad guys all thrown into the mix with a dose of humor and craziness.
My mother said, "you always have to learn everything the hard way." To this day, I wonder if there is an easy way.
Our small guest is having difficulties with Roman Numerals, and like riding a bicycle, they are something you always know once you've learned them. The hard way. Or the easy way.
I have to buy a greeting card, drop off the cleaning, buy some groceries, make a tart and all kinds of unalienated female types of activities.
One of these days. . . .
Grapeshot, sucking it up big time
There are agents who have one or two "token" female clients and the rest are male and these agents generally like "guy books," with guy humor and guy adventures and guy stuff, so why did I even approach this agent? Well, he was at Sleuthfest, and that's the only reason.
And of course he said that,"your idea does not sound like something that I would be interested in representing." So there.
The trouble is, this isn't obviously a "girl" book, either, unless you associate girl's with technology and Molotov cocktails and adulterous behavior. Not chic lit. Not hen lit. Not cozy, not traditional. Not saleable? Well, we shall see. One of these days I'm going to have to scream, "fuck it!' and either a) stop writing and earn real money or b) suck it up and learn to write commercial fiction in a genre with the convensions observed. Anyone reading my books would understand that isn't exactly possible in any sincere kind of way. One of the things I really really like about Antonioni's movies is that he has alienated women and that's something you don't see very often and they aren't alienated in a femaley, touch-feeley way but honest-to-god-alientated. Love it.
God knows, World of Mirrors with it's now 60+ rejections does not appear to be saleable with the East German locale and the technology and history and bad guys all thrown into the mix with a dose of humor and craziness.
My mother said, "you always have to learn everything the hard way." To this day, I wonder if there is an easy way.
Our small guest is having difficulties with Roman Numerals, and like riding a bicycle, they are something you always know once you've learned them. The hard way. Or the easy way.
I have to buy a greeting card, drop off the cleaning, buy some groceries, make a tart and all kinds of unalienated female types of activities.
One of these days. . . .
Grapeshot, sucking it up big time
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Practice for Life
How treacherous is memory, or how true? This weekend, at an alumni event, I stared at a woman, remembering her 21 year old face, now ruined by sun and time and even life, I suppose.
She had been and was still tall and blonde. She had two friends, twins, who were also tall and blonde, and the three of them would sit in on a sofa in the middle of the student center looking like royalty. Stiff necks on unbending stalks. They didn’t talk to anyone, not even each other, and once a guy asked if they were deaf mutes.
I was amused.
At this university at this time there were the INS and the outs. The INS came from a good neighborhoods and good high schools and had money and the right clothes, the right cars, the right stuff, you might say and the outs did not. I had had an in/out relationship with life already by virtue of living in a small town without having been born there (out), and various other accidents of birth and circumstance which contrive to place one IN or OUT. Of course it was sometimes possible to be so far out that one was IN.
My scout troop was poor, and instead of going to camp, we rented a cabin in the mountains and the leaders came up and a woman cooked for us and we did scout stuff and froze our asses off in the cold night high altitude air. One day, on a 15 mile hike, all sweaty and tired, we were overtaken by a group of girls on horseback, from a Chele camp, girls who did not even deign to look at us, footsore, horseless, and consigned forever to be Out Out Out on the Far Side of the Universe.
I felt tears welling up in my eyes after all these years at the awfulness of having been quickly judged and found wanting. Rejection. Very much like trying to get someone, anyone, to look at your writing. Quickly judged and found wanting and excluded. Out.
So one gets practice for life early in life and one might think that familiarity would breed contempt and that the process might get easier, but it does not. In her 80’s, my mother joined a fraternal club and was roundly snubbed, which cut her to the quick.
One thing life provides in abundance is the ability to practice sucking it up.
She had been and was still tall and blonde. She had two friends, twins, who were also tall and blonde, and the three of them would sit in on a sofa in the middle of the student center looking like royalty. Stiff necks on unbending stalks. They didn’t talk to anyone, not even each other, and once a guy asked if they were deaf mutes.
I was amused.
At this university at this time there were the INS and the outs. The INS came from a good neighborhoods and good high schools and had money and the right clothes, the right cars, the right stuff, you might say and the outs did not. I had had an in/out relationship with life already by virtue of living in a small town without having been born there (out), and various other accidents of birth and circumstance which contrive to place one IN or OUT. Of course it was sometimes possible to be so far out that one was IN.
My scout troop was poor, and instead of going to camp, we rented a cabin in the mountains and the leaders came up and a woman cooked for us and we did scout stuff and froze our asses off in the cold night high altitude air. One day, on a 15 mile hike, all sweaty and tired, we were overtaken by a group of girls on horseback, from a Chele camp, girls who did not even deign to look at us, footsore, horseless, and consigned forever to be Out Out Out on the Far Side of the Universe.
I felt tears welling up in my eyes after all these years at the awfulness of having been quickly judged and found wanting. Rejection. Very much like trying to get someone, anyone, to look at your writing. Quickly judged and found wanting and excluded. Out.
So one gets practice for life early in life and one might think that familiarity would breed contempt and that the process might get easier, but it does not. In her 80’s, my mother joined a fraternal club and was roundly snubbed, which cut her to the quick.
One thing life provides in abundance is the ability to practice sucking it up.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
