Take A Lover in the Afternoon

Now that my cheap shot has your attention. . .

Two more rejections for Promiscuous Mode. Mixed messages for the book: like the writing, don't like the writing. Like the character, don't like the story. Can't think where to sell it. Several agents has said this and I find it most mysterious.

Promiscuous Mode is a mainstream rather traditional mystery with the de riguer flawed narrator, an amatuer sleuth who gets unwillingly sucked in to the murder. When I started writing, and lordy it seems like a long time ago, I looked around to find something in a character's life that hadn't been done to death. Drugs, booze, addictions, weird families, gay, straight, in drag, serial killers, off-beat occupations you name it. What to do?

I came up with a challenge, and maybe it has turned into an albatross. We all know there is now and has always been a double standard for women: would you rather be called a stud or a slut? Q.E.D.

My character has what I call the "Emma Bovary Syndrome." Yes folks, she is something of a slut. But a nice slut, understand. I tried to make her sympathetic and believeable, and like the technology, this problem of hers often drives the plot but it is only one of a number of devices.

I haven't shouted her "flaw" from the rooftops; however the synopsis is always straightforward about the protag's proclivities. Love that alliteration.

Now I'm wondering if the new "love that dare not speak its name", to whit the "A" word, is the reason agents are skittish about trying to sell it. This is 2006. Hard to believe. Don't know what to think.

Suck it up is always an option.

An agent still has the entire manuscript and I am going to screw up my courage and email him today. Stay tuned.

Aloha,

Grapeshot