Sunday, October 19, 2008

Definitive example of how a blog can help your career

I dare you to read this blog post about Bouchercon and not want to read more of what this guy writes.

Cause I read the first one, and with paragraphs like this:
...drove down with Alafair Burke; Alafair is, to be frank, certifiably psychotic at the wheel, her need for speed almost carnal in its urgency. The combination of high speed daredevil manoeuvres (at one point, she drove under a semi just so she could slam us up the ramp of an empty car transporter trailer, shooting us up about 20 feet high, hurtling through the air to land squarely 8 inches in front of the black Tahoe that had irritated Alafair by dawdling in front of her for a good two minutes). (Seriously.)


my next move was see if he had representation. It was too much to hope for of course, but writing like this makes me weak at the knees.
Since he updates about as often as I leave NYC, this is why God invented RSS readers!
(Feed)Burn this one!

12 comments:

Heidi the Hick said...

Okay, that makes me want to burn everything I ever wrote. It's that good.

I have a question. Is a goofy blog handle a serious drawback in a case like this? A few readers have checked out my blog because, well, they're hicks too, but maybe an agent would be scared off?

Anyways, this guy's a genius. Meanwhile I've been so busy I only blog photos of tractors and dogs and cats...

Janet Reid said...

Actually Heidi the Hick is memorable (even if a bit goofy) which is good. Separates you from Heidi the Hellion, and Heidi the Herpetologist.

As for tractors, we'd starve without them, so blog on!

Anonymous said...

I was on a Bouchercon panel with Jonathon Hayes, the author of the blog post you so rightly raved about,and quickly became one of his fans. I'm very pleased to say that Jonathon will soon be blogging with me on The Graveyard Shift.

Haste yee back ;-) said...

Hickster... You think you have problems that'd make an agent think twice!

I once wrote a post describing a Proctologist administering an examination to a high achieving N.Y. City Lit Agent.

And then there was the Arkansas beauty queen who ran off with the "Duck Dude" who made fantastically life-like quacker noises. They started the "DRUNK AND DISORDERLY" topless bar in the middle of a Cypress Swamp outside of Stuttgart AR.

Then came the midnight carp and gar bow fishing invitation to ease a N.Y. City Lit Agent's harried mind! (Which, BTW, is still open)!

And the time I suggested when Agent's clients get out of hand in a meet-n-greet situation to hand them, (clients), a table napkin and tell them, "Your mouth is farting!"

Sometimes I shudder myself!

Haste yee back ;-)

ryan field said...

To Heidi...I've checked out your blog several times because of the name and I liked it :)

Joseph said...

Maybe I'm just crazy, but a run-on sentence about an impossible driving stunt doesn't grab me. It actually sounds sort of adolescent, mechanical, and irrelevant. At least, I hope it's irrelevant. A whole story full of maneuvers and measurements doesn't sound like a fun read. And "The combination of high speed daredevil manoeuvers" is not a sentence. It lacks a verb. But maybe I'm just crazy.

Sabina E. said...

hey, Diablo Cody got discovered through her blog about being a stripper.

me, I don't really get any visitors to my blog, but I don't care. I just put my stuff online for myself, so that if I ever die young and tragically, there would at least be a trance of me on the internet, which is a comforting (and depressing) thought.

Thank You said...

I have a pretty active blog, but it's not about writing. This was good, and I ran across this through media bistro. Thought it might be interesting to some of you.

http://www.chrisbrogan.com/promoting-your-book-online/

Heidi the Hick said...

Heidi the Hellion... it could easily have gone that way earlier in life...


(Why thank you Ryan Field! I like your last name!)

Did anybody read his description of being woken up by his cats? The Promethean existence? Geez. I snickered out loud.

Steve Stubbs said...

That para. must be a tire commercial, since I found out the hard way all four of my Michelins will blow out if I crash down onto the pavement from a height of more than fifteen feet. For the benefit of adventurous drivers everywhere, could you scope out what brand that lady uses? If she can lay rubber after coming down from twenty feet I need to shop at a different tire store.

Incidentally, I was driving that errant Tahoe she swooped in front of. I knew she had a writer in the car when I saw the way she was driving.

Nigel Tewksbury said...

Excellent paragraph. It's nice to see that not all blogs are full of quotidian bullshit that seem more like a bowel movement of the brain than artistic expression. I look forward to reading more.

Jewel Allen said...

Wow, I'd love it if an agent were to read my blog. But then, I'd also be sweating it, thinking, oh no, what do I have on it?? Did I remember to clean the bathroom? Did I dust?

(I actually thought of you, Janet, when I posted my photos on my blog today of my colorful house :-)