Some housekeeping

I have no one to blame but myself for this (Sunday's post on the interruption at Malice Domestic started the whole thing) but our comment column is drifting far afield these days.

If we can hew closer to the topic I think fewer ruffles will be feathered, and that will be a good thing.


Comments need to be fewer than 100 words.
If you're regularly typing more, time to go have a drink and a read.

In case you want to do both:

I'm a devoted fan of Tracy Kiely's books, and if you love Nick and Nora movies and books, you will be too.
Plus, there's a fabulous dog!

Writing courses: Curtis Brown Creative

I applied to a Curtis Brown Creative online writing course and was accepted. I've been researching and there is not much info as to how effective the course is or if it's more of a scam (it costs almost $3,000 for three months). Does CBC have a good reputation in the agent world?

I've never heard of it but that doesn't mean anything. There's a lot of stuff I've never heard of. [For a list of those things, one must consult my eye-rolling minions.]

BUT, if you are intending this to be something akin to a star in your bio (like "I have an MFA from the Sharkly School of Metaphors and Pruning Shears") you're barking up the wrong tree.

When I read queries, I don't give a rat's asterisk where you learned to wrangle sentences.

I don't care who your teacher was.
I really don't care how much money you paid (other than wishing you hadn't squandered that kind of dough on anything till you at least figured out if you needed to)

I care about what you've written.

No program of study is a way to bypass the toll-booth on the roadway to publiciation. There is no EZPass here.

If you want to find out if the program is effective in helping writers, look at who they laud as their graduates. If you like and admire the work published by the people who took this course, that says something worth thinking about.

If the course won't tell you who graduated or attended, or if there are no lauds on the site other than quasi anonymous things like "the best thing since bacon beer" Bill C. (Ohio) that says something else entirely.

Blog housekeeping--comments

It's increasingly clear that the comment trail has become unwieldy.

Comments have increased dramatically over the past few weeks and months. If it was due to new people commenting that would be one thing (and a good thing) but it's not. It's that the comments have increasingly gone farther off topic, and gotten MUCH longer.

In fact, one handy commenter toted up the word count recently and it was more than 11K for one blog post.

That's just nuts.

Here are some things I'd like us to think about:

1. The comments are an integral part of this blog. They add value to it.
2. When the comment trail blows up it's hard for readers to see what's of value because there is simply too much there to read.

When people say "oh, there are 90 comments, too many" that's a danger sign. 


For the people who are commenting, here's something to consider:

If you're commenting multiple times a day, are you here commenting rather than working on your writing? What's your priority? What's going to get you closer to your goal?



I'm not going to tell you what you can and cannot write (at least not yet) because often when the comment trail goes hilariously, wildly off topic, it's the most fun.

I'm going to ask that you think about a couple things before you post:

1. Is there at least something on-topic in the comment?
OR
2. Are you asking a question about the blog post itself?
OR
3. Are you responding to a previous comment?

Answering yes to any of those questions keeps you on the right side of vommenting.


4. Is the comment more than 25 lines?
5. Is the comment more about you/your work than it is about the topic at hand?
6. Have you posted multiple times (ie 5+) to one blog post**?

**there are exceptions to this, principally Colin Smith who very helpfully posts links for what other commenters have posted as non-live html.  That does NOT count as over-posting.


Answering yes to these questions indicates you are NOT on the right side of vommenting.

We're all adults here, and capable of controlling ourselves.

I think we can self-regulate.

If we can't, there are two rather Draconian solutions which I prefer not to employ:

1. Comments can be moderated
2. Comments can be edited (ie deleted as I see fit)

Neither of these "solutions" appeal to me, but if we want this blog to remain accessible to new readers, kept manageable for daily readers, and if we want to continue with the Week in Review, we need to temper our verbosity.

Now, back to the task at hand: reading queries.

PS there will be another post today, a writing contest. This post is just housekeeping.

Agent question: agents for agents?

Some literary agents are also authors, but they have another literary agent to represent their books. Why they don't represent their own books directly?

Agents understand the value of an agent. You can't agent your own work if you want a good agent, even if you're a good agent for everyone else.

Agenting requires distance and perspective that aren't possible if you're also the writer.

Agents who agent themselves will tell you I'm wrong. Their editors will tell you I'm right.

Happy New Year!

Even though you've already heard and seen this story

sometimes you just want to see it again.

This seems like a good day to remember that dreams can come true.

Happy Christmas!

Happy Holidays!

Have a purrrfect Sunday!

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm profoundly grateful today for many things:

a job I love, in a city I love, with people I respect and admire;
the readers of and commenters on this blog who provide on-going enlightenment and entertainment;
health, happiness, and the friends to enjoy it with.

I hope you have a lovely holiday filled with the things that make you happy.

Have a lovely day filled with good surprises!

Toronto Maple Leaf fans (that's Toronto Canadia, our non-US neighbors to the north) finish singing the AMERICAN national anthem when the mic kicks out. So, how many of us could even START the Canadian national anthem? (Let alone finish, on time, and largely on key?) Way to go Leafs fans!

Have a lovely "fall" day!

Your extra hour is accounted for

You have an extra hour today. You will spend it petting ME. Any questions?

Publishing career question: what do I need to get started?

Dear Your Royal Sharkiness,

I'm a college student and, like most of college students, I'm trying to figure out what to do with my life. I've been exploring various careers that might interest me, and a visit to your blog made me start thinking about becoming an agent or editor.

After a lot of introspection and sobbing, I think I know myself well enough to say that I'd be pretty well-suited for a job as either an agent or an editor. However, I realized shortly thereafter that I don't have any idea what is required to get one of those jobs. I recall you mentioning having interns and assistants around the office, which seems like the sort of job someone would take on their path to becoming an almighty shark like yourself, but are there other requirements that I'm not aware of? Are there steps I should be taking now for preparation?

To become an intern here, which is the first step toward a paid job in publishing, you have to be in college,  or be graduating soon.  Generally you'll need a degree. It doesn't have to be in the obvious field, English, but you will have to know how to write cogently and clearly.

And you'll need to be well-read. That's the biggest thing you can do to prepare for a job in publishing: know what's being published NOW.

We still laugh when recalling the intern applicant who told us her favorite book was Beowulf. It's ok to love Beowulf, but editors aren't looking for Beowul, and agents aren't selling it. You need to read the books being sold and published TODAY.

So, make a reading plan depending on your interests.  If  you love literary fiction, you'll read the finalists for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Booker Prize.

If you love crime fiction you'll read the short lists for the Edgar Award, the ITW Thriller Award, the Anthonys, Macavitys and Agathas.  You'll read as much of the Soho Press list as you can.

You get the idea.

And one of the very very best ways to learn a lot about a genre quickly is to read anthologies.  Best American Short Stories, Best American Crime Stories, the Sisters in Crime Anthologies, the ITW anothologies.

You'll learn the names of well-known writers and start seeing the names of up and coming writers.

Reading is the key to a job in publishing.
Writing well is the second.

And don't skip math class. A good portion of my day is spent using math, and if you think a calculator will solve your problems you're wrong. YOU have to know which numbers to put where. All the calculator does is tell you if your sums are correct.

Have a purrfect Sunday

It's getting cold, time for a nice cozy muffler!

Have a glorious day

Effective book covers

I'll be the first to admit that I don't know anything at all about how to make an outstanding book cover.  I know one when I see it but how to get it? That's the value of art departments. I think magic is involved somewhere along the way too.

There are good covers; there are amazing covers; there are godawful covers. Then there are EFFECTIVE covers: covers that make you reach for the book.

Here's an article about the various covers considered for THE SUMMER OF DEAD TOYS by Antonio Hill.  All of them are gorgeous. The question then becomes: which one is most effective.

Do you agree with the choice they made?

This belongs on your shelf!

I'm a devoted fan of Mystery Scene magazine. Oline Cogdill is a regular contributor; I like to read  the reviews (so I can stock up on good reading);  the road to publication stories are always interesting-- three of many reasons I'm a subscriber.

If you're a yet-to-be published writer, these road to publication stories can be truly inspirational. In the recent summer issue Susan Elia MacNeal talks about how long it took her to write the right book, and how many agents it took to get it to the right editor (two) and how many people contributed to getting it right (lots!)

"Her overnight success only took a dozen years, numerous rewrites, and countless rejections. And the help of a very lovable bear."

MacNeal writes a spy series set at the start of World War 2, one of my favorite time periods.  After reading the article I promptly bought the first two books in the series: Mr. Churchill's Secretary and Princess Elizabeth's Spy.

A three year subscription is $90  I consider it money well-spent.

Hua!

I never realized the Iwo Jima memorial is really a memorial to all fallen Marines from the Revolutionary War forward.


I never realized how BIG this memorial was till I stood next to it tonight.

I never realized how many wars we fought till I saw the list circle the base of the memorial, and start over again on the next side.

And when someone-who-shall-remain nameless asked her dad "Didn't you used to be a Marine?" he replied "Once a Marine, always a Marine, kid."


Hua, Pop. And thanks.

Ok, so I'm a day late, it's worth it

this just might be the coolest essay about dads I've read in a long time.