Writing Contest results!

This was a terrific contest and just the perfect thing to counteract the excitement of watching paint dry in my apartment this weekend.

There were a lot of terrific entries as usual. Here are the ones that caught my eye:

A phrase that really deserves a place in Tawna Fenske's next book:

"five-knuckle parade"

fiercelyyours 10:21am

Special recognition for a great phrase:

the poison of the empty promises

Carolynnwith2Ns 10:38am

Special recognition for a deft adaptation:

The show went on, with a donut pillow as the star’s southern comfort.

AmandaINK1 4:37pm

There were some great words describing groups of things:

A giggle of teenagers

Michael Seese 10:23am

bulldozer of bullies

donnaeverhart 10:24am

rumble of second graders

Katharine 11:08am

SPEW of MEMES

Terri Lynn Coop 11:30am

harassment of tabloid journalists

Franca Stewart 12:26pm

Blaze of banalities

Mister Furkles 12:57

rubberneck of onlookers

AmySchaefer 1:28pm

A crackling of dead leaves

Lucas 3:21pm

A thunder of toddlers

Robyn Campbell 3:59pm

cloud of cauliflowers

Ginger Mollymarilyn 5:33pm

carcass of memories

Foxcreek 6:07pm

slander of gossiping busybodies

Calorie Bombshell  12:22am

ricochet of cats

Jeanne 12:46am

a plague of divorce lawyers

french sojourn 3:42am

spider of live oak limbs

Cheryl Carvajal 8:45am

These were my two favorites:

Herriot of veterinarians

Kat Waclawwik 12:56am

the fleece of con men

Steve Forti 9:41am

Special recognition for entries that weren't quite stories
but had lovely writing

Colin Smith 10:48am

Franca Stewart 12:26pm

KrisM 12:53pm

Lucas 3:21pm

Foxcreek 6:07pm

Here are the seven finalists:

(1) Deborah Holt Williams 10:40am

The gorilla burst through the coffee shop, where a frustration of picture book writers stared at their laptops. He climbed the espresso machine, while the writers sipped their lattes in search of inspiration. What to write?
They held their cups more tightly as the gorilla bounded from table to table, pounding his chest.
“Character driven—but what character?” sighed one writer.
“Character must solve his own problem, but what problem?” pondered another.
“Don’t forget the rule of three,” said a third.
The gorilla leaped over the counter and helped himself to three cronuts before he knuckle-walked out the door.

(2) Ashley Whitt 10:59am

A harem of us wait. More every day, upstairs and down. Longing to be chosen.

She arrives. I stand a little straighter, hold my breath.

Her fingers trail over us. She bites her lip, as if she's unsure, as if she doesn't hold all the power. The queen of the known universe.

She reaches. For a glorious second I'm sure it's me, but it's not. My neighbor disappears and I sense his elation as she brings him to her bedroom, tugs off his jacket, and I, I remain, slumping in his empty space.

And again I wait, to be read.

(3) SiSi 2:33pm

Those kids came back last night, daring each other to run up and touch my front door. “Go away,” I shouted, but they didn’t hear me.

I decided to ignore them this time. They weren’t hurting anything, and I could remember being young, feeling that heady mixture of fear and fun. But then they laughed at my hand-stitched welcome mat, and I got mad. When I rushed to the door and slammed it open, they took off like they’d seen a whole sheet of ghosts.

I’ve always been proud of my welcome mat. Dying didn’t change that one bit.

(4) Jessa 5:56pm

Kidnapped, hogtied, about to be sacrificed by an evil wizard. In the suburbs. The indignity kept Timothy from being terrified.

If only Paisley… Unfortunately, the wizard knew of Timothy's relationship with the fairy and prepared. The only way she could enter was if the wizard brought her in.

Someone knocked. "Sign here, please."

The scratch of a pen, tape tearing. And the sound of dozens of fairy wings sizzling with magic. Seconds later, a frantic hedgehog waddled past, pursued by an entire buzz of fairies.

"Pais? How…?"

Paisley flipped a happy mid-air circle. "Small things come in good packaging."

(5) Jared X 9:51pm

The shtetl was abuzz. The men yanked David from class, locking him in the shul’s library while they deliberated.

Hours passed, the air hot and stale. David sensed it wasn’t like the other times. The property damage was considerable, Mrs. Levinsky in shock. When they convened a schvitz of rabbis to parse his latest misadventure, he feared his father couldn’t make this one disappear.

They called the boy in. Rabbi Margolies announced plans for the new Yeshiva Levinsky, a gift of David’s father. David quietly beamed.

His father’s stern face ended his celebration. “Your uncle needs a clerk. In America.”

(6) Sara Bowers 10:38pm

“Sometimes I worry about my son.” Mary said as he unscrewed the clock bottom and began removing metal bits.

“Most kids go through a destructive stage. My son destroyed our blueray player.” Sheila said.

“That’s not what I worry about. Watch.” She nodded to her son. He laid out each gear, cog, and other assorted innards in precise groups. One by one his chubby fingers picked them up and stuck them back in the clock. Five minutes later the clock was running perfectly.

“Whoa. Is he…?” Sheila said.

“Yes, he’s going to join a boredom of engineers.”

(7) JD Paradise 1:37am

You come early for the meeting at the Topeka Marriott. Early or not, the wizards have already gone, the entire power. Or so it seems. You make for the free buffet.

The flowers in the vases are a string of colorful handkerchiefs. You pull one. The trap door opens and you descend to the stage.

A leatherlung boos from the first row. Your dad. Booing you.

You have your pride.

You gesture. The lion beneath his chair roars. Feeds, to the din of screaming.

This is Day Three of Hell Week.

Sacrifice enough, they'll have to let you in.



The decision here was damn hard, let me tell you.  The wealth of talent on display here boggles my mind.

The winner is Jared X 9:51pm.

Thanks to everyone who entered, and huzzahs to the finalists!

Jared if you'll email me with your mailing address I'll send you a copy of RUNNER by Patrick Lee.  If you've read it already, or don't read taut, edge of your seat thrillers, we'll find you something else.

Something wonderful and beautiful for you today

Here's  a video that will charm and delight you.  No, it's not kittens or puppies. Not even sharks.  It's books.






It's about 7 minutes long.

After you've seen it, tell us the most amazing thing you heard or learned from it.

(I have several!)

Writing contest!

This writing contest is going to be a little bit different.  I gave everyone a heads up last week with the Facebook link to a hint.

Here's how it came about.  Last Friday night on Twitter, a new young associate editor was welcomed.

Here's the conversation (remember to read each tweet up, rather than down)


Tweet One:

Tweet two:

Tweet three

Tweet four:

No doubt you have the idea now: create a name for a multitude of something.

So, here are the rules:

Write a story using 100 words or less.  In the story you must use a word to describe a multitude of something.  (It will help if you post the phrase at the end of the story as well, just in case I miss it.  That last sentence will NOT be counted as part of the 100 words)

The word MUST be original: no "murder of crows" or "bevy of beauties" kind of thing.

Post your entry in the comment column of this blog post.

If you need a mulligan, delete your entry and repost.

Contest opens at 10am Saturday 11/9/13

and closes at 10am Sunday 11/10/13.

Decisions on winners will be subjective and sharkly in the extreme.

A word of warning: it will help your chances if you do NOT use a word that has been used in entries posted before yours.  I'm not saying you can't but three people coming up with a particularly clever word choice makes me suspicious.  Preference will be given to the FIRST of those entries.

Remember though: story counts FIRST.

Example: A quarrel of stepchildren gathered to hear the reading of the not dead soon enough family patriarch.

(What do you call a group of stepchildren? A quarrel.)

Questions? Tweet to me @Janet_Reid

Ready?

Set?

NOT YET! Contest opens Saturday 11/9 at 10:18am

ENTER! (sorry, tardy this morning! 

Rats! too late. Contest closed now.

I'll see your Florida, and raise you the Atlantic!

I thought Warren Richey's story of  the Ultimate Florida Challenge, a water race around the state of Florida (recounted in WITHOUT A PADDLE) was pretty darn amazing. Seems like the stakes for amazing just got raised!

Adam Rackley's SALT, SWEAT, TEARS: The Men Who Rowed the Oceans, fewer people have rowed across the Atlantic than have climbed Everest; the author is among them; for 70 days he and his rowing partner ate, slept and rowed in a boat seven metres long and two metres wide, in one of the world's most extreme environments; this is his story of adventure, endurance and self-discovery and the history of those that came before them, to Patrick Nolan at Penguin, for publication in Fall 2014, by Kate Burton at Penguin UK on behalf of Alex Christofi at Conville & Walsh (NA).

And here's some video of them just for fun (it's almost an hour long but well worth it)

Question: No personalization allowed

I am preparing to send out my first round of queries to a small number of agents. One agency's submission guideline page said this, "Please do not send any of us individual email directly. Thank you!"

It is my understanding that queries should be addressed to a specific agent. The submission page does list four agents with their preferences on subjects and such. I do feel that one agent of the four would be the most interested in my query.

So my question is who should I address the query to? To the agency? To the specific agent?

This is the only agency where I have come across this request. Thank you for your time and advice.

Does this agency ask you submit the query to a generalized email address like Queries@AuctionThisMofos. com?

If so, what they mean by "don't send individual email" is do not query AgentB@AuctionThisMofos.com

If you are to send a query to a generalized email, you can personalize within the email but send it to the query email address listed.

Example:

To: Queries@AuctionThisMofos.com
Fr: Your email address
Subject line: Query for GONE ONCE by You The Author (a novel)

Dear AgentB:

You have good taste. I write good. Let's make money.

Etc.



I think what this agency is trying to avoid is having multiple agents get the same query (this happens more than you think) or queries going to the wrong mailbox. Depending on how the agency is run, agents may only get screened queries so it's Really Important you send to the email address they give
and not try to bypass the gatekeeper by sending to Agent B directly.  Most likely she'll just throw it out.

Question: query personalization

When reviewing query letters on Query Shark, I very rarely see mention of why the particular agent has been selected. Is this omitted from your post or is it not necessary to include?

One of the disadvantages to QueryShark is that my preferences on some things are not the universal. Clearly this is a cosmic error of epic proportion and will be remedied when I am Queen of the Known Universe.

However, while we wait for that happy day, personalized queries are largely seen as A Good Thing by most agents. Not me. I'm an agent. You're a writer. I have skills you need.  You have a good project I might want to sell. As Robert Parker so memorably said in an early Spenser novel "Enough with the love talk, off with the clothes."

And frankly, personalization is just one more hoop writers are asked to jump through for no good reason. It doesn't improve the quality of your writing. It doesn't help me evaluate your work.  Basically it's a fucking ego stroke for agents and I have zero tolerance for that as a prerequisite for paying attention to a query.

However.

IF you say you read Sean Ferrell's Man in the Empty Suit and loved it with the passion of a white hot sun, yes, that's something I pay attention to.  So, even my ice cold heart can be melted with some sincere personalization. (Notice it's not about ME, it's about one of the Fabulosity---that's a big thing to remember.)

IF you say you've read Josin McQuein's Premeditated and loved it with the passion of a white hot sun and you're querying with your YA novel, that shows me you are NOT paying attention, cause I don't rep Josin, and didn't sell the book.  I was just her first fan (of MANY.)

That's the very real downside of personalization---you have to really pay attention to details. And that's the reason I think it's shortsighted to ask writers to do this.  Why should you have to research this kind of detail for agents at the query stage? Your time is more valuable than that.  Unless you're writing the definitive history of Sharques in the Marketplace, who cares that I found Josin in the QueryShark chums?

But I've been on enough panels with other agents and heard them say they like to know why an author is querying to know I'm probably in the minority on this.

The good thing though is that so many agents are so much more visible and accessible now it makes it easier to find something good to say.

And while agents may like it, I don't think any agent anywhere at any time is going to reject a query because it doesn't contain the reason you're writing to them.  We're all looking for good stuff to sell. Tell us about the book in an enticing way and don't fret about anything else.

Questions: foreign words and phrases

Do agents frown upon foreign words or expressions in a manuscript?  It's a pet peeve of mine.  I hate advertisements, articles in magazines, blogs, etc. that sprinkle in foreign words rather than writing or saying something in English.  That said, I have a different opinion concerning novels. When a story is set in a foreign country, it sometimes adds to the ambiance that you wouldn't get otherwise if those expressions weren't used.

Sacre bleu, talk about a bete noir!

When one must have the mot juste, one does not wish to be restricted to the biggest juiciest language in the world! One assumes carte blanche (rather than causus casus belli) to pick and choose among the great wealth of words available to us all.


And this is, I'm sorry to say, quite an odd peeve for a writer.  I would have thought that as a writer you'd love words, ALL words, making them dance the fandango, or the tarentella, or the hora or the tango.

I love new words! Susurrus!

I love knowing just the perfect word: fait accompli!


Foreign words and phrases add to your tool kit.  Without them all writers and all readers would be schlemiels and schlimazels.

And if you really think you hate foreign words in ads, let me offer this up to change your mind:

this ad is one of but many created by the iconic firm of Gilbert Advertising. Richard Gilbert's memoir of those heady days on Madison Avenue is now available in print.


electronically too!

Have a lovely day of rest

you remembered to turn back your clock, right?

Why painting is like writing your novel

As my friends (and enemies!) will tell you I have a thing about moving furniture. I do it a lot. Like once a month.

Part and parcel of moving the furniture is painting the walls behind the furniture.  Even I am not so crazy as to repaint once a month...but I do like to paint.

But there's only a brief window of time between summer and winter (too hot to paint, too cold to leave the windows open!) to paint not just a wall but the entire apartment.

I decided to go for it.

First question of course was color.  I love colors -- big strong colors -- but you would not know this by looking at me because I tend to wear a lot of black. I still remember rooms with colors I loved from when I was a kid (Mrs Pickering's shade of marigold in her bathroom; my beloved aunt's deep rich fuchsia in her dining room)

My apartment walls have been bone white for years cause I loved the look of all the color in the room being the art on the walls.

But this time I thought:  Color!  I went online to the various paint companies and they let me look at all the colors I could imagine and more than a few I couldn't.  And they "let" me buy samples.

Yabbadabbodoo we are in business!  I ordered a bunch of samples, turned up at the store and hauled my treasure home.

And painted a sample square on the wall.

Wait! What??
This is..well I don't know what this is.


It looked like this on the color guide!

On my wall it looked like the zombie apocalypse started in Brooklyn, at MY house!!

Zounds!

Ok, try again.

Wait, no, that's not right either.
That looks like zombie puke. yeesh!

And it was so pretty at the paint website

Ok, that wasn't right either.

Something not quite so...big.

With a name like Sausalito Sunset, it had to be pretty right?
It was pretty at the store!


Now, these pictures obviously are taken with foul light and by a not very skilled photog (ie ME) but still...you can see why at this point I was tearing out my hair.

I'd gotten those three colors with the idea they'd be the main color on the wall.  It was clear I was clueless about color when I saw my choice for the trim or accent color up next.

Yes, that is kangaroo.
Not only did it look pretty, it sounded almost as fun as raccoon fur.

But they weren't pretty. They were...well, they were just awful. And kind of scary.

(And if you're wondering what those black scratch marks are, that's what you get when you lean your bicycle against the wall every day for ten years.)


At this point I was officially losing my mind.

And my weather window is closing.  The heat came on in the building for two nights and that's
a pretty reliable sign it's getting cold enough that you don't want to leave your windows wide open for 48 hours.

What to do?

Well of course I took my complaints to twitter. Not to seek help, what was anyone going to do, come to my house and choose colors? Not likely (although if anyone wants to do this, I'm open!)

No it was just to seek company in my misery.

But like all good things, Twitter surprised me.  There were some pretty good links provided.

This one from Thistlewood Farms was really good (thanks @Craigsoffer!)

And then there was this: Houzz.com from the amazing and talented @HelenaHunting.

It wasn't so much that I got the right colors from these links, I didn't.  It was more what I learned about the process of choosing. And seeing a LOT of examples.

And what I hated (purple) and what I was afraid of (green.)

Why was I afraid of green you ask?

Well, meet the snot-green couch.

This is the couch that refuses to die. The couch that I bought without actually sitting on it (that is a mistake in case you're wondering).  A couch I bought cause I liked that it had an extension on one side so I could put my feet up while I read.

A couch that looked like it was a very pretty brown in the furniture store (and don't I suspect they had tricky lighting in that store??)

Anyway, the snot green couch had to live in the room with the paint.  Paint the walls green and I thought it would be like like living inside a particularly nasty headcold.

So I dithered around some more. Most of this was going in the early morning and late evening when dithering takes on a quality of panic that just might resemble psychosis. 

But then I saw this. And if you look below the color block to "goes great with" you'll see a color called Texas Sage. And I swear this is true: I thought "Stephanie Jaye Evans lives in Texas and so this has to be a sign" which is illogical and crazy and completely nutso, and despite all that, I ordered samples of it anyway.

And got it home last night.

And painted a test sample.

And didn't actively hate it.

Which is about five steps forward from every other paint sample (except Straw which I liked on the wall but was too washed out for this size room, and godhelp me the brown trim with it looked like baby poop)

the snot-green couch with straw and kangaroo

So here it is.  And if you hate it don't tell me, cause I think this is the right color. Also, yes, I'm painting the walls on the angle.

This photo makes the top color look much more orange than it appears. It's actually a pretty lovely shade of peach. And the Texas Sage doesn't give the snot-green couch the sniffles. So, I think we've got our paint colors.

A lot of dithering, a lot of fang-gnashing, a lot of twitter-whinging, and a lot of good natured help from pals far and wide.


I can hear you thinking "get to the point about novel writing, enough with your paint stuff!"  Ok here it is:

When you start to write, you know what you like and what you want your novel to be. And then sometimes when it's on the page it doesn't look like what you wanted at all. In fact it looks like zombie puke.

When this happens, it's no surprise you're utterly perplexed. You know what you want, why isn't it turning out right?

So you dither, and kvetch, and stomp around. All good things to do for loosening up mental debris and getting a breakthrough. But it doesn't always do the trick.

Sometimes you have to just hang out with people who get what you're going through. They'll offer advice and sympathy.  Sometimes the advice isn't exactly what you need but it will shake up your mindset enough that you can figure it out.

Sometimes you have to be willing to do something illogical, crazy and completely nutso, cause sometimes that IS the path toward the goal.

And sometimes you have to realize that what you're afraid of is exactly where you should be heading.



I almost settled for something I didn't really like cause I couldn't figure out how to get what I knew would be better.

Keep working 'til you love what you've got.

A new art form

There's a new art form out and about in the world: Amazon reviews.  A lot of authors anguish about 1-star reviews for things like prices, delivery and "too much swearing" I sympathize.  But
at least you're not getting reviews like this one.

Not to mention my all-time favorite one: the three wolves shirt, although the Bic-For-Her pens give it a good run.

And the best ones are the people who are missing the irony gene and answer the questions seriously: Tuscan Milk Q&A (last entry)

(It's going to take you some time to read these reviews...don't start if you've got to be at work in five minutes, or the kids are hungry.)



It's hard to write funny but these reviews make it look easy.  I'm not sure what to call these amazing bits of creative genius. Review isn't right, essay isn't either.

Any ideas?

What I'm Reading: Lawrence in Arabia by Scott Anderson

 

"One would need to return to the Dark Ages or the depredations of Genghis Khan to find a war as devastating. By point of comparison, over the previous century, during which it had expanded its empire to five continents, the British Empire had been involved in some forty different conflicts around the globe--colonial insurrections mostly, but including the Crimean and Boer wars--and had lost some forty thousand soldiers in the process. 

"Over the next four years, it would lose over twenty times that number.  

"In the disastrous Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, France had suffered an estimated 270,000 battlefield casualties; in the present war, it was to surpass that number in the first three weeks.  In this conflict, Germany would see 13 percent of it's military-age male population killed, Serbia 15 percent of its total population, while in just a two-year span, 1913-1915, the life expectancy of a French male would drop from fifty years to twenty-seven.  

"So inured would the architects of the carnage become to such statistics that at the launch of his 1916 Somme offensive, British general Douglas Haig could look over the first day's casualty rolls--with fifty-eight thousand Allied soldiers dead or wounded--it remains the bloodiest single day in the history of the English-speaking world--and judge that the numbers "cannot be considered severe."

"The effect of all this on the collective European psyche would be utterly profound. Initial euphoria would give way to shock, shock to horror, and then, as the killing dragged on with no end in sight, horror to a kind of benumbed despair.

"In the process, though, the European public would come to question some of the most basic assumptions about their societies.  Among the things they would realize was that, stripped of all its high-minded justifications and rhetoric, at its core this war had many of the trappings of an extended family feud, a chance for Europe's kings and emperors--many of them related by blood--to act out old grievance and personal slights atop the heaped bodies of their loyal subjects. 

"In turn, Europe's imperial structure had fostered a culture of decrepit military elites--aristocrats and aging war heroes and palace sycophants--whose sheer incompetence on the battlefield, as well as callousness toward those dying for them, was matched only by that of their rivals. 

 

"Indeed, in looking at the conduct of the war and the almost preternatural idiocy displayed by all the powers, perhaps its most remarkable feature is that anyone finally won at all."

Question: Pegging to a news event

I’m working on my third novel, the inspiration of which comes directly from front page news.

Once I begin querying, (light years from now), is it advisable to actually compare the news event with the story. In the first line of my query I want to use the newsworthy real-name as background and the character’s name to then set up the situation.

I’ve found that when mentioning nationally known terms, names, and headlines the recognizable aspect helps to alleviate reams of backstory. “JFK” an era, “911” a tragic event and place, “Sandy Hook”, “Columbine”, “Joel Steinberg”, “December 7th”, “1929”, all of them set the stage and create mindset. To me it makes for a great pitch, but then again, I’m thinking that somewhere on page whatever of Novel Writing for Dummies it might be an agent turnoff.

It's not so much a turnoff as it can be confusing.

In fact, I wrote a blog post about this not too long ago. If you say 9/11 to mean a tragic event that isn't 9/11, you're in trouble.  If you say JFK to mean 1962, and your book isn't about JFK, you're in trouble.

Your query should entice me to read your book. That is the ONLY rule you need to remember.

BUT if you are still light years from querying, don't think about it. Not at all. And particularly don't worry about what to say.

Right now, finish your novel. That's the first big step.

A bun showed up at the office today

He looked cutty eyed at us as we were foxing.  Our Kate pulled out her barking irons and we soon sent him out to the leaf.

Getting out your Google Translator? You'll have better luck here in the Rogue's Lexicon!

I'm thinking we need these words in a writing contest one of these days!

(Thanks to blog reader April for the link!)

Question: synopsis

So I've slogged through my epic masterpiece fiction novel thingy (kidding, it's a regular old paranormal romance) and I'm now sitting down to write the synopsis. And I've found plenty of advice online about how I need to cut out the details and leave just the bare-bones plot, but I'm finding it a challenge to pare things out without making the main characters sound like they have no motivation for their actions. I was very careful to craft a tight plot in which Event A influences Character B which causes him to do Action C - so if I leave out Event A, Character B seems like he just wanders around doing C for no reason at all. I'm worried the agents who have requested the synopsis will ask the obvious question ("Why on earth wouldn't he just do D instead?") and assume I don't know how to write.

What's your take on this? Do you ask for synopses from your authors? I'm finding this particularly difficult with the paranormal events in my story, because I could easily spent a page or two explaining my world's magic and its limitations (which affect why the characters do what they do) and I kinda suspect that's the part all these internet gurus are suggesting I cut . . .

I hate synopses. They are the spawn of Satan. But yes, all my authors do them because at some point, I'll need it.


The point of a synopsis is not to explain much. It's to show what happens.  It is not intended to be lyrical beautiful writing. In fact, if you try to do that you'll go nuts because the point of a synopsis is to show what happens in the book in one or two pages. It's like a book report from a third grader. This happens, then that.


So, you don't explain motivation. You say Event A influences Character B and thus he does C.  We're not looking to nitpick "why doesn't he do D" here. We just need to know he does C.


Don't explain the world of magic. Don't explain the limitations. Simply set the scene.


Here's an example from Trickster by Jeff Somers:

Magic uses blood—a lot of it. The more that’s used, the more powerful the effect, so mages find “volunteers” to fuel their spells. Lem, however, is different. Long ago he set up a rule that lets him sleep at night: never use anyone’s blood but your own.

What you don't see here is the effect that has on Lem, and I assure you there is one.  We don't need that fact in the synopsis. We just need to know that magic requires blood and Lem only uses his own...right up until Event A in fact!

Simple declarative sentences are the key.

Scariest Writer Writing Contest Results!

I had a good laugh when all of you who read the post about writers that were TOO SCARY and promptly wrote the scariest things you could think of. Talk about writer's revenge! I'm sleeping with one eye open for the next year!

Thanks to everyone who entered. It's always a lot of fun to see what you come up with and this contest was particularly filled with great entries.

Herewith the results:

Special recognition for adding a word to my vocabulary (I needed that after taking this test)

susurrus (whispering, murmuring or rustling) Kat Waclawik 10:29am

Special recognition for the horror of writing!

Kitty 10:07am

Special recognition for a cameo by the author of Dr. Sleep himself!

Carolynnwith2Ns 10:38am

My new favorite phrase:

"Sarcasm smells like brimstone." Writer of Wrongs 10:27am

Special recognition for a great line:

He's beautiful, like barbed wire twisted around a tree trunk.

Dave 12:14am

A gorgeous example of ambiguity:

We have food enough for another day, only if Old Bill Wilcox passes tonight.

Madseasongirl 10:47am

Not quite a story but great:

Kate Higgings 11:02am

Not quite a story but utterly heartbreaking

french sojourn 12:08pm

Kim C 6:23pm

Special recognition for flat out fun gore

Colin Smith 11:03am

Special recognition for tenacity in getting her entry done:

DKChildress 11:06am (thanks to Anne Marie too!)

Why my days of eating spaghetti are over for a good long while:

Mike Comrie 1:19pm

Why my days of taking out the trash are over for a good long while

Josh Johnstun 4:17am

A phrase I intend to use as often as possible

I smiled and guided my love craft into her harbor.

Steve Forti 9:29

Were your ears burning? No? Your eyes?

J. William Latimer 9:08pm

Not quite a story but YOWZA!!!

Becke Davis 1:27pm

JaredNGarrett 5:02pm

Not quite a story but YIKES!!!

Seth's Dad 4:12pm

Calorie Bombshell 1:17am

Not quite a story but Zowie!

lindseylee 7:46pm

Oh thank you, this is going to make the next power outage so much fun!

Madeline Mora-Summonte 4:28pm

A gorgeous example of subtlety:

Wendy Roberts 1:56pm

Violet Ingram 1:23am

Heidi 9:06am

What a great twist!

Just Jan 7:15pm

Absolutely cracked me up

Sheila JG 9:15pm

And here are the ten count 'em TEN  finalists:
I've highlighted phrases and words that particularly appealed to me

(1) Ashley Whitt 10:26am

You're the guy?" the awaiting voice asked.

Riley shouldered past the skepticism, and put his hand out to feel the lock.

With a pick he'd crafted himself he set to work. He loved this part. Soft clicks and catches, careful turns and prods. He pictured the shining interior of the mechanism. The lock gave way beautifully.

"Whoa, he did it." Another voice in the night.

Riley shrugged. It made sense, he thought, that a blind man would make a good locksmith.

"Get out of the way."

He felt a shove and heard another sick click, recognized it immediately. A handgun.

(2) Writer of Wrongs 10:27am

"Next! Step into the light. "
I inch forward. This is unexpected, no harps, no halos, only a disembodied voice behind the shining orb.
"Occupation?"
"Writer."
His sigh scratches like wind at the door.
"Traditional or self-published?"
"Neither. Yet."
"Beautiful."
I steel myself for rejection.
"What's your schtick?"
"Schtick?"
"Genre?"
"Oh, horror. "
"Lovely. We never get that here." Another sigh. "Here's the deal. Souls are a dime a dozen. We need bodies."
"Bodies."
"Consider it research. You hone your craft, we hone ours. I'll throw in immortality."
"How about an agent?"
"Whatever. Destiny awaits."
Sarcasm smells like brimstone.
Oh. Damn.

(3) Kat Waclawik 10:29am

He finished my ears first. I heard his muttering and mumbling, the scrape of his tools as I awaited my beginning. I heard the susurrus of dust, the scratch of sandpaper as he crafted my body from a marble chrysalis. I heard him tell me I was beautiful.

When he finished shaping my last lash, I opened my eyes into his. I saw the love shining from him.

I smelled his fear when I took the chisel from his fragile fingers.

Like me, he felt everything.

(4) LynnRodz 10:43am

He awaited this child with dread. A beautiful little thing - shining skin, rosy and plump, and tiny fingers like miniature sausages.

He loved his children and he crafted a plan. He turned on the oven to 350°F and set to work. The child began to cry. He cut the small apple he'd saved for his dead wife and placed it over the baby's mouth.

Butter, he needed butter. There was none; lard would have to do. The pair of eyes looked up at him and he turned away. Tonight, his seven starving children would eat. Tonight, there would be food.

(5) Kelli Carley 11:21am 

His head is on the pillow. Underneath mine; a knife, handcrafted for the most particular of butchers. Outside, the paloverde whispers, the desert beyond awaiting fresh skin and beautiful bones. Skin to feed the coyotes. Bones to add layers of dust. Around my eye, a shadow of sunset purple. A little girl in the next room, broken. If I'm quick, she won't hear a thing.

I slide my hand under the pillow, fingers feeling only cool sheet. Nothing but his cackle and a shining flash of steel. A rough hand over my mouth. Still I scream. Hoping she will hear.

(6) Lisa Jackson 11:35am

The boat awaits him, a shadow on the turbid waters. He would love to stay but its time for the other shore. On other nights he might have thought the moon beautiful, but tonight it is shining on the ferryman and the empty seat.

He knows the old tale and its warning, but halfway across, the ferryman bends double at the waist and lets the rudder slip, he grabs that old stick before they're rudderless, then steers them to the shore. It's the ferryman who descends.

He turns the small craft around; there are other souls waiting to cross.

(7) Scott G 11:55am

I love to hang out at college campuses. Beautiful ladies await. A perfect place to hone my craft.

The sun shining down on their glistening bodies makes my dick hard.

I make up some ruse to get one of the lovelies to take me home. I invite them inside. Tell them my mom will want to say thanks. Maybe give them ten bucks. Or a cookie.

Shit, my mom hasn’t been home for two months.

That’s when I swoop in for the kill.

They never see me coming.

I’m ten.

“Hey lady, would you help me with my bike?”

(8) Jared X 12:06am

Desperation ain’t beautiful. But who don’t love a problem to fix?

She pounds on my door. Her boyfriend’s ten minutes behind, she says. There’s barely time for introductions before he shows, headlights shining through my window. I craft some bullshit to get rid of him.

Watch yourself, he says. You’ll become the next “boyfriend.” He turns and I see the blood.

No sooner he’s gone, she’s counting the cash from my bureau. Take it, I say.

Too easy, she says. Where’s the fun?

I wanted to help, I say.

Her cackle sends chills. She tells me my reward awaits me.

(9) Terri Lynn Coop 12:44am

Tongues wagged as the newlyweds left the courthouse.

"That old fool. He must have thirty years on her."

"Forty. She's nineteen. Grew up in the County Home after the big fire."

"So beautiful. So much love shining in her eyes."

"Stacked to the rafters, and them legs go right on up to her neck."

"Damn, what a honeymoon awaits him. Bet he wants to get started."

They were wrong. The groom could wait. His exquisite bride was totally alone. Always meticulous about his craft, he would go slowly. The taxidermist had waited a lifetime for the perfect trophy wife.

(10) KONO 9:38am

Just Two


He was reluctant. He loved her, of course. Would die for her, kill for her. But make their duo a trio? That song was uncertain.
Nights, he’d stare at the sky--a million shining questions--thinking.
Months passed. He crafted reasons. She, so beautiful, dispelled them.
Finally, he acquiesced. Watched her shape change. Watched the moon change shape, too.
Then, it was time. He held her. She screamed. And what followed was a silence so severe he trembled.
The long-awaited babe was here. She wasn’t.
Not a trio.
Him. And the boy.
Just two.

And the winner is #3:

(3) Kat Waclawik 10:29am

He finished my ears first. I heard his muttering and mumbling, the scrape of his tools as I awaited my beginning. I heard the susurrus of dust, the scratch of sandpaper as he crafted my body from a marble chrysalis. I heard him tell me I was beautiful.

When he finished shaping my last lash, I opened my eyes into his. I saw the love shining from him.

I smelled his fear when I took the chisel from his fragile fingers.

Like me, he felt everything.



This was a VERY tough decision. Congrats to all the finalists and shout outs!  All the entries are much appreciated!

Kat, if you'll get in touch with me (Janet at FinePrintLit dot com) we'll get you the autographed edition of Dr. Sleep. If by some reason it's TOO SCARY for you, we can come up with another book!

Scariest Writer Writing Contest

Some days ago Laird Barron was tagged as the Scariest Writer on the Planet!  I've never read any of his work (too scary!!!!)  There's another great writer whose work I've never read cause it's too also scary: Stephen King.

I had the pleasure of seeing Stephen King at a recent reading.  I was accompanied on this field trip by my boon companions in crime (and devoted King fans) Joanna Volpe, Dan Krokos and Brooks Sherman. At the close of the reading we got copies of his new novel Dr. Sleep.  Of course,
I am not going to read it!! TOO SCARY!!!

So, what better to do with it than offer it as the prize for writing contest! That it happens to be a signed copy all the better.

So, usual rules.

Write a story with 100 words or fewer. Post in the comments section of THIS blog post.  If you need a mulligan (a do-over) delete the comment and post again. Only ONE comment per person will be considered.

Use the following words in the story:


Beautiful
Await
Shining
Love
Craft


Each word must appear in the story, but it can be part of a larger word, although it must appear intact within the word.


Contest opens at 10am Saturday 10/26. It closes at 10am Sunday, 10/27.

All decisions are entirely subjective.


Questions? Tweet to me @Janet_Reid

Ready?
Set?
Enter! 

Too Late! Contest is closed.

Question: Reader input needed!

I know I have a story to tell, but I also know I don't know how to write a novel. Any recommendations for books on craft?

Well, I'm not a writer. I'm a shark.  But the readers of this blog are writers.  I bet they've got some good suggestions.

How about it, dear readers?  Which craft book has been most useful to you in learning your craft?

Question: Defame and fortune

When writing a novel loosely structured upon events that took place in the author’s childhood (an example that comes readily to mind is “To Kill A Mockingbird”), how far afield ought one go to disguise fictional characters who are based on actual flawed people, alive, and dead, but with surviving family members?  

You can't libel the dead, so you're probably ok with everyone who has passed on to greater glory. The living ones you'll need to be careful about.  And by careful I mean not just identifying a guy as having a small dick cause who would ever claim to be that guy (which is advice I've heard more than once at a writer's conference.)

It's best to change as much as you can so people who know this character won't say "aha!"

It's novels written for revenge that can get you in trouble. There've been two cases I know of that went to trial because of thinly disguised fiction.  The key word here is thinly.

The one that caused us all to laugh is this one against AuthorHouse.
The one that wasn't too funny at all is this one.


That said: don't worry.  Anyone can sue anyone for anything these days and if you've got litigious enemies, well, nothing will dissuade them from suing or threatening to sue.  That's when you get a very good IP lawyer to send a very sternly worded letter that cuts them off at the knees.



If you're writing a novel, we all assume that you made it all up.  And if anyone ever asks, that's what you say too.

For a more comprehensive opinion,  try this post at the Digital Media Law Project on suing for defamation in fiction.

Question: how good is good enough?

If a manuscript is mostly well-written (with a believable premise and good spelling/grammar), but might still need work, would that usually be considered close enough for an agent to want to send a contract, then have the author fix it up after? 

No.

In other words, how perfect must a manuscript be before an agent will consider signing an author?

My goal is to get a manuscript  I can send to an editor that very minute.   I also root for the Cubs, so I have a long standing ability to deal with failed hopes and dreams.

I STRONGLY encourage you to not send a manuscript out before you think it's absolutely ready to be published, because I can assure you that what you think is publishable and what I think is publishable are probably different.

That said, I've worked with authors to edit their work before it's gone out.  Everything from developmental editing to copy editing.

Now though, I don't have a lot of time to do that for potential new clients. I have old clients who keep me very busy with that sort of stuff.  Younger agents who don't have a big list are more likely to have the time to do that kind of developmental work.

Don't count on it though.  "Good enough" is not the standard you want to aspire to.  Almost every single one of my clients has to have the manuscript pried out of their twitching fingers as they mutter "wait, should it be like or that for that clause on page 303!?"  In other words, writers who have sweated every single word, sentence, paragraph and page.  

Question: Requerying after rejection

I've realized that while I love my manuscript, the opening chapter is not as strong as it could be and I am significantly revising it. I believe that the new opening chapter is much stronger and is more likely to grab an agent's attention more so than the original.

I know you prefer not to be re-queried after a rejection, but do you believe that to be true for all agents, or is that a personal preference of yours? Most agents only ask for the first chapter and I believe that I may have better luck with the new first chapter. I have received 14 rejections so far. I've stopped querying for the time being until my revisions are complete.

If I had to answer yes or no and it had to apply to most of the re-queries I see, the answer is Yes. Most agents do not want to be requeried after a rejection.

This is because, most often, the book being queried isn't something I want to take on. I have personal preferences just like you do.  Better writing isn't going to help. A better novel isn't going to help.  I'm most likely never going to take on a novel about werewolves, shapeshifters or anything set in space.  And no dinosuar erotica. Not now. Not ever. (I'm not making that up, I swear)

And there are those among the queriers out there who just requery endlessly for the same novel.  Some years back there was a guy (he may still be out there for all I know) who queried the same novel something like 97 times.  It was actually rather helpful that he did this: I learned how to do keyword search and block in my email so his stuff went straight to spam.

And that's the danger of querying too often no matter how many revisions you've made.  If it seems that  I've seen this query before, I'll look in my archives. If you've queried too many times (3+) on the same novel in a short period of time (months) I block your email address.

BUT for those writers who realized their work wasn't ready for the harsh light of the slushpile stage, and have made SUBSTANTIAL revisions, let me again say that there is no such thing as the Query Police.  If you requery no one will come to your house and impound your keyboard.  (This will change when I am Queen of the Known Universe.)

The trick is to also REDO YOUR QUERY.  It's the query I will remember, not the pages.  Use this information wisely cause the last thing you want to do is get yourself in the auto-spam folder. There's no way out of that short of changing your email address.

Happy Sunday Reading

The incoming mail turned up a nice note recently from a blog reader:

"Since I recently provided an unintentional assist in a club soda purge of your nasal passages (removes stains from carpets and table linens, TOO!) I thought I might be forgiven for bringing a favorite parable to your attention. (I confess to being a bit disillusioned that you admitted in cold print to have been drinking club soda - which I think of as Vodka-Helper™).

I know from reading your blog that you read widely outside your cherished (felonious, blood-spattered) genres, so while recently re-reading Jean Giono's "The Man Who Planted Trees" for the umpteenth time, it occurred to me that you might appreciate this taut and lovely little tale.

I expect that it is likely that you have already read it, but on the off chance you haven't, I include a link."

http://www.aprendendoingles.com.br/ebooks/the_man_who_planted_trees.pdf

I had not read it, but have now.

A lovely lovely story for a Sunday afternoon.

Happy Reading!

Question: how much ankle to reveal?

I've been working on a book for the past three years now. It started off as a humorous account based off of real life experiences, but after many edits, it is now in the YA fiction genre. Also, I intend on this book being part of a series. What I'm wondering is if I should mention this information in my query letters. Is it even relevant?

Please do not mention the circuitous route your book took to reach its final (illustrious we hope) form.  This is akin to watching food prepped for a beauty shot on a cooking show (blow torch, paint and glue, yum yum) or Miss America practicing her fire baton routine.  It's better just to see the final result.

As to whether your book will be a series, my standard advice is to treat the novel as a stand alone at the query stage.  You've got to get one published before you have two.

Question: Who's looking at me?

What should you expect from your literary agent during the submission process to editors? Should you at some point receive a list of who they submitted to and any feedback/rejections from publishers, or should you expect to hear nothing from them (however long that is) until they receive an offer (if they do)?

How and what you want to hear is up to you.  My default practice is to send the submission list with ms status about once a month.  I send it on a spread sheet attached to an email.  What clients do with it after that is up to them.

 In the example above, (any editor comment) is where I cut and paste the editor's email about the ms in the db for the author.


However.  This is something you can and should talk to YOUR agent about.  If you want to be informed weekly, say so. If you don't want the rejection letters from editors, say so.



Here's the downside to sending submission stats to authors: often it means they want to go over each and every editor, discussing pros cons etc.  DO NOT  DO THIS unless you are starting to suspect your agent is an idiot.

I'm very willing to discuss submissions with my clients, don't get me wrong, but it's very easy to get
caught up in analysis and let the actual agenting work slide: getting on the phone, making calls, making sales.

Tag, you're not it!

You know how you learn something new every day?

Some of those things aren't quite as fun to learn as others.

Here's a very illuminating blog post from Wendy Thomas about tagging the photos you put online.

"Mammo grahams" by Wendy Thomas

Who should you listen to?

An interesting viewpoint about listening to "unsuccessful" rather than famous writers for advice in Salon.

I think this article has a valid point but would caution readers to know the difference between writers who aren't "successful" and writers who haven't  had any success at all: the know-it-alls in advice chat rooms who've never been published but know how everything works.  Or the grammar enforcers who don't understand style.

So, rather than unsuccessful, I would say look to the yeoman writers, the people slogging away in the field every day. The people who are working hard but not (yet) raking it in.

10 Things to Do While Agents Dawdle around with your full manuscript

1. If this book is intended to be a series, map out the next three to five books.  A plot thumbnail, character development, setting. 

2. Clean up your electronic presence.  Review your blog posts for the last year for spelling errors, or flabby sentences.  Make sure your contact information is up to date.

3. Read as many debut authors in your category as you can.  Make friends with them on Facebook and Twitter (trust me, they want to be your friend!)

4. Start the next book.

5. Read Bleak House by Charles Dickens.

6. Read a book of poems. I suggest Richard Blanco.

7. Read a book that a total stranger reccomends (Amazon lists are a good place to start; Twitter too.)

8. Increase your elevator pitch skills by writing and honing pitches for books you've read and loved (but not written.)

9. Write the synopsis for your book in three forms: three pages, one page, one paragraph.

10. Read Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.

Question: Category

I've been rewriting a novel I've been working on for quite a while under the genre of paranormal romance. The problem I am facing is that in my attempts to improve my manuscript, I feel my story is drifting out of this genre, possibly into science fiction or fantasy.

You always say to read your genre and know it well, but I am not well versed in the sci-fi world (I have read a good amount of fantasy though).

Do you find books that combine genres to be popular? My main concern is that the genre's I'm crossing may not work together--the paranormal romance scene is quite different, in my opinion, than that of sci-fi.

Also, when it comes to querying, I am not sure how to list my book. (I realize I'm getting a little ahead of my myself, but as I've been working on this for so long I've had an uber long time to think about the next step.)

Finding the right category for a book is a troublesome task for those of us on this side of the slush pile too.


The trick here is to think about who will read your book and love it. That's one of the reasons you have to know a category really well.

If you think about people who read crime novels, they want resolution of a problem, and most definitely want justice to be done. It may be rough justice, vigilante justice, last rites, divine justice or just desserts, but there must be a reckoning of sorts to be a crime novel.

Romance novels must have a romantic relationship that grows, is challenged, breaks and then heals. The plot arc is largely the arc of the relationship rather than outside events.  In a romance, someone must end up happy, and most usually happy with a love interest.

I don't read enough SFF to know what readers must have.  It's more than cyborgs, dragons and space travel though.

And it's not enough to use the tropes of a genre to make a book fit in a genre.

Paranormal romance is shelved in romance, SFF is not.  You're very right to understand these are two very different categories.

And it's very common to have books in one category also contain elements from another.  There's crimesolving in romance, there's romance in crime fiction. There are dragons and crimes and romance in SF.

Finish the novel. Get a couple beta reads. Ask the readers what author it reminds them of. If you've got good beta readers they'll guide you.

And in the end, don't fret. I don't discard queries based solely on the category authors tell me they're writing, cause at least 50% of the time, they're wrong.  I look at what they tell me about the book.

Have an otterful day today!

I love Otter so much I could just burst.


I AM OTTER is coming in 2014, and I intend to buy it by the wheelbarrow full:

For more enjoyment here's Otter's website

Question: How much of me?

Agents have been known to check out prospective client's blogs and/or social media. How much might a badly-written blog article influence your decision to request a manuscript? As I wander the webs, I've come across blogs by unpublished writers that don't reflect well any writing skills they may have. And I wonder if writers might put as much care and attention into *all* their writing (blogs, emails, comments, etc.) if they knew prospective agents/publishers/readers were assessing their abilities based on these and not just their query letter. 

This answer applies only to me. I'm not sure how other agents work. I like to assume that everyone does things the way I do cause I'm brilliant and all that, but sadly, have discovered that is not the case.  (Further empirical evidence I should be Queen of the Known Universe and soon.)

When I get your query and the first 3-5 pages of your novel or memoir, I generally do NOT head over to your website, blog or twitter feed.  I request the pages, open a file for you and then after three ice ages have come and gone I read your work and reply.

ONLY if I am interested in taking you on as a client do I start nosing around.  Time is a precious commodity here, and if I'm not interested in the book, I'm not going to spend time on your website, blog, or twitter feed cause ..well...why would I? I've got plenty of other writers to torment.

However, and this is a big however, do NOT USE THIS to think you can get sloppy on your website, blog or twitter feed.

Everything you post should be your best work at the time.  Don't worry about going back six years and cleaning things up. Obviously you will have gotten better over time.

The big thing about your electronic presence is that it should look active.  A blog that no one is reading doesn't help you.  A twitter account with no activity (note I said, no activity not too-few followers!) doesn't help you.

Frankly most of what I'm looking for here is whether you are crazypants.  Are you going on and on about how slow agents and editors are? Are you making sweeeping political generalities?  Are YOU the only thing you talk about?

A good electronic presence is active and social.  It's well written, fun to read, and gives me something to retweet or blog about.

And if I take you on as a client you can bet your cute red cowboy boots that one of the first things we'll do is review your web presence across all platforms and ask you to clean up the stuff that needs work.  Editors look at this a whole lot more quickly than agents do, that's for sure.

A brief pause for jocularity

This has long been one of my favorite jokes:

A Buddhist monk approaches a hotdog stand and says “make me one with everything”.

Recently, a website** posted a list of 50 Best Intellectual Jokes and I found one that I like even better:

The vendor makes the hot dog and hands it to the Buddhist monk, who pays with a $20 bill. The vendor puts the bill in the cash box and closes it. “Excuse me, but where’s my change?” asks the Buddhist monk. The vendor replied, “Change must come from within.”

Here's the entire list. Which one is your favorite?

***hat tip to @TerriLCoop for the link to the list!

Question: Where? There? Huh?

1) What is your preferred format for manuscripts. Seems like a pretty basic thing but your post on where the page number should go shows that people seem to be all over the place on, well, placement. Things like which font to use, what the cover page should look like (genre, title, name, contact info), the margins (1" all around), how the chapters should be (typed numbers vs numerals), chapter start point (top of page or middle), or anything else that makes your job a little easier to do when you ask for a full manuscript. Most important, where does the copyright date and notice go? (Just kidding) Like I said at the top, I thought this was in a FAQ you already provided but I can't seem to find it now.

2) When do you use a numeral instead of typing out the number? I thought I read on your blog numerals for measurements (height, weight, etc.) and for numbers over 100 otherwise spell them out.

You're going to love this answer: I don't care.
No really.

When you include 3-5 pages in your query there aren't page numbers because it's electronic. There aren't margins. There's no cover page. There better not be chapters. And as long as the numbers are base 10, we're good.

On a full manuscript request, again, I don't care. Just make sure the info is THERE! DO number your pages. Do include a cover page with your contact details.

Industry standard fonts are TNR and/or Courier 12 pt but honestly in this day and age I can change anything you send to that with two clicks.

The stuff that makes me crazy is formatting done automatically by your word processing program cause I can't see it, and I can't fix it.

Turn all that fancy schmancy stuff off (like superscript for 3rd)

Any agent that gets her knickers in a wad about this kind of stuff is probably very old school. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just another piece of info you have about her.

Where formatting and style ARE important is when the book is sold and you have to turn in a manuscript that follows house style guides.

I think page numbers are in the lower right corner and your Name/Title are in the header section flush left on manuscript pages, but I've been taken to task for this by some pretty good agents so until I am Queen of the Known Universe (which frankly can't be soon enough) just make sure they're there, that's all.

The only time I got really cranky about this was when we were running a contest and didn't specify formatting on the novels submitted and ended up with a hodgepodge. It wasn't so much that everyone was wrong as it was they were not uniform.  

Question: When are you too new?

 At what point does a new agent with no sales raise red flags? When they have been agenting for two months? Six months? A year? I know that not all beginning agents make sales quickly, but when does not having any sales become a huge red flag to someone considering them for representation?

This is a question with multiple answers.  There are multiple answers because "new agent" can be applied to people in wildly differing situations.

Someone who hung out her shingle in Left Of Nowhere, Nova Dakota last year cause she loves authors and wants to help them is a far different cry from someone who worked at BigAssAndDonchewFergitIt House as an editor for twenty years and is now turning to the Dark Side.

New agents come in all levels of expertise and experience.

The more expertise and experience, the sooner they can make sales (generally speaking.)

If someone who's worked in publishing for 20 years isn't making sales within a year, I'd wonder.

If someone who's never worked in publishing and is agenting part time to "help writers" EVER makes a sale, I'd be astonished.

Here's the real rule: I don't want to be first on a new venture.

If a publisher is just starting out,  or someone has a great idea for new idea about movies you can watch on your phone, I want to be their third project, not the first. I want them to make all those inevitable mistakes with some other guy, not me.

This applies generally to agents as well.  I'm not always well received when I say "anyone can sell a book" but it's very close to true.  Selling isn't the hard part of agenting. The hard part is keeping writers well-published.  To do that you need years of experience.

Of course, when I was first starting out I had a very different pitch on what you wanted in an agent, and experience was not on the list I can assure you.

To answer your question: anyone who is agenting should have made a sale in a year. Anything less  than that and they're not full-time, or not well-connected, or not getting good projects.  All of those things are Not. Good.

Do bookmarks work for promo?

I don't know for sure.

I don't think there is a way to graph the rate of return on money invested in promotion.   It's akin to the broken window strategy in law enforcement: nail the guys who jump the turnstiles (a small "victimless" crime) and you'll cut the crime rate (guys who jump turnstiles often have outstanding warrants for other petty crimes.)

While publicity and petty crime aren't in the same ball park (we hope!) they both have difficulty measuring results related to effort.

But back to bookmarks.

I recently attended Bouchercon in Albany.  I ran into all sorts of authors, new, known, pubbed, unpubbed. Several were authors I'd known for awhile who now had book deals.  Big huzzahs all around.  Passing out of bookmarks very often.

Fast forward a week and I'm tidying my desk and what surfaces but a bookmark for A Killing at Cotton Hill by my friend Terry Shames.  I've known her for years, had many pleasant conversations with her, had been glad to hear of her book deal at Bcon. Had I bought the book there? No I had not.

So, here was the bookmark to remind me, and today I ordered it.

And now I'm writing a blog post about it.

Net effect of that one book mark (building on years of attending Bouchercon, a snazzy website, and a lot of effort) is pretty good.  Did she hand out bookmarks to people who didn't buy? Sure. But it worked for me, and now that you've read this blog post, maybe it will work for you.

So, do bookmarks work for promo?  Yes. And they sure as heck are better than nothing.


My working philosophy for publicity and marketing is do everything you can, and one thing more.

Question: How many candles?

I am a teen who is serious about writing. I've written several novels and am in the process of revising my query letter. I was wondering what your thoughts were about revealing my age to agents. Should I be vague and say that I'm a teen, should I say my exact age (13), or should I avoid what my age is all together? I'm worried that if agents see how young I am they won't take me seriously. So . . . thoughts?

I think you're right to understand that agents won't take your work seriously if you mention you're 13. It's ok to not mention your age at all.

Of course, if you are offered representation, your parents have to sign the agreement for you, as they will a publishing contract.


I was talking to an agent friend of mine who has the good fortune to look like a fresh faced young girl even though she's 30. When she was starting her career, and her young face was not a plus, she regularly finessed about her age. Not lie. Don't lie. But no one needs to know your exact arrival on the planet.

This works if you're concerned about being too old as well. 

Smoochies! Have a great day!

I don't know where @JennyBent found this but oh man I ruthlessly lifted it from her Twitter feed