Tag Archives: writing

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Why do you have a tattoo of a lemon on your left butt cheek?

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This is an excellent question, and based on completely false information. I don’t have a tattoo of a lemon on my left butt-cheek, but I wanted to see how many people clicked through from such an absurd title. I’m a total stats nerd and so if more than one person took the bait, I’ll be analyzing every bit of information Twitter, Facebook, and WordPress can give me about who took it. Once I’ve done that, I won’t put that information to any other use.

The truth is that I haven’t posted a blog in about a month and it’s time. It’s not that I haven’t written one, because I’ve written several. All of them are whiny, stupid rants about not finding an agent or feeling sub-standard. And it’s true, that’s what’s going on and how I feel about it. But, having a pity-party for myself is a stupid asinine waste of time, even though I do it routinely –I just can’t help myself. In fact, today was one of those days where my ego fought itself relentlessly because my everlasting low opinion of myself may, in some instances, be a tad unfair. I didn’t receive another agent rejection, and that felt good, but I didn’t receive a partial or full MS request either. I didn’t really accomplish great things at work, but I did my best to get folks what they need and may have even made one person happy with the work I have done. I was contacted by someone with Google (the result of my playing of their foo.bar recruiting game over the winter -for those unfamiliar with Google, this alone was something of a feat), and I also got word that business cards for another effort have arrived – Maybe more on that later, still need to get things squared up with work before I can actually being working on the new thing.

All that being said, I’m still feeling down because the one thing I desperately want to succeed at doesn’t show the slightest shred of evidence that it’ll pan out for me. Perhaps that’s what really hard. I’m the sort of guy that will do shit once provoked. It’s vaguely like when you hit a hornets nest and those little bastards will chase you down and lay siege to your house until you starve to death. They just don’t quit. So, when I hit something where I no longer have the control to achieve success, it’s a painful blow.

Before jumping to conclusions about how it is I waste my time, I have not given up. I haven’t given up on the querying, even though it’s feeling like a Sisyphean task, and I haven’t given up on writing. It’s true, I’m not nearly as in love with my current projects as I was with Wine Bottles and Broomsticks, nor am I as committed to finishing any of them. In some ways, I’m still looking for the right story to work on. Book 2 of Wine bottles is where my heart is, but I don’t want to spend six months hammering out another book that is DoA. I’ve got three other book projects in the works, but only two have much of a plot-arc mapped out and the one of them has a YA feel, which I’m not 100% comfortable with just yet. Plus there are some short fiction projects, one of which I’m committed to finishing, but it’s more literary and I’m not equipped to tell the story that I want to tell.

And that’s my writing progress report. It’s not awesome or productive, nor does it cover anything at all relevant to tattoos of lemons on butt-cheeks, but it’s where I am. Maybe one of these days I’ll have something better to report.

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Severe writer’s apathy

For the past couple of months, I’ve taken a few tentative dips into the boiling acid oceans of literary agent querying. If I’m being honest though, it’s really more the equivalent of French-kissing a dementor and may very well be the reason boxed wine was invented in the first place. Unfortunately for me and my enormous hydrogen-filled ego, I haven’t even gotten into the meat of it yet, querying agents is just the first bit. Apparently, it gets a hell of a lot harder – the book still has to be picked up by a publisher! In any case, even from this point, I’ve still managed to collect a few observations.

First off, over the past couple of months I’ve spent all of what would normally be my writing time on rewriting synopsis, query letters, and researching agents. The ‘best’ advice I’ve received on this process is keep at it, someone will eventually be interested. In the mean time, keep writing. – What? Keep writing? With what time am I going to do this?!

Second, don’t ever tell a writer this: ‘Even J.K. Rowling was rejected 3.75 million times before finally getting published.’ THIS is supposed to make me feel better? The one thing I know for a fact about my book is that it’s not the next Harry Potter. If it practically took an act of god to get Harry Potter into print, there really isn’t any hope for me.

When I started this process, I loved Wine Bottles and Broomsticks. I enjoyed the characters, the writing of it didn’t take much time at all (comparatively), and I was chomping at the bit to start a sequel. It’s literally been a couple months and I’m starting to really hate the book. Not because I suddenly think it sucks (which it probably does by the way. See fig A.). No, it’s more like having been savagely attacked and left for dead by a beloved pet. The reason for this is that for each hand-crafted form rejection that comes through within minutes of having sent out the query, I am forced to face the real possibility that what I’ve written falls into one of a few categories:

  • This work is brilliant and nobody can see it
  • This book sucks
  • Nobody will ever buy this book
  • There is not, nor will there ever be a market for this story
  • I’m a terrible writer and should spend more time playing video games and programming

On the whole, the last category might be the easiest for me to take because I like programming and playing video games. Perhaps not as much as writing, but I will never be querying an agent for how well I cleared that dungeon.

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Yet another observation is that many agents ask for a bio and past writing accomplishments. I don’t have any previous writing accomplishments. Loads of past writing, but nothing that could be called an accomplishment. As for the bio, someone very kindly informed me that the bio is more about you as a person, rather than your writing-specific experience. I tend to think this is, at best overly optimistic thinking, and at worst the equivalent of telling me that even J.K. Rowling was rejected so many times she had to be reincarnated before she could get published. Publishing is a business. What they want to know is: Will this book sell? and are you the sort of person to participate? My lovely bio is excellent for research or might be an asset if I were writing books about Alaska. I can not, however, bring myself to believe that it is helpful to point out that I have more hobbies than a craft-store and once seriously investigated cooperage as a hobby because it sounded interesting. As a hiring manager for a number of years, I didn’t care that much about someone’s history unless it told me something specific about how they were going to do the job. I’m (obviously) not an expert at publishing, but when it comes to business and making money, irrelevant skills are actually a huge distraction that tend to gloss over the fact that the applicant has no relevant skills. On the whole, I think my distinct lack of writing accomplishments seem to cover that ground pretty well. So, with all of that non-accomplishment burning a hole in my back pocket staring at an agent profile requesting a query letter, the first 7 ½ pages, a bio, and all past accomplishments along with the advisement that she only takes best-sellers, I’m really not super-motivated to continue.

So now, where does this leave me? We all know there’s a fine line between stupidity and stubbornness, though really it’s less of a line and more the phrase “well that didn’t go as expected” written in blood. As I haven’t discovered that point just yet (I think) and I haven’t yet spent half the life-age of the universe querying, I suppose I need to keep on it. Some folks say they get advice from agents, I have yet to get more than silence & form letters, but hey, even J.K. Rowling got published right?

achance

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Killing geese is not awesome

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You know what? I’m not a huge fan of Sundays. They’re the province of hangovers and the looming dread of an impending Monday. It’s the day I’m on my own with the kiddos. Not that I mind, but it does mean having to pretend to be Mr. Domestic for eight or so hours, which usually involves being asked why the hell didn’t you [sweep|mop|fold|cook|feed the kids|buy groceries|clean the counter|pick up that damn coffee cup] today? This Sunday isn’t going to be different, but it’s less awesome than usual.

Instead of crawling out of bed at 9:30, just in time to see my wife off to work and nod blearily at the list of the day’s chores that I will not get to, I was blasted out of bed to the tune of: “Dad get up, Alfie has a problem and mom needs your help.” When mom needs dad’s help with an animal it means major injury. For those not acquainted with the life of a farmer, major injury translates into the urgent need to butcher an animal. I’m not going to get into the details of what was wrong with the goose, except that there was blood and no remedy. In these cases, it becomes a matter of allowing the animal to slowly bleed to death and possibly be killed by his flock or making it quick and clean. The second option allows the possibility of salvaging meat – some ailments preclude consumption, but not this one.

So, at 8:27 on this Sunday morning, I was standing outside in a gentle breeze, the sort of gentle breeze only Alaska can deliver, an eye-watering breath of frigid air from the 9th circle of hell, looking at a doomed goose. I’m not a fan of this goose. He hisses at me and goads the flock into action like a hoard of angry vikings in my presence. To everyone else in the house, he was the favorite, and there were tears. When the decision to butcher him was made, you might imagine that I was pleased to be rid of the bastard, but no, not so much.

In the interest of full disclosure, I did not actually kill the goose. Those honors went to my wife. She picked him up, brought him to the killing cone and made the final cut. I just served as tactical and moral support. It was a subdued affair. The goose didn’t struggle, and he went quick. That said, I still feel bad. Not because I’ve still got to actually do the work of butchering, which I do, but because killing is a hard thing to do.

I wrote a blog post about this some months ago, perhaps even last year at this time, but it’s on my mind again, so here I am. Some folks, avid hunters, non-backyard farmers, and sociopaths, may shrug and say it’s not that hard. Perhaps there’s truth in that, but not for very many of us. The majority of those of us who are lucky enough to be able to roll into a grocery store and pick up food that no longer resembles the animal it came from, have never killed anything larger than a spider. So when we do, we feel it. It’s an adrenaline rush that leaves you feeling a little shaky and sick – add to that sadness if this is an animal you raised. It’s something to keep in mind when your newly minted fantasy hero makes his first kill. As he watches his victim fall to the ground where there will be blood and jerking and the sound of gurgling or screaming, your hero will be feeling it.

photo credit: crime-scene-murder-weapon.jpg via photopin (license)