Janet Reid... I'm sorry

Confessions of a Query Shark follower. I've twice submitted a query to Janet Reid's skewerous Query Shark for 'Where the gold is buried', and the first time I got bounced because I was too ordinary a screwup - I had failed to absorb the wisdom to be found in the wreckage postings.
Second time I thought I had a better handle on what an agent might want, but I kept overlooking a key issue - my novel in its original length ran 150K words. See, I got spoiled because Stone House Diaries, published by a hobby publisher, was wonderfully indifferent to length. (They did say I didn't need to add any more). Back on my butt on the sidewalk, I think in terms of those craft workshops who preach 'write the story, don't worry about the length' but now I know size matters.

So I still follow Query Shark, reading others' queries and I think I'm learning to query - and the new draft is just 78K words (easy to cut, once you shoot off the first limb), but I still don't make the acknowledgement cut. Sigh.

Blood Meridian

About a year ago I started reading Cormac MacCarthy, and starting with Blood Meridian is not unlike experimenting with drugs by starting with a mix of crack and oxycontin. The Road, All The Pretty Horses, I suspect would have been gentler introductions to MacCarthy. When I finished BM the first time I felt like I'd just run through a thrill ride, been blinded by the show and emerged into light, wondering where the hell I'd been, not unlike my first viewing of Apocalypse Now in sensurround in a Toronto theatre in 1979... (three hour version ending with the bombing of Kurtz's camp, without the interminable visit to the French plantation, they handed out pamphlets listing the screen credits. Phew.)

I have a list of books I swear I'm going to reread, but this one I did. I'm about halfway through it and it's like I only skimmed it the first time. And here's the reason I'm writing about it: I already know I'm not the best writer around, but other stories usually inspire me to work harder, or perhaps they just make me jealous because I feel I'm as good as they are but they caught the right ears, had the right contacts, etc.. Grapes of Wrath inspired me, that is it suggested a path I thought I could emulate - I'm not Steinbeck, but I thought someday I could write like him. Mind you, I've read more than a few writers who don't inspire me in the least (Dan Brown?).

Perhaps it's because this is a historical novel, which is my chosen milieu. All the Pretty Horses was less compelling, The Road was just a tour de force of sorts, but with Blood Meridian I'll never approach this level of detail and intensity, and I feel no shame admitting that.

Now, back to jealousy and loathing and all the other good writing motivations...