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.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
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...
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...
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Hobby publishers
What is a hobby publisher? I've found a few references to the term, defining it as self-publishing, which is not how I define it. Hobby publishers are folks who become publishers as a hobby. Sometimes they are retirees, or late-in-their career types, but they are small operations who are or who have earned their way doing something besides publishing. Publishing becomes their hobby, and it's becoming more common with the growing availability of POD equipment and the web's bookstores and the evolution in online book buying.
I coined this phrase because of my experiences in publishing. Stone House Diaries was published by the Local History Company of Pittsburgh, and TLHC is a prime example. They are a retired couple with some help. They specialize in publishing books for the Pittsburgh area. They are good people and I'm pleased to see their web site shows new titles.
(Slight digression)
Earlier this year I finished a historical novel with the working title 'Where the Gold is Buried'. The story is built around a map to buried treasure at Fort Niagara. I stumbled on this legend of buried treasure years ago, and felt connected with it because the luckless soul who tried to find the treasure was my ancestor. So over the past several years I've been searching through known history and making up the rest, and finished with about 550 pages trying to flesh out the legend.
The rule of thumb these days for getting published is for story length to be between 70,000 and 90,000 words, which is in the neighborhood of 350 pages (doublespaced, etc). At 550 pages I was a little long. So... I edited. I cut and cut and rewrote (usually a good idea anyway). Got it down to (imagine a calculator clattering away) 109,000 words Damn! Still 19K over.
The story line begins in 1649 and finishes present day, and years ago a writing advisor suggested stopping the story in the 18th century. So... last summer I said a sad goodbye to a couple of my favorite characters - both Tuscaroras - and stopped the story in 1789. (Warning: this is really traumatic)
What does this have to do with hobby publishers, you may be asking? (Go ahead, ask, someone's got to keep me on track). Well, for my latest opus I decided to try, again, for an agent. I labored over my summary and query and have heard contradictory advice on how many agents to email (1. email only the handful you have exhaustively researched and believe would truly love your work, 2. email agents until your fingertips bleed). Whatever. I got no interest.
Before the Severe Truncation, I sent part of the novel to an online outfit, a hobby publisher that does Canadian history (most of the novel is set in Canada). If they publish it they might get it reviewed, but they use POD equipment and the book will essentially join the long lists on Amazon and BN.com and will only appear in my local bookstore if I take a pile in and try my charm.
It has led me back to hobby publishing. I did some research and the cheapest POD printer I could find was $15K used. Also available for lease. Am I doing the world a disservice by bypassing the vetting process of agents, intended to save the world from bad novels, and cranking mine out anyway? Well, I don't think mine is so bad - not while Dan Brown is still getting published... I'll stop here.
I coined this phrase because of my experiences in publishing. Stone House Diaries was published by the Local History Company of Pittsburgh, and TLHC is a prime example. They are a retired couple with some help. They specialize in publishing books for the Pittsburgh area. They are good people and I'm pleased to see their web site shows new titles.
(Slight digression)
Earlier this year I finished a historical novel with the working title 'Where the Gold is Buried'. The story is built around a map to buried treasure at Fort Niagara. I stumbled on this legend of buried treasure years ago, and felt connected with it because the luckless soul who tried to find the treasure was my ancestor. So over the past several years I've been searching through known history and making up the rest, and finished with about 550 pages trying to flesh out the legend.
The rule of thumb these days for getting published is for story length to be between 70,000 and 90,000 words, which is in the neighborhood of 350 pages (doublespaced, etc). At 550 pages I was a little long. So... I edited. I cut and cut and rewrote (usually a good idea anyway). Got it down to (imagine a calculator clattering away) 109,000 words Damn! Still 19K over.
The story line begins in 1649 and finishes present day, and years ago a writing advisor suggested stopping the story in the 18th century. So... last summer I said a sad goodbye to a couple of my favorite characters - both Tuscaroras - and stopped the story in 1789. (Warning: this is really traumatic)
What does this have to do with hobby publishers, you may be asking? (Go ahead, ask, someone's got to keep me on track). Well, for my latest opus I decided to try, again, for an agent. I labored over my summary and query and have heard contradictory advice on how many agents to email (1. email only the handful you have exhaustively researched and believe would truly love your work, 2. email agents until your fingertips bleed). Whatever. I got no interest.
Before the Severe Truncation, I sent part of the novel to an online outfit, a hobby publisher that does Canadian history (most of the novel is set in Canada). If they publish it they might get it reviewed, but they use POD equipment and the book will essentially join the long lists on Amazon and BN.com and will only appear in my local bookstore if I take a pile in and try my charm.
It has led me back to hobby publishing. I did some research and the cheapest POD printer I could find was $15K used. Also available for lease. Am I doing the world a disservice by bypassing the vetting process of agents, intended to save the world from bad novels, and cranking mine out anyway? Well, I don't think mine is so bad - not while Dan Brown is still getting published... I'll stop here.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
SASE
I suppose I'm among friends here, so I'll admit I've been writing for over twenty years, and I stank until about ten years ago. I knew early on that an agent made publishing easier. Before the web (henceforth to be known as BTW) there was, of course, no email option in querying agents, so I went to the library (quaint, I know) and filled a couple pages of a legal pad with agents addresses from LMP. Then I typed up cover letters - knowing little about what to put in a query, I don't remember now how sucky that query must have been, but what the hell - and tucked in the SASE.
Around 2001, when I was trying to find a publisher for Weathermen, I vowed no more SASE crap. Postage was starting to be a less trivial cost, and I was certain that no traditional agent wanted me, and the newer agents would have email. I was partly correct in both, at least I assume so, as no traditional agent has EVER expressed an interest in my work and some agents had email. So began a epoch of emailing. I've had modest success in publishing, none in agents.
At the Muse/Marketplace workshop Grub Street holds, one recently published writer gleefully explained she broke a couple of the 'rules', mailed her novel over the transom to an agent, found publishing success. So, I vowed to myself, at some point I had to break that old vow.
Well, two weeks ago I used the web to find agents who were a) looking for new meat, er, clients and b) would not take email queries. I used web resources to cook up a query letter and bought stamps, and sent out a total of six snail mail queries. I know that one must blast out queries much as LLBean junk mails their catalogs. Junk mail is considered successful if it gets a 3% response, so how do you calculate a 3% success rate on six mailed queries? Agent took a little longer to throw it in the trash? I mailed them on a Tuesday(?) Got the first rejection on Friday, and two more since then.
Moral of the story? I suspect the writer who bagged an agent by being quaint and ignoring the rules also had a leg up because she was a marketing pro. Trying to find an agent by using an old road seldom used does not necessarily work. Yes, common sense should have told me that, but at the end of the day don't you want to be able to say, I tried everything? Even SASE?
Around 2001, when I was trying to find a publisher for Weathermen, I vowed no more SASE crap. Postage was starting to be a less trivial cost, and I was certain that no traditional agent wanted me, and the newer agents would have email. I was partly correct in both, at least I assume so, as no traditional agent has EVER expressed an interest in my work and some agents had email. So began a epoch of emailing. I've had modest success in publishing, none in agents.
At the Muse/Marketplace workshop Grub Street holds, one recently published writer gleefully explained she broke a couple of the 'rules', mailed her novel over the transom to an agent, found publishing success. So, I vowed to myself, at some point I had to break that old vow.
Well, two weeks ago I used the web to find agents who were a) looking for new meat, er, clients and b) would not take email queries. I used web resources to cook up a query letter and bought stamps, and sent out a total of six snail mail queries. I know that one must blast out queries much as LLBean junk mails their catalogs. Junk mail is considered successful if it gets a 3% response, so how do you calculate a 3% success rate on six mailed queries? Agent took a little longer to throw it in the trash? I mailed them on a Tuesday(?) Got the first rejection on Friday, and two more since then.
Moral of the story? I suspect the writer who bagged an agent by being quaint and ignoring the rules also had a leg up because she was a marketing pro. Trying to find an agent by using an old road seldom used does not necessarily work. Yes, common sense should have told me that, but at the end of the day don't you want to be able to say, I tried everything? Even SASE?
Friday, October 2, 2009
Agents... it would help if I wore a dress
I have had exactly one literary agent in my writing life. Ralph from Cambridge Literary, at the time in Newburyport, accepted my first novel in 1999. From his website I could readily see the agent hadn't sold any fiction. After a year of absolutely no contact, I terminated the agreement. I eventually self-published that manuscript, Weathermen.
In retrospect I wish he'd offered to edit the story, as I now see it needed.
Lately I've been doing the agent hunt, and it's been as futile as ever. I have been published 'traditionally', and I thought that would help my agent hunt. What I've noticed from the online agent databases, and the individual entries I assume the agents create, that most agents are women and most of them dearly want 1) chick lit, 2) romance 3) women's fiction. The agent will then include most other categories - mystery, commercial fiction, 'literary fiction', but their priorities are plain. My wife, who tears through women's fiction like Sherman through Georgia, reminds me that women buy most of the books, so it's a simple supply-demand situation.
I should note that, besides women's fiction, fiction for teens is a close second. Now, is that because teens are reading books (in this age?) or because the schools need fresh material for required reading? I'm sounding soooo cynical.
So, if one cannot get an agent, then one chases a publisher, and not the big publishers, most of whom won't look at non-agented work. That leaves the amateur publishers, the small timers who may not last more than a few years. I used an amateur publisher for my historical novel 'Stone House Diaries'. They printed nice copies, blundered painfully getting reviews, blundered painfully getting the book into the stores... oh well.
In retrospect I wish he'd offered to edit the story, as I now see it needed.
Lately I've been doing the agent hunt, and it's been as futile as ever. I have been published 'traditionally', and I thought that would help my agent hunt. What I've noticed from the online agent databases, and the individual entries I assume the agents create, that most agents are women and most of them dearly want 1) chick lit, 2) romance 3) women's fiction. The agent will then include most other categories - mystery, commercial fiction, 'literary fiction', but their priorities are plain. My wife, who tears through women's fiction like Sherman through Georgia, reminds me that women buy most of the books, so it's a simple supply-demand situation.
I should note that, besides women's fiction, fiction for teens is a close second. Now, is that because teens are reading books (in this age?) or because the schools need fresh material for required reading? I'm sounding soooo cynical.
So, if one cannot get an agent, then one chases a publisher, and not the big publishers, most of whom won't look at non-agented work. That leaves the amateur publishers, the small timers who may not last more than a few years. I used an amateur publisher for my historical novel 'Stone House Diaries'. They printed nice copies, blundered painfully getting reviews, blundered painfully getting the book into the stores... oh well.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Remember Wilde: Every life ends in a tragic death
The healthcare debate in this country seems obsessed with who should pay for healthcare, and the fear of rationed healthcare, as though it isn't already rationed.
There are the right wingers largely trying to impede any progress by scaring the chickens with the threat of 'death committees', a version of the UK's NICE committee that decides when a drug is too expensive to approve. They have established a value of life cash amount of around $30K/yr, and if a drug costs more than that and doesn't significantly improve the patient's life, it is not approved and is available only to those who don't need insurance. Our 'death committees' would presumably follow suit, putting dollar amounts to quality of life and letting Granny die because Coumadin costs too much.
Then there are the left wingers, and this is often younger folks, who don't want to pay into a health insurance program knowing they are subsidizing the cardiac care of old people who eat the classic 'western diet' (i.e. fatty foods). Interestingly, I've read that insurance companies seem comfy insuring these elderly cardiac cases (they usually avoid those with 'preexisting conditions') so long as the youngsters are required to sign up - so the left wingers have a salient if selfish point. Needing very little care, they will be paying the same as the elderly cardiac patients...
So, healthcare rationing and who pays for this rationed healthcare? It seems clear that nobody under thirty wants to pay for anyone but themselves, and most everyone wants to believe we don't ration it. John Mackey of Whole Foods recently wrote an op-ed (and is being cross-nailed for it) proposing eight steps to better healthcare. I mistrust the advice of any millionaire on this issue, but Step 6 I like: make costs transparent so consumers understand what treatments cost. My current carrier, BCBS, does send FYI notes to us, detailing our claims and what was paid. It is enlightening - one sees the dynamic tension between what a physician wants to make and what the policy pays and there's usually a gap. I don't know how common this practice is, but if we all knew exactly what payments are made on our behalf, maybe that would smarten the debate, one way or the other.
As for rationing healthcare: a simple search of your favorite engine (yeah, probably Google) using terms like 'insurance denies claims' will net you much reading material, largely protests from angry Americans with denied claims for expensive medical treatment. It's easy to find human interest reporting on fund-raisers to pay for the treamtent or medical device an under or un-insured soul otherwise can't get? Our insurance carriers already have their version of the NICE committee/Death Committees. Wouldn't you like to make that process more transparent?
There are the right wingers largely trying to impede any progress by scaring the chickens with the threat of 'death committees', a version of the UK's NICE committee that decides when a drug is too expensive to approve. They have established a value of life cash amount of around $30K/yr, and if a drug costs more than that and doesn't significantly improve the patient's life, it is not approved and is available only to those who don't need insurance. Our 'death committees' would presumably follow suit, putting dollar amounts to quality of life and letting Granny die because Coumadin costs too much.
Then there are the left wingers, and this is often younger folks, who don't want to pay into a health insurance program knowing they are subsidizing the cardiac care of old people who eat the classic 'western diet' (i.e. fatty foods). Interestingly, I've read that insurance companies seem comfy insuring these elderly cardiac cases (they usually avoid those with 'preexisting conditions') so long as the youngsters are required to sign up - so the left wingers have a salient if selfish point. Needing very little care, they will be paying the same as the elderly cardiac patients...
So, healthcare rationing and who pays for this rationed healthcare? It seems clear that nobody under thirty wants to pay for anyone but themselves, and most everyone wants to believe we don't ration it. John Mackey of Whole Foods recently wrote an op-ed (and is being cross-nailed for it) proposing eight steps to better healthcare. I mistrust the advice of any millionaire on this issue, but Step 6 I like: make costs transparent so consumers understand what treatments cost. My current carrier, BCBS, does send FYI notes to us, detailing our claims and what was paid. It is enlightening - one sees the dynamic tension between what a physician wants to make and what the policy pays and there's usually a gap. I don't know how common this practice is, but if we all knew exactly what payments are made on our behalf, maybe that would smarten the debate, one way or the other.
As for rationing healthcare: a simple search of your favorite engine (yeah, probably Google) using terms like 'insurance denies claims' will net you much reading material, largely protests from angry Americans with denied claims for expensive medical treatment. It's easy to find human interest reporting on fund-raisers to pay for the treamtent or medical device an under or un-insured soul otherwise can't get? Our insurance carriers already have their version of the NICE committee/Death Committees. Wouldn't you like to make that process more transparent?
Monday, July 6, 2009
If you want to see your writing in electronic print, consider submitting it to www.friendsoftheeditors.com.
The horror story has been rolling along quickly. Not having to fact-check historical detail really frees up the imagination.
I recently finished reading Coal Black Horse by Robert Olmstead. I had a workshop with him eleven years ago at the now-defunct Rappahannock Fiction Writers Workshop. It was my first writing workshop and he had a ton of advice, some of it very hands-on and some a little more abstract. I soaked up as much as I could, but I suspect he was a little disappointed in us because by the third day he was, in effect, lecturing us that he was trying to help us. Coal Black Horse is set primarily in Gettysburg, and it's vintage Olmstead in that it has a very moral tone and minimal dialogue. It may be classified as 'guy lit' as one reviewer compares it to Cormac MacCarthy. Having read some of MacCarthy's work, Olmstead does write in the same vein - horses, arduous travel, dangerous adventures.
In contrast, just before Coal Black Horse I read Clint McOwn's War Memorials. Clint currently teaches at the Vermont PostGraduate Writing Conference, which I've attended three times. I bought his book after hearing him read one evening, in part because his work sounded funny. What I very much liked about War Memorials is that it's a novel composed of short stories, and most of the chapters could stand on their own as short stories. That's how I believe most novels should be ideally structured. My own don't work that way, which explains my admiration for his technical skill.
What disappointed me in WM was a climactic scene between the main character and the bad guy who has been sleeping with his wife and has probably impregnated her. Now, the POV is first person through the main character and he considers himself a loser and non-violent. The scene where these two guys should be having it out, the villain reveals he's dying from an aggressive cancer, and a minute later blows himself up, making any thrashing superfluous. I expected something a little less gimmicky, less deus ex machina. I did enjoy reading the book, and most of the characters were quaint Southern stereotypes, and the book was a gentle, nonviolent tale, so too much violence would have given the story a darker end than the writing justified... but it was a let-down.
The horror story has been rolling along quickly. Not having to fact-check historical detail really frees up the imagination.
I recently finished reading Coal Black Horse by Robert Olmstead. I had a workshop with him eleven years ago at the now-defunct Rappahannock Fiction Writers Workshop. It was my first writing workshop and he had a ton of advice, some of it very hands-on and some a little more abstract. I soaked up as much as I could, but I suspect he was a little disappointed in us because by the third day he was, in effect, lecturing us that he was trying to help us. Coal Black Horse is set primarily in Gettysburg, and it's vintage Olmstead in that it has a very moral tone and minimal dialogue. It may be classified as 'guy lit' as one reviewer compares it to Cormac MacCarthy. Having read some of MacCarthy's work, Olmstead does write in the same vein - horses, arduous travel, dangerous adventures.
In contrast, just before Coal Black Horse I read Clint McOwn's War Memorials. Clint currently teaches at the Vermont PostGraduate Writing Conference, which I've attended three times. I bought his book after hearing him read one evening, in part because his work sounded funny. What I very much liked about War Memorials is that it's a novel composed of short stories, and most of the chapters could stand on their own as short stories. That's how I believe most novels should be ideally structured. My own don't work that way, which explains my admiration for his technical skill.
What disappointed me in WM was a climactic scene between the main character and the bad guy who has been sleeping with his wife and has probably impregnated her. Now, the POV is first person through the main character and he considers himself a loser and non-violent. The scene where these two guys should be having it out, the villain reveals he's dying from an aggressive cancer, and a minute later blows himself up, making any thrashing superfluous. I expected something a little less gimmicky, less deus ex machina. I did enjoy reading the book, and most of the characters were quaint Southern stereotypes, and the book was a gentle, nonviolent tale, so too much violence would have given the story a darker end than the writing justified... but it was a let-down.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
