The Big Litowski

"Tainted Souls" Tops Amazon List

2012-02-10T17:04:00.001-08:00

TAINTED SOULS is now number 25,000 on Amazon's list of bestsellers!

So suck on that, Dan Brown.

Chain Mail Epic Fail

2012-02-08T05:40:00.000-08:00

I didn't really expect, of course, that my plan would work. The plan being that everyone to whom I sent an email announcing the epubbing of TAINTED SOULS would forward it to their buds, who would forward it to their buds, and so on, pretty soon touching base with all seven billion souls on the planet, or at least that portion of them with an Internet connection.

Given the, uhm, modest sales of the book so far, this has been an epic fail, "as the kids would say." (Either that or a huge portion of those seven billion has rejected the book, a prospect too dismal to contemplate.) Still, one could dream.

So, on to Plan B. Gotta get readers in the know. They can't buy the book if they don't know it's there.

I'd love to come up with a video that would go viral. My only idea, however, is a vid of my kids rapping, "Buy my dad's book or he'll kill our puppy." My kids insist this would be a bad idea, the old adage that "There's no such thing as bad publicity" notwithstanding.

I can't afford to spend any money trying to juice this thing. Heck, these days I can't afford the electricity that's powering this laptop I'm writing with.

So. Ideas anyone?

Five-Star Reviews for Trav's Novel

2012-02-04T13:56:00.000-08:00

Whew. The first two folks to review my novel TAINTED SOULS for Amazon both gave it five stars. Yay! There's always the chance when you put something out there you'll get a curmudgeonly cur who'll hate your stuff. So I'm both grateful and relieved. Now if we could just get more copies to fly off the "shelf"....

You can read the reviews here iff'n you want.

Trav Publishes Novel as eBook!

2012-02-02T05:44:00.000-08:00

Go here to see it for Kindle, or to Smashwords for other devices. Don't know what will happen to the BL, but I started a new blog under my own name. So...find me here.

Thanks to all for hanging in with me for the past two and a half years.

Why eBooks Suck

2012-01-25T09:47:00.000-08:00

That's a pretty odd headline for someone about to publish his novel as an ebook, admittedly, but here's my beef.

I love the look of books; design has been part and parcel of books since their beginnings. All those monks illustrating their manuscripts by candlelight. But ebooks are woefully limited in that regard. Format them for Kindle or through Smashwords as I have done, and you give up all sorts of things: page numbers, choice of font, limits on type size, no left-flush (Kindle) -- the list goes on. The way a book looks should be part of its allure.

Plus the formats are imperfect. Kindle, for example, doesn't seem to be able to justify everything correctly.

But I suppose that I should be grateful that epublishing allows an avenue for writers like me, as well as providing a far less expensive option for readers.

I just don't understand why every damn device has to have its own operating system, with all the limitations that implies.

Once again, harrumph.

More eBook Madness

2012-01-14T10:06:00.000-08:00

Formatting for Kindle is doable; to format for Nook, you need to understand some computer gobbledygook, or so it appears to me. The Nook formatting guidelines are indecipherable. So I see the value of Smashwords more and will let them do it all, save for Kindle.

Why the world doesn't work on one single operating system -- call it SOS! -- is beyond me.

Doing the cover yourself is sort of fun, but in my case, there are limitations. I downloaded a free PhotoShop-like application, but not the instructions (too long, don't care to read) so can't do that much with it. Still, I used it for a swell lighting effect. Here's what the cover looks like (title/name obscured for now; you'll just have to wait):

E-Books and My Discontents

2012-01-07T11:04:00.000-08:00

So I'm formatting my book for publication on Kindle, Nook, etc., and among the things I discover (not having a Kindle or a Nook) is that you can't control the font in which it appears, and basically you have to publish it in fecking NY Times Roman, which is pretty much taking over the world. I wanted to go with Garamond. Plus there's no page numbers, no headers and footers and stuff . . . why, it takes book design back a thousand years.

Harrumph.

UPDATE: Also, formatting for Kindle means you put it first in HTML, which fecks up small caps and a lot of other little things, which in my case required re-doing the first line of each chapter, which'd been in all small caps . . . and other stuff. Sheesh. I will do this for Kindle and Nook and then leave the rest to Smashwords and their "metagrinder technology" (like sausage, I guess you don't want to watch e-books being formatted).

T*ts!

2011-12-29T10:48:00.000-08:00

The asterisk is there for the benefit of followers who have me on their blog rolls but maintain PG sites.

Don't recall why, but yesterday I looked up the etymology of "tits" and discovered that its modern usage, referring to breasts, has only been around since 1928, even though Old English had the word "titt," a variant of "teat." The modern usage as a somewhat naughty or derogatory term for a woman's breast "seems to be a recent reinvention from teat, used without awareness that it is a throwback to the original form," according to the Online Etymology Dictionary.

But the question for me is, what word served this purpose before 1928? When men stood around the campfire during the Civil War or in the trenches in World War I and reminisced about the great set of -- what? -- on a girl back home, what word did they use? At Valley Forge, when they commented on the buxom lass with "a face that could stop a clock but ---s to die for," what word was being articulated?

Just out of further curiosity, I tried to come up with some made-up synonym, settled on "gazumpa," and ran it through Google images. Sure enough, there were pictures of God's best invention, which just goes to prove, I suppose, that if you stumble on any made-up word with enough vowels and cheek, someone somewhere has likely used it to refer to a woman's...ta-tas. Maybe even around a Civil War campfire.

Why I HATE Christmas

2011-12-24T07:07:00.000-08:00

Why do I hate Christmas? Why would Bill O'Reilly single me out as a solider in the "War on Christmas"?

Actually, I don't, and O'Reilly wouldn't. I love Christmas. I just wanted to suck you all in with a misleading headline so I could wish the best of the season to you.

Happy Holidays!

Another "Hard Christmas"

2011-12-15T07:06:00.000-08:00

David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter, was on TV the other day and he noted that we were coming up on what would be the "fifth hard Christmas since 2007."

And I thought to myself, you know, he's right. Nothing outside our parents' (or grandparents') experience of the Great Depression compares. Things have been lean around Travener's household so long that it's hard to recall flusher times, when there were lots of presents under the tree for the kids, and we didn't much care what the tree or Christmas turkey cost.

Last year was so gloomy that we didn't even buy a tree.

Despite a situation that's basically unchanged this year, I decided "no more austerity Christmas." We're going to celebrate like it's the '90s. We'll buy a tree -- a big damn tree. I'm going to get the kids decent presents this year and figure out how to pay for them later.

I hope you all have a good holiday season. Even if you're feeling an economic pinch, try to take part in the celebratory feel of the season. Get a new ornament for the tree or some fancy candles for the menorah. Spike the egg nog with a better class of rum. if you can't afford to do even that, do something special that's cost-free: walk around the neighborhood and look at the lights or take in a concert at the local school.

Let's make the holidays a time of cheer again this year, regardless of the gloom around us.

Lesbian Lumberjacks!

2011-12-05T06:11:00.000-08:00

I was thinking last night of great book titles -- or rather, great titles for books. How about Lesbian Lumberjacks on the March? Or, Pastry Chef Vampires? Or, Lesbian Lumberjacks vs. Pastry Chef Vampires?

Heaven only knows what those books would be about. The title might refer to nothing more than a TV show set in a futuristic world or a rock band or something.

What are some great titles you can think of?

Multi-Book Deal for Plagiarist

2011-11-19T17:31:00.000-08:00

Here's a cute story for all of us having trouble finding a home for our original work, the multi-book deal this guy got for a bunch of spy novels...upended when it was discovered the first one was heavily plagiarized.

It reminds me, in a roundabout way, of the time some fellow sent Jerzy Kosinski's bestselling Being There out to agents as if it were his own manuscript and got turned down multiple times, occasionally with extreme prejudice. (Kosinski himself was accused of plagiarizing Being There and also of falsely claiming that much of The Painted Bird was autobiographical.)

I'm sure there's some kind of lesson in all of this. Tell me, what do you think it is?

Get a Grip!

2011-11-04T05:37:00.000-07:00

All my life -- long, currently dreary -- I've corrected "ahold" to "a hold," as in, "to get a hold of" someone, convinced that writers who spelled it as one word were, in a word, morons, like those folks who improperly apostrophize, as in "I sent you some photo's of our trip to Yosemite."

So I'm rereading The Naked and the Dead and here's Norman Mailer, no moron -- well, in most ways; let's not discuss his views of women which, as is quite clear from TNATD, are, let's say, a catalogue of Madonna-whore complexes without much of the Madonna part -- here, as I said, is Norman Mailer using the word "ahold" a lot (not "alot").

So I look it up and it turns out that several dictionaries allow this execrescence, so I guess I can no longer automatically consign those who use it to morondom. I suppose it's no crazier than "awhile" -- and I'd never write "come and sit a while" -- so I suppose I can't complain. Even though I still don't like it.

Just in case you were wondering what I thought on the subject.

P.S. Spellcheck does not approve of "ahold."

Battlestar Agentica: The Final Score

2011-10-20T13:30:00.000-07:00

A form rejection for a partial sent in July trickled in yesterday, pretty much putting the final nail in the coffin of my quest for literary representation. Technically, the search isn't over because there's one more partial out there, but being realistic, I've already closed that out as "Closed/No Response" on my QueryTracker account.

So, the final score is as follows:

Agents queried - 285
Partials/fulls requested - 26 (about 9 percent)
Rejections/no response - 259

Of the fulls that got read, the responses were:

-- I loved it but then six months later after I led your around by the nose my bosses told me we don't know the right kind of editors -- Nice Agent Lady who broke my heart

-- I started out really liking it ("You're a fine writer!") but then decided it got worse as it went along ("I'm pretty sure everyone will agree with me [that it's not publishable"]) -- Long-established agent who really made me feel bad

-- I thought it was great, entertaining and ingeniously plotted, but in this market we have to be 150 percent enthusiastic and we're not, so... -- L.A.-area agent

-- Feh. It just didn't do anything for me. -- A couple of agents.

The rest were just form rejections or close enough to that to be just as anodyne.

That's precious little for more than two years' worth of agent-searching.

I hope your search for an agent is going a lot better.

Smashwords -- Good, Bad or Ugly?

2011-09-20T09:58:00.000-07:00

Since I'm getting closer to giving up on the tradtional route to publishing and tossing my book out there in e-book form, I was wondering if any of you folks had experience with Smashwords and how that worked out for you.

Anyone? Bueller?

A WTF Moment

2011-09-08T17:12:00.000-07:00

A literary agent who recently rejected my partial sent me an e-mail asking me to friend her on Facebook.

WTF? Do some people never clean out their address book?

WIP Summary

2011-08-28T11:08:00.000-07:00

This is all i have so far. What do you think?

Robert Patterson is in the midst of a midlife crisis. He hates his job, his wife is an alcoholic shrew, his mistress has cut him off, and his bulimic slut of a daughter won't move out of the house. One day he decides he's had it and disappears in the dead of night. The only problem is, he's the president of the United States and soon every government gumshoe is on his trail. While Patterson goes cross-country on his journey to discover where it all went wrong, his staff try to fend off his scheming, born-again vice president, who wants to take over and plunge the country into a holy war against the South Asian nation of Zeberkistan.

Somewhere along the way he holes up with a young woman who's got piercings and tattoos, but that's about all I have so far.

Two Frakking Years of Querying

2011-08-23T10:30:00.000-07:00

Well, kids, it's been two years now since I sent that first batch of 20-25 queries off into cyberspace.

And what a couple of years it's been. Adding our family's personal financial crisis into the mix made the preceding 24 months just all that much more special...

Well, what have I learned from all this?

Mostly, that if you like being frustrated, try getting your book published.

I offer no real advice -- and why would you take advice from me, anyway? -- other than that the two most useful websites I found for queryers are Querytracker, where you can find agents for your genre, etc., and keep track of all your querying, and the AbsoluteWrite water cooler, where writers discuss their experiences with agents, good and bad.

Those of you who've followed my semi-irregular postings lately know that I've queryed to the max now, hitting up just about every decent mystery-genre agent there is. I have, I think, two fulls and a partial out there but let's not kid ourselves: they'll say the same thing as everyone else, either (a) sorry this isn't for me or (b) hey, this is pretty good, but in today's lousy market...

Unless they follow the lead of Agent X, who first led me to the mountaintop and then kicked me over the cliff. Or they might do me in with protestations of how much they love my book, a la the Nice Agent Lady, before they stick the shiv in.

In one way or another, 2011 is going to be decisive. Absent a miracle, I'll give up on agents for good at the end of next month and query-bomb the ten or so publishers I've identified who take mysteries over the transom. And then when I'm done with them, it's off to e-book land.

I'd be happier about that if it weren't for the fact that every clod with a laptop is "publishing" his/her "book" these days via Kindle and Nook. I don't like being associated so closely with crap.

More important, I think I finally have the kernel of an idea for another novel, at long last, and can begin roughing it out. I'm going to find the time somehow, financial pressures or no.

So things are looking up, sort of.

Good luck with your querying to all my fellow lunatics who've chosen to write.

Book Sales R Up!

2011-08-09T09:05:00.000-07:00

Forget the stock market. Sales of adult fiction climbed 8.8 percent last year. E-book sales also climbed dramatically and juvenile books also had a strong showing.

Yay. Could this mean the long publishing nightmare is over? Do we poor writers now stand a better chance of getting our books published?

Does this news make you more hopeful?

The Decline and Fall of Publishing

2011-07-18T07:29:00.000-07:00

If you're like me and cringe whenever you see a typo in a published book, you'll enjoy this article by Virginia Heffernan in the New York Times. Particularly interesting to me was the revelation -- which seems obvious in hindsight, though I hadn't thought of it -- that manuscripts are obese as well as full of spelling errors these days, thanks to computers.

The Liberation of the Long-Distance Queryer - Part II

2011-07-10T13:12:00.000-07:00

Yes, querying is a lot like dating, isn't it? You're full of expectation, hoping to make the perfect match. And, if you're a sensitive soul -- and what writer isn't? -- you're full of dread, fearing rejection.

I always admired those men for whom being rejected by a woman was of no more consequence than water washing over the back of a duck -- something to shake off and instantly forget. These were the guys who always said, "Women are like buses. Another one will be along in a minute."

Guys like me lived in fear of rejection. However logical and analytical you might be about it -- after all, a woman declining a date, whether a first, second or third one -- was probably no more commenting on your lack of worth as a human being as your lack of suitability as a romantic partner -- just as you yourself did when you declined to ask out other women because they weren't your type or their interests/politics/religious views didn't mesh with yours.

So I told the story in Part I to illustrate what had been a particularly liberating experience for me (and one that never repeated itself). After awhile, I became totally indifferent to whether or not she had any interest in going out with me. I didn't care what she thought of me. I was in control because I had no expectations -- and it was amusing to call her, chat, hear the same obviously insincere line about getting together. It made me laugh.

I told the story to illustrate the attitude I've adopted in a final round of querying. (Perhaps final. I keep saying I'm through with it.) As promised, I'd decided to give up on agents and query solely publishers. After looking into it, I discovered there are only five or six publishers of mysteries taking unsolicited subs. Even some of the smaller independents are now insisting that your novel come through an agent. (There are a couple of others that take mss. over the transom, but they're publishers of "hard-boiled crime" fiction, which is not my turf.) I could send out those five queries and be done with it.

But...then I'd be done with it. Over. Finished. Finito. On to e-booking.

Too soon, too soon to give up on the hardcover. So I went over to QueryTracker to see if there were any new agents that handled mysteries. Agents come and go with regularity; some new ones arrive, moving up from editorial assistant, while others switch outfits. WTF, I said, I'll query 'em all. I did this without even bothering to research them (other than checking a couple of agencies I'd never heard of). I didn't bother to see if the "mysteries" they handled were really romance novels with a mystery twist, or so-called "cozy" mysteries.

It's like calling that woman and not caring what she's really thinking. I'm just in it for the laughs.

I've had one laugh already. I queried one agency I'd hit up before, sending the e-mail to a different agent. That agent forwarded my e-mail to another agent, who has asked to see a partial. The only thing is, she's already seen a partial of my book -- and rejected it! (You can tell it must have made a great impression on her, since she didn't even remember the title.) That was almost a year and a half ago. So I'll send it and see if the new summer intern rejects it.

I feel so liberated. I was kind of down after the rejection by Poisoned Pen Press, though I knew going in that my nontraditional mystery was probably not a good fit for them. Unless you're a water-off-a-duck's-back kind of person, the rejections -- and I've had plenty -- do start to take a toll. (Please. No more J.K. Rowling stories.) But tossing out a new batch of queries to some new names in previously hit-upon agencies after already deciding to move on to publishers is like having one of those casino tokens good for one shot at the slots.

Costs you nothing to play but you still get to watch the wheels spin.

The Liberation of the Long-Distance Queryer

2011-07-08T08:28:00.000-07:00

Many years ago, I asked a woman out on a date. She was quite beautiful, while I, in sum, was not. Always shy and lacking in self-confidence, I hated dating anyway, but I was more aware than normally on our date how this particular woman could have her pick of men.

The date seemed to go OK -- I could never tell about these things -- but when it came time to drop her off at home, I was even more uncertain than I would have been normally. What to say, do? Should I just thank her and tell her I had a good time? Should I suggest going out again some time or leave that for later?

Much to my surprise and delight, she relieved me of this burden by saying, as we neared her house, "The next time we go out, we should see a movie" (or something like that). Wow. That was great, I thought as I drove away. Here this beautiful woman has made it clear she wants to go out a second time! So when I call her for another date, the heavy lifting has already been done.

So I waited several days and asked her if she wanted to see that movie. She couldn't that weekend, she said -- she was going camping, or something, with her family -- but she ended the conversation with, "But we should definitely get together again soon" or words to that effect. When I called the following week to ask her out, still feeling confident that this beauty was interested in being with me -- me! -- she was again unavailable, but again ended the conversation with, "But we should definitely get together again soon." Or words to that effect.

The next time I called, I didn't actually ask her out. I can't recall whether it was because by this time my confidence was already shattered or if she was in a rush and I never got the chance. But again, without prompting, she ended the conversation with the same sign-off.

By this time, I concluded that she didn't really want to go out again. So why did she continue to suggest it at the end of each conversation? Why had she suggested it at the end of our first date? Was she just trying to be "nice"? How could she not see that she was torturing me instead? What was she up to?

After that, I still called her occasionally. She never seemed to be in a big rush to get me off the phone. I never again suggested we get together. But she continued to end the conversation the same way, saying we should get together soon. At the end of our first (and only) date, this had filled me with happiness. Later, it was confusion and then a touch of anger -- C'mon, what's the point of this? -- and later, mirth. After our conversation, her suggestion still ringing in my ears, I would just shake my head, laughing to myself, wondering what she was thinking.

What has all this got to do with querying, you ask? You will have to wait for Part II to find out.

Drop Dead Notice from Poisoned Pen

2011-06-28T21:22:00.000-07:00

New experience: being turned down directly by a publisher (Poisoned Pen Press) instead of an agent.

Doesn't feel any better.

Bristol Palin: What's Wrong With America

2011-06-22T08:10:00.000-07:00

No, I'm not slamming the Palins, Bristol or that other one, for their politics. Though the sham politics of Sarah Palin, which chiefly serves to make her millions, is not my cup of tea. No, I'm talking about Bristol Palin's memoirs.

What is she, like 21, 22? How can she possibly have memoirs? She's hardly had a life. Evidently the book's full of earth-shattering stuff like high-school dramas and trailer-park soap opera moments like how she agreed to get back together with Levi Johnston if he promised to get a job, get a GED and "stop calling her 'bitch.'"

What a catch.

Anyway, one looks at the state of the literary establishment here in the 21st century with a shudder. Ah, you object, it's always been like this. America's always been a sucker for the latest huckster to come along, you say, recalling P.T. Barnum's dictum that no one ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American people.

But I seem to recall something else. Reading about the Algonquin Roundtable. How Hemingway's editor at Scribner's, Maxwell Perkins, collaborated closely with him, literary excellence taking precedence over sales. Even as I was reading all these things, in the '60s and '70s, the glow of an earlier era was already fading with the continual march towards corporatization of book publishing until today we have the oligopoly of the Big Six. But remnants of a serious commitment to literature were still there to be found.

Now, the "memoirs" of a woman who may not be old enough to buy a beer.

Says something about our culture. I don't know what, precisely, but something not so good.

Publishers: Let the Rejection Begin

2011-06-09T09:28:00.000-07:00

Well, my query to Poisoned Pen Press prompted a request to see the manuscript, so we've advanced the ball one level, can cut out the agent rejection and go straight to the publisher rejection. I'll hear within a month, they say, so stay tuned....

My Dreams Come True...for Someone Else

2011-06-03T15:45:00.000-07:00

When I retired from the Very Important Organization four and a half years ago, the idea was that I would finally have the time to write a novel, get myself published and thus become in life as in dreams, a writer. At the class that the VIO gives its about-to-be-retirees, I became friends with this woman:

Her name is Pat McArdle and she was retiring so she could go build straw bale houses. Instead, she sat down and wrote a book called Farishta which won the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award in 2010 and has just been released by Riverhead, home to The Kite Runner, among others.

So, please take a look at Pat's book.

Meanwhile, I'm thinking about building a house out of straw.

What to Do When No One's Reading Your Blog Anymore

2011-05-27T09:06:00.000-07:00

This is a question it appears I need to face. The drama, such as it is, has gone out of this blog, as my long march toward getting an agent fizzled out at trail's end. I wonder how many of my followers are even following me. I don't blame you. I post irregularly and eclectically and...well, uninterestingly? Maybe I should just give it up.

In the meantime, I'm stealing this link on formatting your manuscript in the age of e-readers from Sierra Godfrey's deservedly well-read blog just in case a couple of you stop by here who aren't regular readers of Sierra.

Persistence Pays Off

2011-05-25T07:04:00.000-07:00

No, not for me -- not yet, anyway -- but for this guy who claimed (erroneously, I'm sure) to be the most-rejected writer ever on the way to publication of his book after a quarter century of trying.

So I suppose there's hope for old Trav yet.

Ready, Set...Stop!

2011-05-17T09:09:00.000-07:00

Well, kids, I was all set to send my ms. off to Poisoned Pen Press this morning, since they'd told everyone to hold off on submissions until May 15. Went to the website for a last check and discovered they're now telling everyone to hold off until June 1.

It's a wonder anyone anywhere actually gets published in less than 10 years.

I Give Up

2011-05-02T10:00:00.000-07:00

I give up, everyone.
That is, I have given up looking for a literary agent. I really don't have much choice in the matter -- I've basically run through every agent in the book who handles mysteries, suspense and thrillers -- at least, every decent one.
So now I turn my eye to independent publishers. There aren't so many of them that publish mysteries, so it probably won't take quite as long to run through them all, but we'll see how it goes.
This really is a sad sort of coda to an adventure that began over a year and a half ago, when I sent out that first batch of queries, full of hope, sure that I was on my way to publication, though perhaps not riches.
What a comedown.
Well, what can you do?
Keep on truckin'.

Death by a Thousand Cuts

2011-04-18T08:23:00.000-07:00

For the third time in three years, the spousal unit has banged up the Highlander. I just paid off the car last week, for cripe's sake. Last night she smashed up the same part of the car she smashed up two years ago, in the same way -- by backing into a wall. I can barely afford to put food on the table and now this. Again.

Kill me. Kill me now.

I Am a Big, Fat Liar

2011-04-13T17:29:00.000-07:00

I lied when I said in a recent post that I'd sent my last partial. Picking over my QueryTracker-picked list of agents, I came up with another 13 decent prospects -- so I dropped QueryBomb IV today, the 13th. Thirteen on the 13th. That ought to count for something.

But this last batch is, seriously, the final bunch of queries. Nothing more to scrape up. This is the last round-up, the final roll of the dice, the end of the road.

So, I've put off the search for independent publishers for just a bit longer.

The Problem With My WIP

2011-04-04T05:51:00.000-07:00

The biggest problem with my work in progress is that I have none. This is mostly due to the fact that I don't have an idea for one. Needless to say, this makes writing a novel difficult.

It's not that I don't have ideas. I don't have ideas that are (a) good and/or (b) are something I want to write about. I had one fairly decent idea for a political novel, but it was very time-critical and is now, as we used to say at the Very Important Organization, "OBE" -- meaning, "overtaken by events."

It's bad enough that I have trouble coming up with the plot for an idea; if I don't have an idea to start with, I've got nowhere to go.

Where do all you smartypants writers who are always working on your WIPs come up with your ideas?

The Last Partial

2011-03-15T10:12:00.000-07:00

Ultima partialus, as the Romans might have said. Or maybe ultimus partialius. It's been a long time since I took Latin. Whatever. Quidquid.

Anyway, I just sent off the last requested partial I'm going to be sending any agents. No more querying. I've done run out. So that leaves me three partials out and one full. Checked in with the agent who has the full this morning since it's been six months. Doing that usually prompts a rejection, so we'll be able to write her off soon. And the agent who three weeks ago promised to get back to me "in three days" hasn't contacted me, lying SOB. And the other partial I have out there has been gathering dust for about four months, I believe.

So pretty soon I guess I'll be changing the subhead of this blog from "One Writer's Search for a Literary Agent" to "One Writer's Search for a Publisher." And after that...

Dang Peculiar

2011-03-04T07:17:00.000-08:00

Back in September, when I sent out QueryBomb(TM) I, I included an agent I had previously queried but hadn't heard from. This led to an immediate request for a full, followed a few months later by a rejection (the "no urgency" one). So here's the weird part. Yesterday a rejection notice arrived in the mail from the same agency. This is in response to my original, snail-mail query sent to her in January 2010 -- 14 months ago!

Heavens, am I still going to be receiving rejections on this ms. years from now? Will this hell never end?

Ho Hum, Another Partial Request

2011-02-28T19:16:00.000-08:00

Technically, the agent asked for the first three chapters "if no other agent has your material." I decided to interpret that liberally as "if no agent has offered you representation" and sent the stuff. (I explained it to him and owned up to the full and partial I had out there.) He said I'd hear from him in a few days, so watch this space on Friday for news of another rejection...

The Sting of Rejection

2011-02-22T10:14:00.000-08:00

You develop a pretty thick skin doing this query-your-novel thing. You have to. I've had rejections that have been particularly disappointing, but never one that devastated me. This last one, though, has left me feeling battered.

For one thing, I let my guard down. Here was an agent who, reading the first 100 pages, said I was a "fine writer" and that he was "really enjoying" my book. Not just that. After I'd sent him the rest, we got into a little colloquy -- had I sent the book to anyone else, any publishers, was this my first novel? And more. He was going to finish over the weekend. All of which lent the impression that he was not just enjoying the ms., but enthusiastic about it.

I kept the cynical me locked in the closet. I allowed myself to think that this time, just maybe, I had found someone who got it. I read the book over the weekend, too, wanting to refresh myself on why he might have liked those first 100 pages. I came away, again, thinking, This is a pretty good book. Not great. Not Pulitzer material. But pretty darn good.

Then, the reply. He liked my writing style a great deal. My characters are sympathetic and interesting. But he thought the story's narrative lost pace and power as the book progressed. (Odd, because everyone else, myself included, thinks it starts off slow, picks up steam as it goes along, then rockets to the end.) Maybe I could have survived that.

Then came this. He might be wrong, but he was fairly sure others will feel similarly.

I have never had an agent say that to me. They've said they liked it but didn't think they could sell it in today's market. They've said it just didn't do it for them. And all manner of other things.

But no one has ever said, in essence, that I shouldn't bother with anyone else, that my novel is a failure.

It felt like a sledgehammer to the sternum. What do I make of this? It's not like the guy is some fly-by-night nobody: one of the reasons I allowed myself to get excited was because he's someone who's been around a long time, has an estimable track record, knows his stuff. Is he the only one who has dared to tell me the truth? Have all my friends who've told me how much they liked it, despite my entreaties to be brutally honest, been lying to me? (Not all of them were uncritical. One of my friends said he thought my protagonist was "stupid.") Have those agents who read the full, said they liked it but didn't feel it was saleable, just been feeding me a line? Why didn't they just give me a pro-forma "not for me" rejection?

Jaysus.

I haven't been this depressed since a certain woman, the [very bad word], broke my heart in 1983. Before many of you were born. And that's part of it. I can't just devote another 10 or 15 years to honing my craft. It won't be all that long before I can start claiming senior discounts at the movies.

Not that this changes my plans. I'm just going to run out the string: one full, two partials out. Then send the thing off to independent publishers. Then Kindle it, I suppose. Try to write another book, if I can ever find the time, which I can't, because I have to spend every waking moment trying to earn enough to pay the bills.

But really: fairly sure others will feel similarly.

Frak.

The Answer Is No

2011-02-21T11:40:00.000-08:00

I don't want to go into it, but the answer is no.

OMG: 100-Page Partial Leads to Full Request!

2011-02-17T16:12:00.000-08:00

It was such a short e-mail I was sure it was going to say, "Thanks, but in today's market..."

Instead, it said, "I'm really enjoying [the book]... You're a fine writer... So please send the rest."

OMG. I try not to get too excited about these things. But, you know, the bad news has been so frequent, and the good news so...non-existent. And this is a real agent with a reputation in the mystery/thriller genres.

Of course, the cynic in me thinks, the only other time a partial led to a full request was from the Nice Agent Lady, and we all know what happened there.

Still... "I'm really enjoying... You're a fine writer..."

Five Months Later...a Partial Request

2011-02-14T09:34:00.000-08:00

Wow, 2011 is just taking a crazy road. First, a partial from a snail mail query. Now, a partial request from QBI, released on an unsuspecting AgentWorld back in September! From the Grasping-at-Straws Department, this must mean 2011 will bring something really unsuspected -- like an offer of representation. Right? Right? Anyone?

Oh, and regarding Miss Nudge-or-Not, from comments on Absolute Write, it's clear she's backed up, 'cause she's not getting back to anyone. So we'll just wait her out.

What other weird stuff will 2011 bring?

First-Ever Partial Request From Snail Mail Query

2011-02-11T11:57:00.000-08:00

Well, new ground was broken today with a request for a partial from a snail-mail query. That's never happened before. I don't get too excited about this stuff anymore, but it's the first positive reaction to QBIII.

To Nudge or Not to Nudge

2011-02-10T10:20:00.000-08:00

That is the question. One agent's had my full since mid-September, so not quite five months. Should I bother to check in with her or just let it ride? Seems to me the few times I've ever nudged all I did was prompt a reject, but I'm sort of anxious to clear the decks on this thing.

QueryBomb III -- The Final Showdown

2011-01-31T12:26:00.000-08:00

Remember the Seinfeld episode where Elaine complains, "I'm running out of men in this city, Jerry!" That's about where I am in terms of agents, at least those who profess some kinship with the mystery/suspense/thriller world and appear to have been in business more than two or three months. So, this latest and last QueryBomb(TM) is aimed at them. All but five of these queries are snail mail -- I reserved them for the end for the most part out of sheer laziness.

So, kids, this is the last ride of the day in the agent round-up rodeo. If nothing comes of this, I suppose I'll send the ms. to those few independent publishers who take mss. over the transom, but without much hope. I'm setting up a WIP writing sked starting tomorrow (the first of the month always works for me) but how much progress I'll actually make remains to be seen. For one thing, I can't seem to shake this flu I've had since December. Hope it's not pneumonia!

One More Dead Full

2011-01-24T14:31:00.001-08:00

Well, 2011's off to a bang-up start, with another full ms. being given the old heave-ho. That leaves one full out there -- in the agent's hands since mid-September -- along with one partial. This dodo's about dead.

I know, I know: start another one. Show me where I can slack off on earning money and I'll get started on it.

It's a bummer, dudes.

At least I cajoled Janet Reid into reading my blog! (See comment number 10 in preceding post.)

Janet Reid Earns $0.12 With a Ludicrous Premise

2011-01-10T19:43:00.000-08:00

I was at the supermarket the other day and in need of something to read, so I checked the paperbacks and picked up one called Ghost Country by Patrick Lee. The liner notes were semi-intriguing but also sci-fi-ish and I usually don't go there, but as I flipped to the inside I noticed that Lee had dedicated the book to Janet Reid. He also put her in the acknowledgments on the very next page. I don't know why, but that decided it and I bought the book. I figure Janet's cut of Lee's royalty from this purchase comes to something like 12 cents.

Here's the thing. It's actually pretty good, as thrillers go. It does well what thrillers are supposed to do well -- keeps you turning the page. However, the premise is ludicrous (I won't go into it here) -- actually doubly ludicrous, since there's this whole wormhole thing in the ~~Nevada~~ Wyoming desert through which alien gizmos keep arriving, which is also central to the plot. And there are things that are just wrong, the kind of impossible/mistaken things that I find really annoying in books. Even in sci-fi, be accurate. So, for example, even in dry Yuma bodies out in the open wouldn't mummify, Mr. Lee -- they have flies and maggots in Arizona, too. And boreal forests do not grow at the latitude of New York City.

But the interesting part for me is how some writer can take a ludicrous, even stupid, premise and make it work. Somehow you keep reading it. I read a Dean Koontz book once. It had just an awful premise about some genetic experiment gone wrong (I think -- can't even remember) and people turning into various kinds of demon-like monsters at night. I mean, it was stupid. But Koontz just kept plowing ahead with it, and it worked.

So, if you care for thrillers at all, Ghost Country might fit your bill. Don't expect any literary flair to it. Indeed, the writing is soul-suckingly without any literary merit whatsoever. But you will keep turning the page.

And of course we still love Janet Reid, even if she turned down our query a long, long time ago (version 1.0, which was kind of sucky). She's still funny as hell. I just hope she doesn't spend that 12 cents of mine all at once.

Hello? 2010? Fuck off!

2010-12-31T19:45:00.000-08:00

That's really all I've got to say on the subject. I thought 2009 was tough; this last year practically killed me. I'm just about at the end of my rope. I am nearly ropeless. I am tired of being poor, of looking over my shoulder every damn day to see if I can pay the bills, feed the family, buy my kids a fucking ice cream cone. I used to make a hundred and thirty-five fucking thousand dollars a year! How did this happen? Oh, yeah, I thought I'd retire early to write, trusting in the spousal unit to bring home some money. And she chose to go into real estate. In December 2007. It seems funny in an oddly self-immolizing sort of way. Maybe I'll laugh at it some day.

Plus there was that whole "Nice Agent Lady" fiasco.

So, 2010, go fuck yourself. Far ti fotere. Va te faire foutre. Chinga tu madre. Yebat' tvoyoo mat'.

And Another Full Bites the Dust

2010-12-06T11:03:00.000-08:00

Oh, this is turning into just the best Christmas ever. Nearly three months after she requested it, another agent has turned down my magnum opus, saying it's well done but "seemed to lack a certain urgency, if that makes any sense."

Of course it makes sense. It means you didn't like it.

Query Bomb Full Request No. 4

2010-12-02T14:26:00.000-08:00

Query Bomb(tm) II brought in a request for a full today. It's a double-plus-good request, since the query was accompanied by the first 50 pages. If they liked that, maybe they'll like the rest.... I'm not super-crazy about the agency, which seems a little light in the mystery-thriller experience, but I'm focusing on the positive here -- for once.

UPDATE: Well, no sooner had I written this and picked up my son from school than I arrived to find a rejection of an earlier partial: "Despite wonderfully descriptive and strong writing," the agent "didn't quite fall in love with the story and characters." Or so she says. So things have kind of evened out, I guess.

Why I Hate Literary Agents

2010-12-01T10:16:00.000-08:00

I was reminded this morning, as I racked up another rejection in the Query Bomb(tm) Tracker, what I hate most about literary agents -- when they don't bother to respond to your query at all. As I've written before, there's no real excuse for this. I can understand agents not wanting to get into a dialogue with some "writer" who won't take no for an answer, but it's easy enough to set up an auto-rejection macro that comes from a no-reply email address so all you've got to do is hit "ctrl-N" (for "No") and off you go. Let some pissed-off writer try to reply to that. I don't know crap about computers, but even I could set that up. I'm pretty sure I could.

So, what do you hate most about literary agents?

Frozen

2010-11-23T09:19:00.000-08:00

The Queen of the Northwest lies under six inches of snow this morning, with overnight wind chills dipping into single digits (Fahrenheit) and dry, drifting snow blowing about while roads froze. Seattleites know only one way to deal with snow -- to freak out, talk about nothing else (like me, here) and abandon their cars by the side of the road. Fortunately, I live in the city and don't have to go anywhere, so I'm cool with it (pun intended). In fact, I love it. I grew up snow-deprived in Arizona, so every flake of falling snow is like a gift of heaven for me, a promised chit of recompense for the deprivation of my snowman-less, sledding-less childhood. Yay!

No real news on the book front: a couple of form rejections wending their way in over the last week, that's all.

How's the weather where you are? And what are your feelings about snow?

One Good Thing

2010-11-17T10:07:00.000-08:00

I noticed this morning, as I put off logging on to the Online Man's site to start slaving away to get around to printing out the "requested materials" that the agent who wanted the partial asked for, that my query had included the first three pages of the book.

This is semi-good news, because so many agents make a decision about representing you, if they respond positively to your query, based solely on the first few pages of your writing. (Google "first five pages.") So at least that particular hurdle has been...hurdled.

Mr. Gloomypants Speaks

2010-11-16T10:33:00.000-08:00

"Now, a lot of readers of this 'weblog' -- well, a few of what's left of the readership -- have seen fit to chastise Trav as a 'Mr. Gloomypants' for expressing a certain amount of, shall we say, cynical detachment concerning the full and partial mss. that are currently in the hands of -- or at any rate, sitting in the computer files of -- these semi-mythical beings known as 'agents.'

"'A well-worn cynicism is the saddle beneath my butt of hope,' says I, Mr. Gloomypants. 'It is the glue with which I keep my noggin from exploding off my neck.'

"Well into the second year of his AgentQuest(TM) now, the most recent outburst of my alter ego, Trav (see below), is merely the logical expression of his experience of the aforementioned AQ, which has been, since roughly Day 2, a cavalcade of rejection and hope gone to rot.

"Added to which, he had seriously hoped that 2010 would turn out better than 2009, which sucked slimewater through a fire hose (in which suckiness the AQ played only a secondary role), but only 45 days are left before 2010 turns out to have been, no-if-ands-or-buts, worse than the preceding year. Something neither Trav nor Mr. Gloomypants could possibly have believed if they hadn't seen it lay itself out before their own eyes, day after frakking day.

"So, in short, Mr. Gloomypants, speaking on behalf of Trav, says he will take a powder when he has good reason to, and not before.

"Thank you for your attention to this matter."

Yet Another QBII Partial -- Ho Hum

2010-11-15T11:41:00.000-08:00

Another partial request this morning. Good thing: at least my query doesn't suck sewage. Bad thing: they say they're 90 days behind, so I'll have to wait that much longer to be told to fuck off. And they want it by snail mail.

QBII: Another Partial, For What It's Worth

2010-11-08T16:23:00.000-08:00

Another partial request this afternoon, for what it's worth. You can see I have become cynical about these things. I was just thinking this morning that it's been a couple of months since I sent off those full mss., so it's about time for those rejections to come in. Well, today's agent told me not to expect to hear back for a few weeks, so I have that much glory time at least.

Query Bomb II: The Partial

2010-11-03T12:06:00.000-07:00

QB-II is off to a good start, with a request for a partial the day after. The request was so enthusiastic, actually, that I was afraid I'd queried a scam artist, so I re-checked my research and, no, she's a for-real agent with loads of experience. I don't pay much attention to that enthusiasm crap -- not until after she's read it.

UPDATE: She read it, says it reads well, I'll have some takers, but it ain't for her. Hard to articulate why, she said. Somethin' about voice. Sigh. Well, she goes on the list of top 10 agents for being responsive, personal and quick.

Query Bomb: The Sequel

2010-11-02T22:43:00.000-07:00

QueryBomb(tm) II launched yesterday, with another 35 queries sent off into the cyberspatial void of Agentland. Think of QueryBomb II as the Nagasaki to QueryBomb I's Hiroshima, or the Mothra to QB I's Godzilla.

Anyway, this has pretty much shot the bolt -- quick: who knows where that expression comes from? -- with perhaps a few decent snail-mail-only agents left to be queried -- but who wants to deal with those dinosaurs?

Paul S. Levine of his eponymous* literary agency was in with the first rejection, a mere 3 hours, 21 minutes after the query had been sent to him. Good work, Paul!

*Sierra, there's a word for Word-Up Wednesday for you. (Quick: who knows why what I just wrote will drive Sierra Godfrey crazy?)

Stupid Books

2010-10-27T22:54:00.000-07:00

So I'm reading this book called Crashers, a thriller I got from the library. It's about people who blow up planes. In the first 24 pages, the author makes two howler mistakes. First, he describes a "colossal" "wide-body" jet with four engines as being similar in size to a Boeing 737, a two-engine, narrow-body jet -- the smallest Boeing makes. Second, he refers to the National Transportation Safety Board as the "National Transportation and Safety Board." I mean, for heaven's sakes, he's writing a book about planes and most of the protagonists work for the NTSB and he gets that stuff wrong in the first two chapters.

I mean, it's just annoying. So sloppy. Pathetic. Did I mention annoying?

A Trip to the Library

2010-10-24T22:33:00.000-07:00

A trip to the library these days is rather depressing. There are two reasons for this.

One is that that library is haunted by old people, wrinkly-skinned near-wraiths with their gigantic Coke-bottle-lensed glasses and their sweaters covering them up against "the cold," and this is what their life has come down to, this is their entertainment now, their version of clubbing -- a shuffle into the library with all the other elderly to see what new books are on the shelves, because they have all this time on their hands now, waiting to die.

It depresses me because that will be me in fewer years than I care to think. I'm practically a geezer already.

The other reason, of course, is that there are all these new books on the shelves by all these no-talent schmucks... I read the liner notes (remember: this is basically your query!) and think to myself, Who would want to read this drivel?

But what I'm really thinking, of course, is Why are these worthless hacks published and I'm not?

So, what's lifting your spirits these days?

QueryBomb Duds

2010-10-06T08:48:00.000-07:00

A couple of form rejections have sashayed into the in-box in the last week, but nearly three-quarters of QueryBomb(TM) inquiries remain unresponded-to orphans. This has bothered me from day one of AgentQuest(TM). I just don't understand why it's so hard for some agents to set up a form-rejection macro. Hell, I don't know anything about computers but even I could do that.

I have absolutely no other news of note, except that last week, my 11-year-old but precocious daughter, speaking of her attributes, declaimed, "Yeah, I'm the complete package." I almost crashed the car I was laughing so hard.

QueryBomb: One Full Down, Two to Go

2010-09-27T07:33:00.000-07:00

One full rejected this a.m. with usual boilerplate. That leaves two to go. It doesn't seem more responses to the bombload of queries will be coming in. Have 80 percent of agents now become serial non-responders? That's pretty sad.

On a happier note...oh, actually, I've got nothing to fill that blank with.

QueryBomb's Shock and Awe

2010-09-16T20:01:00.000-07:00

QueryBomb(TM) continues to pummel the resistance out of literary agents, resulting in another request for a full today. Now, that could well be the end of the line. Earlier research by this here blog established that if you were going to get a positive result to your query--indeed, if you were going to get any kind of result at all--you were likely to get it within just a few days of sending your query. But even if that's the case, I'll be more or less satisfied with the big bang I've gotten out of QueryBomb(TM).

QueryBomb's Reverberations Continue

2010-09-13T22:37:00.000-07:00

Another full request late this evening, so QueryBomb(TM)'s success rate stands at 18.2 percent...at the moment.

It won't last. And probably won't mean anything in the long run.

But for the moment, we are savoring again that giddy sense that comes when someone asks to see your work.

QueryBomb's Explosive Results!

2010-09-10T09:02:00.000-07:00

We've got a new feature on The Big Litowski, the QueryBomb(TM) Tracker, to allow you, dear reader, to follow the progress of Trav's latest, greatest, and in all likelihood last major attempt to scam the denizens of AgentLand(TM) into asking to see the magnum opus that is Trav's little mystery/thriller.

So far, the QueryBomb(TM) has worked like a charming thermonuclear device, resulting in a success rate--defined as prompting a request for a partial or full ms.--of 12.5 percent.

Of course, that's based on just one request out of eight responses, but hey, let's celebrate while we can.

Special thanks to Christine Pope and Perri for putting The Big Litowski over the top to 50-plus Followers! It only took a year.

Query Bomb: Score 1 for 5

2010-09-08T13:11:00.000-07:00

I only managed to get out 18 of a planned 25 queries yesterday. Another 13 so far today brings the total to 31. But I'm not done yet.

Score so far: four rejections, one full request.

I'm too experienced at this by now to get excited by ms. requests, hence my need to keep the QueryBomb(TM) going until it hits at least 50.

This time, I'm not fucking around.

Query Bomb

2010-09-07T10:36:00.000-07:00

Kaboom!

I'm letting fly a query bomb of nuclear proportions today, sending out 25 into the inky depths of the Mephistophelian darkness known as Agentland.

Tomorrow I may re-query every agent I didn't hear back from the last time around, just for the devilish hell of it, unless they specifically say that "no response means no." The way I look at it, half have moved on, they all might have new assistants, they aren't likely to remember my query from last year and, WTF, who cares if they do remember--all they can do is say no (or be silent again).

So, AgentQuest(TM) is on again!

UPDATE: It took less than an hour for the first rejection to come in: thank you, Uwe Stender at TriadaUS.

Trav Never Happy?

2010-09-01T11:19:00.000-07:00

Matt, over at Pensive Sarcasm, had this to say in passing on a "strange and hazy" blog award to me (the Dead Man in a Pale Blue Suit Award...or something like that): Finally, I always love bestowing awards on Travener, aka, the Big Litkowski. Why? Because I don't believe that even winning an award he did nothing to deserve could make Travener happy. I find that strange.

Now, this is pretty odd stuff. Is that what you all think of me? That I am incapable of happiness?

Do you know that at one point, my protagonist's love interest says to him, “You’re afraid you no longer have the capacity to love, that’s what you’re telling me? Wow, that’s some baggage.”

So, to set the record straight, a few things that make me happy:

1. My kids. They always come first.
2. That I have finally gone from 48 Followers to 49. Thank you, Franklin Beaumont of London, England.
3. Blues skies, smiling at me.
4. Chocolate.
5. Scotch.
6. A trout rising to take my dry fly.
7. Born in the USA.
8. A really good read. (Recently read, highly recommended: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, Where Men Win Glory.)
9. Friendship.
10. Receiving undeserved blog awards.

One Year Anniversary of AgentQuest

2010-08-21T09:30:00.000-07:00

Ah, it seems like yesterday... A year ago today, full of optimism, Trav embarked on AgentQuest(TM), sending out a batch of 25 queries. The very first reply was a request for a partial.

And it's all been downhill from there.

A hundred-plus queries, however many fulls and partials and Nice Agent Ladies later, Trav is no farther along than when he started. The only difference is that he now refers to himself in the third person.

What has Trav learned in this year of woe?

That when folks in publishing say it's a subjective business, they ain't kidding.

That however long you think it's going to take to get published, it's going to take longer.

That however much research you put into targeting agents, it's still a lot like monkeys throwing darts in the dark.

That rejection and frustration are your constant companions.

That alcohol is your best friend.

Trav supposes there are other lessons to be learned, but doesn't feel like investigating the subject further. The pursuit of a literary agent is what it is: a grind, a slog, a trek, a Quest.

So, in the next couple of weeks, Trav will haul out the list of literary agents he's compiled, check QueryTracker and Agent Query once more for new agents, dust off the query letter and, come September, fire some more darts off into the inky gloom.

WTF else can he do?

Nice Agent Lady to Trav: Drop Dead

2010-08-12T13:48:00.000-07:00

Fuck.
Excuse me. I meant to say, Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. And by the way, Fuck.
Long story short, the Nice Agent Lady's senior partners have decided they don't have the proper editorial contacts for my book, which is Agentspeak for, "Not right for our list," which itself is Agentspeak for, "Fuck off."
So, off I am fucked.

California, Plot Contrivances, Evil

2010-08-06T08:48:00.000-07:00

Travener is back, having survived an eight-day road trip with the kids to Davis, California. We took in Crater Lake and the middle of Oregon on the way back to avoid the horror that is Interstate 5.

While in Kallyfornyuh, we took in Othello at Shakespeare in the Park in Sacramento. I'd neither seen nor read the play before. For those of you unfamiliar with it, a key role in driving Othello mad over the alleged indiscretions of his wife Desdemona is played by a dropped handkerchief. As plot devices go, it's pretty ridiculous, and the fact that the genius Shakes resorted to such nonsense to tie up his plot somehow made me feel better about the workings of the plot in my ms. Also, Iago is one of the all-time great evil characters.

So, back with new determination to get moving on the WIP, as soon as I finish sketching out all its handkerchief moments.

As Demanded By Amber

2010-07-25T11:46:00.000-07:00

Ms. Amber Tidd Murphy has demanded the following information, which I am happy to supply.

What have you just read?
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.
What are you reading now?
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. I'm on a bit of a 20th century classic streak, it seems.
Do you have any idea what you'll read when you're done with that?
No.
What's the worst thing you were ever forced to read?
Silas Marner. BOR-ing.
What one book do you always recommend to just about anyone?
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce.
Do you read books while you eat?
Does snacking count?
While you bathe?
Yes. A sublime pleasure.
While you watch movies or TV?
No to the first, yes to the second--all the time.
While you're on the computer?
No.
When you were little did other children tease you about your reading habits?
No.
What's the last thing you stayed up half the night reading because it was so good you couldn't put it down?
Don't remember. Snow Falling on Cedars, perhaps. That was awfully good.
Have any books made you cry?
No. Movies make me cry sometimes, though.

Hot Amish Romance

2010-07-23T09:01:00.000-07:00

Evidently, romance novels are the way to go, their sales rising even as the rest of publishing flounders. Particularly hot: Amish romance.

Lord have mercy.

My Bad Habits

2010-07-21T19:22:00.000-07:00

I'm referring to my bad writing habits, though gods know I have enough of the other kind. I am not a disciplined person. When I worked for the VIO I was a skilled multitasker, but in my private life, not so much. So I quit the VIO to make sure I'd write because I spent a couple decades not writing. Was always too tired, or Seinfeld was on, or I was playing trivia on the computer, or...well, it didn't really matter. So after quitting the VIO I actually did write. Now I'm not because I work all day for Tom, the Online Man and...well, bad habits return. So I must schedule myself. I must! Ich muBte, devo farla, turiu daryti!

So...I'm taking a poll. I'm going to set aside 90 minutes a day. I'm writing it on the calendar in indelible marker. What's better, the morning or the evening? What works best for you?

P.S. Why is BSG in the labels?

Poverty Sucks

2010-07-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

Back when I was single and working for the Very Important Organization, I was practically awash in dough. I once took a vacation from Lithuania to New Zealand (setting a VIO R&R distance record) and didn't think twice about the cost. Now, one spousal unit, two kids and one Great Recession later, I'm scraping for every dollar to keep the sheriff from the door while trying to preserve what's left of my life savings. Yesterday I got a bill from the dentist for $681, and that was after insurance. (Spousal unit has crappy Former Soviet teeth, while yours truly had put off going to the dentist for years to save money, hah.)

The last time the economy was this bad, it took World War II to snap us out of it. But, we're already in two wars. What's it going to take this time?

Damn you, capitalism. You are a fickle mistress. In the '90s you made my head swim. Now you have cast me adrift.

Bitch.

That Elusive 'Voice'

2010-07-14T00:22:00.000-07:00

I've often been mystified WTF agents really mean when they talk about "voice" in a novel, especially when all they've given your book is a superficial two-page read. But I've been re-reading The Catcher in the Rye--the last time I read it was the summer between high school and first year of college--and there's no mistaking Holden Caulfield's--J.D. Salinger's--distinctive "voice." So I suppose I get it a little now.

More important, I'm loving reading it. I don't remember liking it that much when I first read it. But it's hysterically funny.

How Does This Happen?

2010-07-10T18:42:00.000-07:00

OK, I've complained about the declining standards of the publishing industry before...but today I'm reading a book in which the author has Winston Churchill writing to "Theodore Roosevelt" in 1945. How can the writer, his agent, his editor, and copy editor (if any?) miss that kind of mistake? How ignorant do you have to be not to know Franklin Roosevelt was president in WWII? And that Teddy was dead? Jeez.

My Deal With the Nice Agent Lady

2010-07-07T14:56:00.000-07:00

To provide some context for the preceding post, my deal with NAL is as follows: because she was undertaking to go through the entire ms. again with her red pen in hand, I would not query any new agents until I got the book back, made the revisos and sent it back for a decision. I was free to follow up with requests for partials or fulls from any of the agents I had previously queried and had not yet heard from, or even to sign with one of them. There were a lot of no-responders in that bunch, but the ones I did hear back from after striking my deal with NAL all said, "Fuck off," or some agentspeak variant of that.

We sort of arrived at this decision mutually. I believe I brought it up--something along the lines of, "What are your expectations of me?" I thought it was fair. Still do, for that matter. She's not just reading it but providing edits and stuff. Understand that this all occurred after more than 100 queries and a couple of heart-breaking this-is-really-good-but-the-market-sucks-rught-now-so-sorry-but-fuck-off responses to fulls.

The other thing is, she really is nice. And she gets, and what's more, loves my book. Used those very words: "I love your novel." While NAL herself is a junior agent--and part of the delay comes from her having to deal with administrative stuff plus all the queries coming in from all you fuckhead dingbats--the firm she works for is well established with at least one agent with lots of deals under her belt in the ol' mystery-suspense-thriller world. So, I would love to be represented by her. Plus, I did tell her to take her time the last time we communicated, when she apologized for how long it was taking.

I guess I'm really just frazzled by how long it's taking and how it seems I have no money and no time and no way to easily get enough of either.

How Long Am I Supposed to Wait?

2010-07-07T09:22:00.000-07:00

It's been three, fourth months since the Nice Agent Lady undertook to go through my ms. with an eye to sending me suggested areas for improvement (as we would have put it at my former employer, the Very Important Organization). In our last colloquy I told her to take her time, but still... Since I promised not to query further while she was working on it, I'm sort of stuck in limbo. Despite its constant flow of heartache, I sort of miss querying. I spend so much time working for TOM (the online Man) that I'm too exhausted at day's end to even think about, much less write, my WIP. (Thank you, poverty.) I'm sort of thinking giving her to September and then breaking my promise (heck, this is business after all), given that summer is a tough time to query anyway. I don't know. Is that fair, or should I feel like a jerk for even contemplating this?

Home Alone

2010-07-04T17:10:00.000-07:00

It's the Fourth of July and I'm home alone. My son's in Costa Rica with a school group, my daughter deserted us to spend the day with her friend's family, the spousal unit is "out with a friend" -- bartender, drinking buddy, lesbian lover -- WTF do I know? Plus, it's gloomy as hell here: cold, gray, wet. A perfect Seattle day. For November. Plus I've spent all fucking weekend working for The Online Man (henceforward: "Tom"). Doesn't anyone out there feel sorry for me? Anyone? Anyone?

Bueller?

Help! I'm Losing Followers!

2010-06-29T08:27:00.000-07:00

Jesus, I went from 48 Followers to 47! WTF? Was it something I said? I have few enough Followers as it is. I can't afford to lose any. What is it you want? More pathos? More sex? Drugs? Rock 'n roll?

Literary Agent Scandal!

2010-06-27T16:13:00.000-07:00

Hey, here's an interesting article on how Saul Bellow's former agent has disappeared among allegations of missing royalty money. Something to be wary of, if we ever actually do get ourselves a flippin' agent.

Why Did I Watch 'The Road'?

2010-06-20T22:41:00.000-07:00

Just finished watching The Road. Movie of the book of the same name by Cormac McCarthy. Post apocalypse. Dreadfully depressing. But I knew that going in, because I already read the damn book. So why did I watch the damn movie? Spoiler alert: don't read the next sentence if you plan on seeing the movie and haven't already. Even if they tweaked it with just the teensiest bit of optimism in the movie version, totally fucking absent from the book, by having the kid find a living beetle just before his dad croaks.

Comic Sans Goes Rogue

2010-06-17T08:51:00.000-07:00

I love this font, now on a rampage.

Special TMI Friday - Travener Revealed!

2010-06-11T10:33:00.000-07:00

Scores of you have been clamoring for a photo of the real Travener (OK, well, Amber has), so here it is!

Now, this is an, uhm, somewhat dated photo of me. This is not because I am vain (Carly Simon once told me that song is not about me), but rather to protect myself from having to defend myself against the horde of my many fans in the Greater Seattle Area, among them Dawn Simon and Too Cute to be Very Interesting, who will demand my autograph if they see me in the street or at Fado.

This special treat will be up for 48 hours only (that TV show: yes, inspired by an old feat of derring-do of mine), so it comes down at 10:31 a.m. PDT Sunday, June 13. Enjoy while you can!

I Want to Sleep With Scarlett Johansson

2010-06-07T23:55:00.000-07:00

First Roni did it, then musing Amber. Now, me. Next: you.

My Favorite Beverage

[Laphroaig scotch]

My Hometown

[Tucson, Arizona]

[current hometown]

Favorite TV Show

[Fey = funniest woman in the world]

My Occupation

[formerly: ~~big~~ middle-ranking shot at Very Important Organization]

My First Car

['67 VW Beetle - had the new headlights but the classic chrome bumper]

My Favorite Dish

[corned beef and cabbage -- seriously]

Celebrity I've Been Told I Resemble

[unlike William Hurt, I still have all my hair]

Celebrity on My To-do List

[I should be so lucky]

Favorite Childhood Toy

[still have him]

Any Random Picture

[Google "any random picture" and this is what you get]

Your turn!

Update: Changing the title of this post to "I Want to Sleep With Scarlett Johansson" to see if it will draw more attention...

Men Who Write Chick Lit

2010-06-06T10:59:00.000-07:00

So, can men write good chick lit? I ask this because I just finished Beginner's Greek by James Collins, a sort of modern-day Jane Austen-type of novel wherein various people find their way to True Love. There was a lot of verbiage about what people were feeling, why they were feeling that way, what they might or might not do about their feelings. The kind of stuff that usually doesn't appeal to, uhm, men. I found it hard to finish and basically skimmed the last 100 pages just to get to the end. So, the question stands: any male authors you know who write great chick lit? Now that I think of it, any women who write great thrillers (as opposed to mysteries)? And should we care?

Bestselling Authors What Don't Write English Good

2010-05-27T10:05:00.000-07:00

So. Tom Rob Smith, author of a great debut thriller, Child 44. A Soviet detective who tracks down a serial killer in the early 50s. Interesting that he uses his full name and writes about Soviets, just like three-name Martin Cruz Smith (Smith!) of Gorky Park-Arkady Renko fame. But that's a sidebar. I've just read his follow-on thriller, The Secret Speech. Pretty good, though I had some too-much-suspension-of-disbelief problems and gripes over some saccharine sentiments. But I was struck by this sentence:

Taking place in the courtyard of her apartment complex, Fraera intended to host the first victory celebration.

Now, clearly this sentence states that the character Fraera is "taking place in the courtyard," not the celebration. OK, OK, happens to the best of writers. Norman Mailer famously opened Ancient Evenings with a dangling participle, too. But the above sentence is immediately followed by:

Open to all, she provided crates of alcohol...

Now, I suppose you could argue that he's saying Fraera was "open to all," but I think he clearly means the victory party. (Since it takes place during the Hungarian Revolution, the "victory" part turns out to be premature.)

And this guy went to Cambridge! The worst part is, there are many more examples of this kind of sloppiness. And yet he's sold bazillions of copies. You'd think the publishing industry could hire just a few copy editors who know what they're doing, if for no other reason than to prevent the embarrassment of their big players.

Just sayin'.

Still Lost After All These Years

2010-05-24T07:47:00.000-07:00

The finale of 'Lost' -- WTF? What kind of resolution was that? I still don't know where the dang island came from in the first place (my theory's always been Atlantis). Who made it? And if the light-filled water cures the dead but makes them evil (Man in Black, Sayeed), why would you protect it and the stupid island in the first place? And how did the Dharma folks know to keep the Black Smoke out with some fancy electronic squealing? Ah, too many unanswered questions after six years. The ending itself -- meeting up after they're all dead -- feh, OK, I suppose, but not a real winner.

WIP: No Progress

2010-05-20T09:46:00.000-07:00

Man, between the online writing, the household chores, ~~dealing with the spousal unit and ferrying the child units around~~ looking after my family, I am just betwixt and between and feel as if I've got no time to sit down and make some notes. I get a few ideas now and then but don't scribble them down. How do the rest of you with families and jobs make time for writing? It's killing me.

My Ten Favorite Literary Agents

2010-05-14T09:00:00.000-07:00

Hi, devoted followers and those who wander in. I haven't blogged much lately because I've had nothing to say and have been devoting so much time to writing stupid articles for the online Man, trying to keep the wolf outside the door, which has left me exhausted, but slightly less poor.

Anyhoo, here's my list of favorite literary agents I've encountered over the past nine (!) months of AgentQuest (TM). Now, understand, all of these agents rejected me. (Not me. My book. Repeat. Not me. The book.) This list does not contain the nice agent lady currently working through some edits on my ms. (You don't seriously expect me to share her with you, do you?) But these ten either rejected my full/partial/query with some helpful commentary and/or responded to my query with alacrity and a form rejection that seemed above par. I won't say which did which, as I want to preserve my anonymity and what's left of my dignity. I would recommend querying any of them, if you need an agent and if your genre fits their interests. Herewith, in no particular order, my top ten agents:

Ann Collette, Helen Rees Literary Agency
Anna Cottle, Cine/Lit Representation
Sorche Fairbank, Fairbank Literary Representation
Kate Lee, International Creative Management
Laney Katz Becker, Markson Thoma
Renee Zuckerbrot, Renee Zuckerbrot Literary Agency
Daniel Lazar, Writer's House
Nathan Bransford, Curtis Brown
Jenny Bent, Bent Agency
Paige Wheeler, Folio Literary Management

Of course, your mileage may vary, and they could wind up behaving like complete jerks with you...

Nice Agent Lady: Still Nice

2010-05-07T06:52:00.000-07:00

Whew. The nice agent lady got back to me, said she was still working through my ms., not wanting to rush it, while dealing with the typical kaleidoscope of queries, foreign rights, printer break-downs, admin crap & cetera, and said she was sorry not to have let me known sooner that it was going to take longer than she'd thought to finish the edits. This is why I call her the nice agent lady.

I sort of feel bad, because I have twice doubted her and now twice been shown to be a paranoid twit. I think searching for an agent does this to you. Well, it has done it to me. So...I shall now relax about the whole thing. I told her to please take her time. The delay itself doesn't bother me. This whole process has proven to be so ridiculously long that throwing a few more months in the way won't make a difference. In fact, I have thought that delay might be good: if the economy continues to improve and publishers start to crawl out from under their beds, they might loosen up a bit, giving more of us newcomers whose books don't have "next Dan Brown" written all over them a better shot.

And I've got that WIP now to work on. So...big exhale...big inhale...big thanks, nice agent lady.

Onward and Upward

2010-05-05T15:38:00.000-07:00

Well, I still don't know WTF's going on with the nice agent lady, but at least I've started up a new WIP -- "started up" in this case meaning making notes and beginning to come up with characters and plot points, always the hard part for me. It is not a sequel to the ms. currently ~~being considered by~~ lost under the desk of the nice agent lady. No way I'm writing a sequel unless the prequel finds a publisher. And, working like a dog -- a big, slobbery dog like a Newfoundland -- I'm bringing in some bucks with the online gig, staving off the poorhouse for the moment. Now if spring would just finally get here and stay awhile. Jesus, there was frost here the other day. This is the Northwest, not the fucking Northern Plains. That kind of crap just shouldn't be happening here in May.

Ignorance Ain't Bliss

2010-05-03T07:21:00.000-07:00

Well, I sent an e-mail to the nice agent lady last week letting her know I was still alive and waiting for edits (in a very nice and roundabout semi-funny and not-whiny way) and her response was...no response. It's a good thing that despite my advanced years I have most of my hair, otherwise I'd have nothing to tear out.

In the meantime, let's all congratulate Kristen on getting herself an agent.

Why 'Avatar' Sucks

2010-04-27T09:08:00.000-07:00

I walked out on Avatar. OK, actually I just turned off the DVD after about an hour. I know a lot of you will say to me, "Listen, you can't appreciate it unless you're in the theater with the big screen and the 3-D effects and all," to which I reply: bleh. If a movie can't stand on its story alone, it can't stand at all, and the writing in Avatar is, in a word, awful.

Now, I'm not an anti-Cameronite. Terminator is a great movie. I loved Aliens. I even sort of liked The Abyss, even if the science was nonsense (I don't care how much fluid he had in his lungs, Ed Harris would have been squashed into a pancake long before he got all the way to the bottom of the sea where the aliens lived). Titanic was tolerable but it foreshadowed the decline of Cameronism: the dialogue was written to enable effects, rather than the effects designed to enable the movie. I've seen all the characters in Avatar before: the young Marine, the evil corporate honcho, the mad scientist. And the dialogue sounds as if it were written for 12-year-olds. Which I think it was.

Anyway, if it's any consolation for you Avatarophiles out there, I was bored to death by the Lord of the Rings movies, too.

Survived the Girl Scout campout by reading a book far from the other parents and just waiting it out. Still no Fedex from the nice agent lady so if I've gotten nothing by mid-week, I'm going to e-mail her. I believe I have been patient.

The Last Girl Scout...

2010-04-24T07:22:00.000-07:00

The last Girl Scout campout with my daughter, that is. We take off in a couple of hours. Next year, she'll be out of Girl Scouts and into her clique-ridden Mean Girl upper-middle-class middle school. I'll just be older--older than I ever thought possible. And where on the road to being published will I be? It's gotten to be such an absurdly long slog that I'd even forgotten to note the eighth-month anniversary of AgentQuest (TM). Kind of scary how a book is like a baby: at first you count their age in days, then weeks, then months, then years. Then they stop being a little kid and go off to middle school. But in my book's case, it's still stuck in the nursery.

Oh, fiddle dee dee. I'll think about that tomorrow...

Why I Haven't Posted Much Lately

2010-04-22T11:16:00.000-07:00

I know I haven't posted much lately, though I thought the graph I put up yesterday -- was it yesterday? -- was pretty funny and would have drawn more than three of my ~~occasional readers~~ loyal followers in. Sigh. What can I say? I already confessed to lack of marital cohesion. Lack of Fedex from the nice but maybe not so efficient agent lady. I spend all my day now writing crap articles for little money when not shepherding the child units around or dealing with the spousal unit's dyspepsia. In short, life sucks right now. You're probably bored of hearing about it. I know I'm bored of living it.

This Explains It All

2010-04-21T09:32:00.001-07:00

And you wondered why you were hitting the Scotch with abandon.

TPO Thursday

2010-04-15T19:00:00.000-07:00

Whew. This is finishing up as a Totally Pooped Out Thursday and I still haven't dragged my son and my ass to his orchestra concert tonight. And where TF is the spousal unit? If she's not here in 10 minutes I'll have to drag my son's 10-year-old sister along -- fine by me, but hell for her. Spent all day blasting away at the freelancing, piling up -- ha, ha -- the big bucks, dollar by dollar. If the spousal unit would actually sell a fucking house already I wouldn't have to sell my soul to the company store. OK, it's really not her fault; the housing market sucks. Still. No Fedex from the nice agent lady which is just giving me the willies. Is she going to be any more attentive if she actually becomes my agent lady? And I haven't had any spousal cohesion, if you get my drift, in a fucking dog's age, first because the spousal unit had some kind of bacteriological/viral/unknown alien origin something or other going on with her lady parts, and after that it was/is a big old nasty cough that's put her off the mood -- it doesn't take much, anyway -- and so... Oh, crap. Gotta go to the concert. Bye.

Busy as a Beaver With a Deadline

2010-04-12T10:35:00.000-07:00

In addition to all the usual crap related to kids and their activities, house-husband chores and regular husband chores, I've added writing freelance for one of those online community things. The pay's a pittance so speed and volume are key, but we are desperate enough for moolah around here that I gotta do it. Still waiting on suggested edits from the nice agent lady; I guess if I don't get a Fedex by Wednesday I'll have to risk sounding like a whiny writer and e-mail her to see what's up.

The Meaning of 'Pre-Offer' Revisions. Or, Perhaps, the Revised Meaning of 'Pre-Offer.'

2010-04-07T09:35:00.000-07:00

The QueryTracker Blog has an interesting snippet-interview with agent Joan Paquette on why agents ask for, and what they expect from, "pre-offer" revisions here. I took a personal interest in it, as those of you who've been following my dance with the nice agent lady will understand, but I think any would-be author would find it interesting.

I've finished a new scene as part of my revisions but am still awaiting the box o' suggestions from the nice agent lady. It was supposed to be here last week...or even the week before (I lose track). I am trying not to freak out about that. I've got plenty of other stuff to freak out about now.

101 Form Rejections on the Wall...

2010-04-06T13:33:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm officially into a second century of query rejections as of today, when the 101st form rejection slipped into the inbox.

A hundred and fucking one. Jaysus.

I tell ya, if things don't work out with the nice agent lady, I'm just gonna do one gigantic query bomb to every agent left on my list and fucking get it over with already.

Jaysus.