Redux: What Rejection Means to My Work Week

It's a Friday, I have a full manuscript with an agent, and I'm querying others. This reminds me of a meme the Rejectionist had on her blog. It feels poignant today:


The Rejectionist asked another question, one I felt worhty of a response. The question returns us to a topic I have written on frequently here in the Brick City (a name I have not used in a long time but fits the tone of this post, so here it is again.) It is, in fact, a topic that comes up frequently, often in an attempt at humor, often resulting in a typical Joe Selby tirade. Regardless, I will endeavor to answer said question anew with both humor and derision, as is befitting.

What does rejection mean to me?

What a simple question. What an unsimple answer. Rejection, to steal a phrase, is like an onion. It has many layers. Specifically, in this case, rejection refers to query rejections in the pursuit of publication, so we can cast aside any blunders I had in my youth attempting to touch my girlfriend's breasts. We will keep this in the now, as I continue writing and continue querying and continue getting rejected.

Writing is one of the most important things in my life (truly, second only to my wife), and rejection is the largest hurdle I currently face to taking my writing to a national (international?) market. As I approach my writing as the second job it is, I will now address rejection as it impacts said job during a standard work week.


MONDAY
I received a rejection letter today. This makes me proud. Many of my friends who do not write or who write as a hobby do not understand this. They assume rejection means failure. This is because they do not attempt professional publication (or, at least, not in anything larger than self-publication, which I discount). They do not truly understand the challenges of finishing a novel-length manuscript. How could one understand without having accomplished the same. So often a manuscript is abandoned after the first surge of creativity is expired. One cannot compare the challenges of writing a 20,000-word manuscript to finishing a 100,000-word+ manuscript. And then to revise that manuscript multiple times and then to query an agent. It is a daunting task. And while true, many queriers do not go through all those steps, I did. I wrote professionally. I submitted professionally. I was rejected professionally. I am a professional. This makes me proud. Thank you, Rejection.

TUESDAY
I received a rejection letter today. I appreciate this. It's a form rejection, as they almost alrways are. I recieved a semi-personalized rejection once, or the most politely written form rejection ever known. I hope it was semi-personalized because if she says how close she was to asking for it, that seems horribly unfair to the author. Today's wasn't one of those. It was just a form rejection. It was polite and professional. It went through all the standard statements of how this isn't a reflection of my work and that writing is subjective. I understand that and after having read it so many times, I wonder if it's necessary, but then I remember that it's a kind word and kind words are never unnecessary, so I say thank you. I do not write back thank you, because that would clutter a busy agent's inbox, but I say thank you in my brain, because she deserves thanks for taking the time to read my query and respond.

I dislike agent policy of not responding. I've seen the argument that it's a waste of an agent's time. The math and the totals of how much time out of the year would be spent replying to queries and I do not care. Agenting is not just about writing, it's about relationships, and taking the time to acknowledge you received, reviewed, and passed on my work established a good relationship. Not to mention it spares you from receiving follow-up emails and requries that I think in the end would take up more of your time than creating a form rejection. Email clients and super-copy/paste applications make form rejection absurdly easy. I have posted before what I think when an says she is too busy to do something. We're all busy. A rejection letter is not too much to ask for. So thank you, for sending me one today.

WEDNESDAY
I received a rejection today. Dammit. I'm running out of agents I queried. It's not right for you or for her or for him. This has to be right for someone. Come on. This isn't hackneyed stuff. This isn't my first time at the rodeo. I've written. I've revised. I've avoided cliches and found an interesting hook. I wrote with character and with adventure and threw in some fun twists. This will appeal to the market. I've seen books with this tone before so how can you tell me it's not right for you? It has to be right for someone. How did those books get published if they weren't right for anyone either? There aren't THAT many fantasy agents in the world, and I've done a LOT of research. One of you has published this stuff before. Why won't you even ask to read mine? It's good! Yes the page count is high of your perfect margin, but it's not a 250k+ epic. I'm sure that number will fall during editing. I already brought it down once with my own edits. I edited. I've edited professionally before. I had beta readers and took into account their feedback. Come on. This has to be right for SOMEONE. Someone? Anyone? Listen, I'm productive. I write a minimum of one novel a year. I wrote two last year. I have over a dozen books percolating in my brain, so this isn't going to be a one-shot and we're out kind of thing. Professionally, I'm an investment. I'll produce regularly for you and of a quality that won't suck up all your time from your other clients. Come on, just give me a shot! I'm a steady paycheck! Read the damn manuscript. You'll like it. It's good.

THURSDAY
I received a rejection today. One of my self-published friends tried to have a conversation with me today about the challenges of publishing in the industry. He talked down to me like he was some seasoned professional. Dude. Dood. You are self-published. I admit, the changing marketplace makes self-publishing more feasible, but you relied on your friends to edit, design your cover, and set the pages. Sure some of them have some experience, but this is small scale. Your friends were in the creative writing class in high school. They're not professional fiction editors. They do not make their living doing this. They do not win awards for doing this. The authors they edit do not win awards for doing this because you're the only person they edit. Please do not think because you are self-published, and I received another rejection letter, that this somehow puts me into a subordinate position. I am a better writer than you. I am a significantly better writer than you. It is because I am a better writer than you that I am attempting to break into professional writing. I am not cowering in self-publication, "setting my terms for success." My "terms of success" are succeeding. My sales will go well beyond the three-digit cusp. I will make advances. I will earn them out. I will earn royalties. I will be published in multiple languages. I will be asked to submit more manuscripts and even to possibly participate in an anthology.

So, dear agent, while I appreciate that you took the time to send me a rejection, I would ask you to reconsider if for no other reason than to save me from my friends who think I'm a failure. I am not a failure, but it is unlikely they will accept that until I can beat them over the head with an ARC.

FRIDAY
I received a rejection today. What. The. Fuck. You posted on your blog that you wanted to expand your list. You said you were looking for fantasy. Hey, that's me! You said you didn't have enough male clients. I have a penis! I know. I touched it this morning! You said if the writing was good you'd ask for more pages. You didn't ask for more pages. You rejected me. What the crap is that? I've been putting up with this all week. You were the last one. My entire query list has rejected me. You see this book I'm reading? It's average. It's not crap. It's not testament to the poor standards of the industry. It's average. The author repeats himself too much and has this unnatural aversion to pronouns. I am better than this. He is a best selling author. This novel is a best selling novel. I am better than this. Why won't you even give me a chance? You know how many times I've revised that goddamn query? Just give me a chance.

Please...

SATURDAY
I did not receive a rejection today. That's a Monday through Friday thing. I still write on the weekends, though. I write all the time. It's what I do. It's what I've always done. Some days, it's hard. I wake up on Saturday and wonder why I'm not playing frisbee golf or Xbox with friends. Why am I sitting at a counter behind a computer writing about a world that doesn't exist? My wife sees the look on my face and she gives me a hug. She's still in bed. She's going to sleep in. But she doesn't want me to be sad. She reminds me that I'm an asshole when I don't write and, while I may not feel up to it, she'd appreciate it if I'd go do it anyway. For her sake. She also tells me her favorite Babe Ruth quote. "Every strike brings me closer to the next home run." I avoid telling her that you only get three strikes until you're out. I kiss her. I thank her for her encouragement. I write some and see a new agent. Perhaps she'll like what I write. I send her a query. Maybe next Monday will be different.

My people, they have but one bunghole

Extra extra extra tired today. Thus I talk to anyone and everyone to keep myself awake. This does not lead to quality work, but does lead to some fun creativity. Follow this thought process:

I'm talking to my friend Michelle. She says she needs to go eat lunch before she passes out. I keep talking because if I don't I'LL pass out. Eventually I hit a lull and tell her to go eat a burrito

Burrito

Burrito makes me think of burro.

Burrito
Burro

Burro is a fun word. It makes me think of a really long trilled R. Burrrrrrrrro

Burrito
Burro
Burrrrrrrrrrro

Trilled Rs make me think of Roberto. Flicking that R right at the beginning.

Burrito
Burro
Burrrrrrrrrrro
Roberto

Roberto morphs into Boberto

Burrito
Burro
Burrrrrrrrrrro
Roberto
Boberto


I am changing the name of the main character in WHAT'S BEHIND THE CROOKED DOOR? from Brian to Rob just so I can have a character call him Boberto.

This name is awesome. Envy Boberto. He gets all the chicks.

Dream a Little Dream of Me

In my last semester of college, I participated in one of the most influential classes of my university career: Senior Theatre Capstone. It was a discussion course required to graduate with a theatre degree (every arts degree had one: I took something similar for my English degree). It was lead by the department head and a person I considered a mentor, and for the first time in the department, I got to express myself fully as an adult and as a theatre person.

Now, this being college theatre, there was no greater crime than selling out. Cats was just about to wrap its run on Broadway and it was the constant example of what theatre should not be. I'm not going to go back down that road, at least not today. There was a day in that capstone class where we went out to enjoy the sun. We sat in a circle and the professor asked, "You're about to finish school and head out into the theatre world. What is your biggest fear?"

Mine? "I want to be famous, and I don't know if it's wrong to want it."

The answer (which was obvious): Will you write if you're not famouse? (Of course.) Then it's not a bad thing.

Jennifer Hiller posted the inverse question over on Killer Chicks:

What's your writing dream?


Mine? I want a sub-genre. Sure success and movies and merchandising would be awesome. But that's all short-term. I want a subgenre.

Who made epic fantasy? Tolkien¹

Who made sword & sorcery? Howard

Who made ______? Selby


That's what I want. I don't know what _______ is yet, but I call dibs.


¹ Whether Tolkien actually created epic fantasy, he is the popular answer to the question.

POV to the FACE!

Elizabeth Poole was talking about having double first person in her current WIP. Meaning, she has two main characters and each of them narrate their part of the story from a first-person POV. I warned against this as a style that required IMMENSE precision. If you do not perfectly nail this kind of writing, it's a disaster. There is no "average" double first person. You get it or you don't.

So of course, I then start wondering if there is anything I could write as double-first person. Certainly THE RED SOCK SOCIETY will have two main characters, Klara and Otwald. Could I do that?

I went over all my stories and no, no there's nothing I'm writing or have queued that would benefit from this POV structure. (If I were writing an enhanced ebook, it would be an interesting experience to change font and color to denote a change in character POV, but that's a ways off and I still don't have anything that would benefit.)

I don't write in first person POV. Ever. It's the most overused POV in the industry, in my opinion. Which made me wonder, can I write it? I can't think of any story I have that would be better for being in first person, but is that because I think it's inferior to third person? Maybe I should try and see if I can hack it.

So, I decided to use the manuscript that is going to be so out there anyway, first person can't screw it up WHAT'S BEHIND THE CROOKED DOOR? Having written that little bit yesterday, I think it'll actually be better in tone in first person.

And that's when my mind dropped the gauntlet. You want to try something hard? You want to break out of the mold and try something radical? You can't do double-first person but you can...

WHAT'S BEHIND THE CROOKED DOOR? begins as a first person POV and shifts (in such a way that the reader understands the shift) to second person POV. Second person POV is a recipe for failure, but I'm going to work it like Sarah Palin at a Tea Party rally.

I'm even contemplating an illusory choose-your-own ending, but that will take a LOT of work in the composition department for what I have in mind. We'll see if this makes for a super awesome story or just a gimmick. I don't do gimmicks, so if it's a distraction, it gets the boot. But if it works, hot damn this is going to be fun.

Wind Sprint: WHAT'S BEHIND THE CROOKED DOOR?

This story began as a ponderance. I thought of it from time to time. It sat in my brain like a seed. Will it sprout or will it just lay there? It sprouted a little, but I doubted enough to make a story out of it. My wife then asked me what I was talking about and gave the seed enough water to sprout. She demanded I write the story, you see. And I tend to try and write stories when they are asked for. I've always been that way and I'm not sure why it is.

This story also makes me think of a comment Hannah Mosk said on Twitter. She felt the phase should not be "Write what you know" but "Write what you've read." She felt that reading on a subject was just as good as experiencing something firsthand. This is a complicated argument to respond to because she's right and wrong at the same time.

"Write what you know" is not "Write what you've experienced" or we wouldn't have a lot of books written in a year. It means to know your subject. Know it, don't just wing it or half-ass it. Reading enough books, like she suggests, will give you the information you need to write on the subject. At the same time, a first-hand experience will always trump whatever you've read. Mork from Ork describes it best in "Good Will Hunting." You can read a book on the Sistine Chapel, but it won't compare to the experience of standing there and smelling the air. You can write about your experience at the Sistine Chapel or you can about how someone else wrote about his experience at the Sistine Chapel. It has a generational dilution effect. At some point, it will become a stereotype or a cliche and not an experience at all.

The reason why I went on that rather long tangent is because WHAT'S BEHIND THE CROOKED DOOR? is a fairy tale noir set in Brooklyn. I've never been to Brooklyn. And while I can try to translate what I've seen from other media (movies, TV, books), it will not be the same as if I went to Brooklyn (to which I'll have to arrange a trip next year). Seeing things first hand will make it a thousand times more real than if I just try to paint what I've seen in other people's paintings.

And with that, an excerpt from WHAT'S BEHIND THE CROOKED DOOR? Same caveats as before (caveats I make with every excerpt--I post first drafts. I like comments, but don't freak out on the quality of the writing).

WHAT'S BEHIND THE CROOKED DOOR

I went to a bar; I sat at the bar,
I met a woman named violet.
I bought us drinks; we drank our drinks,
Then we had sex most violent

I said farewell; I did not fare well,
I had no idea what else was in store.
I stumbled out; I passed right out,
Then awoke at the crooked door.

1

“Knock it off, Tommy.” I waved my hand back and forth, trying to smack the four-year-old away. I should never have given my sister a key. More importantly, I should ever have showed my nephew where I kept all my Nerf weapons.

“Tommy!” My voice cracked. I couldn't remember the last time I had that much to drink. Well, yes I could, now that I thought about it. My first year after college. I fell down the stairs and met that Greek girl. God that had been a good time.

Violet's passionate screams slapped me harder than Tommy and my makeshift Nerf broadsword. Slapped me right in the crotch. The audio came with blessed video, and I saw her clear as day. Rich brown skin, long black hair, curves to die for, breasts to kill with. She sat on top of me and rocked as hard as she could.

“Tommy, go to mommy,” I said. Better get the kid out of here before he got an impromptu lesson on anatomy. Yes, it's supposed to get hard like that. Yes, that's as big as it gets.

I was wet. Wet all over. Not an, 'I got so drunk I pissed myself,' which I have thankfully avoided to date. More a 'You're lying in the gutter and a crazy homeless guy is peeing on you.'

My eyes shot open. This wasn't my bedroom. This wasn't my apartment. This was an alley. This was the gutter. I really was lying in the gutter.

“Oh motherfucker!” I shooed the dog away. Too late. My pants were soaked. I could already smell it. I gagged on the overwhelming scent of urine. I breathed through my mouth until I was certain I wouldn't vomit.

Not that there was any guarantee. My head still pounded. I'm not what one calls a big drinker. I'm a social drinker to be sure, two-fingered Scotch on the rocks or a pomegranate martini.

Hey, don't judge. That shit is delicious.

I'm thirty-five years old, and this is my first hangover. If I could, I'd pull off my head and leave it on a shelf until this passed. How do people do this kind of thing every weekend? Why do people do this kind of thing every weekend? I didn't understand it in college, and I don't understand it now.

My roommates used to compete to see who had gotten the more drunk that particular weekend. My roommates were fucking stupid. This was nothing short of masochism. Might as well wear a studded leather thong and put a ball gag in my mouth.

“Good god,” I muttered as I stood up. I had to admit that was the best sex I had had in—ever. If getting drunk and waking up in the gutter while a dog peed on you was the price, it was a price happily paid. I would never have agreed to that beforehand, but hindsight was 20/20...

Well, right now, more like 20/80. Where the hell was I?

The alley was dark, just before dawn dark. There were no street lamps and nothing came from the end of the alley or from the windows above. There must have been a blackout. I looked around for sparks shooting from a transformer. Why the fuck I thought I'd find the transformer in that alley, I had no idea, and it wasn't like I could have fixed the thing even if it was there. I just wanted a definite explanation as to why everything was dark. When you can't remember how you got somewhere, even the most basic hard fact is reassuring.

A cloud passed away, and the full moon came out. It was huge. I don't think I had ever seen the moon that big. After making sure no one was around to see, I reached up and tried to grab it. Nope, still out of reach.

There was a door in front of me. I stood maybe three feet away from the side of a nondescript building. It could be any New York building. There wasn't a lot of diversity in this part of Brooklyn.

Wind Sprint: THE SEVENTH SACRIFICE

I'm not keen on giving up on a manuscript, but sometimes a thing is broke so bad it can't be fixed¹. THE SEVENTH SACRIFICE was a manuscript I abandoned because it was all wrong. There were a few chapters I enjoyed (the introductions of the tinkers), but it boiled down to Cheshire getting off his wagon and then getting back on. 27,000 words of a whole lot of nothing. AND, where I wanted to take the story was near impossible because of where I started the story.

So, when JEHOVAH'S HITLIST is finished, I'll take another crack at it. It seemed like a good story to use as a wind sprint.

Now aside from my own rules, there are some fundamental rules to writing. You know when people say, "All writing is subjective." That's crap. Don't listen to those people. They don't know what they're talking about. Your enjoyment of writing is subjective, but there is a craft to what we do and any craft has rules.

But rules were made to be broken! Yes they are, but you have to know them to break them, which is why we study our craft the way we do. You have to know what the rule is and you have to determine how you can break it well. Just breaking it to break it won't get you anything but a broken rule and you'll look like an amateur. [/tirade]

So, one of these rules is not to start your manuscript with a fight. Why? Because the reader isn't invested. Fights are usually detailed things. You don't just say "they fought." You choreograph. You build tension. There's a winner and there's a loser. But if it's your first chapter, who the hell cares? The reader is not invested in any of the characters and their life or death is irrelevant to the course of the story so far because there hasn't been a story so far.

With THE SEVENTH SACRIFICE, I set out to break that rule. Mostly because I didn't want to dwell on the combat (which I failed at since speeding it up wrecked the pacing of the chapter). More over, I wanted to portray the good guy as a bad guy (which I succeeded at, but possibly succeeded at too well). I also better incorporated the song as a feature of the story. The song appears frequently throughout the book and is pivotal to the ending (which I wrote in the first draft and we're keeping it because that thing is solid gold!). Originally, the first chapter just started with the word "Singing:" a la John Cleese in the Eric the Half a Bee sketch. That didn't work, so I finagled something new.

Now this is a first draft. Really, as a wind sprint, I think it counts more as a zeroeth draft². It'll get a full pass again later once I take up the manuscript in earnest. Still, your comments, criticisms, and questions are always welcome. The excerpt comes after the footnotes so those of you that want to read the footnotes but not the excerpt don't have to go to the bottom. I'm nice like that.

¹ Bonus points if you can name the show and episode I took that line from. It's one of the greatest episodes of television EVAR! So if you haven't seen it, you should go watch it.

² For the life of me, I can't find my post or Liz's post on this concept. Someone help me out!

THE SEVENTH SACRIFICE

NOW

CHAPTER 1

Cheshire couldn't remember much of his father. Given enough time and enough distance, memories blended together. Things like eyes and hair became meaningless. Things like a smile for one's son after a hard day's work became priceless.

Cheshire's strongest memory of his father wasn't of his father at all. It was Netty, their plow horse. And not even of the mare herself, but the song his father used to sing about her. When the sun was high, the clouds absent, and the furrows rocky, Cheshire's father sang about the old gray mare.

These many decades later, when Cheshire couldn't have picked his father out of a crowd at a tavern, he still remembered that song. He sang it himself, from time to time. Whenever things got difficult, he sang until they weren't difficult any longer.

“These old legs
They're not what they used to be
Not what they used to be
Not what they used to be
These old legs
They're not what they used to be
Soon they won't dance no more.”

Morningtide at Field House was the preeminent ball of Grafton County. Lilian Enright was the weakest of the Pretenders which meant she had to throw the most extravagant parties, remind the other nobles of the county who was in charge. Remind them who was queen now.

Cheshire loved to dance and Morningtide hosted the best musicians. Add to that the most exquisite delicacies and the most beautiful women, and the affair was the grandest in the entire Kingdom. He had a special set of dancing shoes made special just for the event. He polished every piece himself: the black leather, the square silver buckles, even the wooden soles. That was his secret, one he did not share with the younger fellows. When they stared and tried to figure how this man thirty years their senior flowed about the floor so smoothly, Cheshire took advantage of their pause to introduce himself to their dancing partners.

That secret was was about to kill him. Cheshire's foot slipped off another rock. He caught himself, abrading his hand, saving himself from a more severe break. He needed to get off these rocks before it was too late.

“These old eyes
They're not what they used to be
Not what they used to be
Not what they used to be
These old eyes
They're not what they used to be
Soon they won't see no more.”


He had seen her there, at Field House. She said her name was Elisabeth. He said his was Edward He had danced with half a dozen other women, but when he took her hand in the middle of a wheel, he had known she was the one. He took her card away and ripped it up. She would dance with no other than he.

Let her other hopeful suitors complain, and complain they had. He a week before his fifty-ninth birthday, she a week after her sixteenth, it was the scandal of the ball, and her eyes sparkled for it. A dark blue-gray like the ocean in the midst of a storm, she smiled and she laughed with those eyes.

They had danced together until the midnight bells rang. And while other young women bid their partners farewell and returned to their chaperons, neither Elisabeth nor Cheshire would leave each other's side.

He whispered in her ear, and she laughed. He told her there was a full moon, and they should walk on the beach together. Her eyes sparkled like stars and they escaped out the servant's entrance.

Her parents would search the crowd for her, but on the beach, no one would hear her scream.

“These old ears
They're not what they used to be
Not what they used to be
Not what they used to be
These old ears
They're not what they used to be
Soon they won't hear no more.”

The beach was beautiful, he knew. If only he could get to it. A rill of stones separated the Field House with its manicured lawns from the ocean with its unending waves. It was impossible to walk across with waxed shoes, even harder to do so with haste. The roar of the ocean told him it would be faster to press on than to try and return the way they had come.

The ocean seemed nothing more than a painting from within the Field House. The crash of the waves was turned away by the rocks. What little made its way up the hill was overcome by the orchestra. Here, alone on the beach, he could not even hear himself breath, the waves were so loud. He most certainly could not hear her.

Cheshire climbed atop a boulder the size of a mastiff. It crowned the rill and gave him a clear view of everything. The rocks continued on almost to the waterline, but the tide was leaving and the sand reappeared. In a little while, the beach would be three times as large. That did him little good now, of course.

He should not have let her get away from him..

“These old hands
They're not what they used to be
Not what they used to be
Not what they used to be
These old hands
They're not what they used to be
Soon they won't fight no more.”

The full moon lit the beach in its entirety, but the clouds raced across the sky, and shadows danced everywhere. Cheshire turned every which way, trying to find Elisabeth. He could not let her get away. He would not get another chance at this if she made it back inside. The house was still full of boys with swords playing at being men. If she sicked them on him, he'd be a fox to the hounds.

The waves lulled, and he heard the crunching of rocks from the other side of the rill. He turned about, pulling a knife from his sleeve. Elisabeth ran atop the rill and vaulted into the air. Steel glinted in the moonlight, a blade twice the length of his knife.

Cheshire lifted his knife above his head. Metal clashed against metal as he turned the blow away. His waxed shoes slipped out from beneath him, and he fell off the boulder. Elisabeth wasted no time in striking a second time. The dagger slid just past Cheshire's neck and tore off his favorite earring.

She bounded away just as quick, melting into the shadow of a passing cloud.

“Tell me your name, girl.” His voice cracked. As did the rest of him. Near on sixty years, only the Pretenders could say they were older. Cheshire wondered if their bodies were falling apart too.

“But Edward, you know my name. I am Elisabeth.” She raced by and struck a glancing blow. Again he turned it away. She was gone before you could counter. She was faster and stronger than her size suggested. He could not hope to best her on these rocks.

Cheshire kicked off his shoes and pulled himself up. The rocks were cold through his silk stockings. He stepped aside, putting the boulder between them.

She came again. He waited to see if she went left or right. She leap, ball gown and all, onto the boulder. He took one step back, but gave her no more room to dive atop him. He thrust from the elbow, striking for her ankles. Her leap thrown off balance, she pushed herself back off the rock and slid to a stop amidst the stones. She skipped back out of his reach. Cheshire found the largest rocks he could nearby and began weaving a path toward the sandy beach.

“Is this how you get your jollies, Edward? You wander the counties in search of balls where you can seduce young women?” She made a zigzag of her own, keeping the beach always parallel to them. “Has your manhood finally whithered and now you think to take it out on me?”

Elisabeth held out her off-hand, palm downward, two fingers up. She lifted her right knee and raised her dagger above her head. Cheshire couldn't help but smile. She knew Quintal's Offensive. The master swordsman's Fivefold Strategy had been revolutionary in its day. It had fallen from popularity three decades past. If there had been any doubts whether this girl was the one he sought, that satisfied them.

Cheshire put his left foot out, touching the rocks only with his toe. He twisted to the side, keeping his blade-hand parallel to his leg, Quintal's Defensive. It was a humble swordsman that designed the counter to his own maneuver. Cheshire had always admired that about Quintal. The girl approached. He turned, countered, turned, and riposted. The girl slapped his blade away at its last breadth. It sliced open the side of her dress.

“Want me naked too? Dirty old man,” the girl spat.

Cheshire laughed and smiled at her despite himself. The last one had been younger, scared. It had been quick and easy. Easier than any of the ones before. He had forgotten how much he enjoyed the challenge. Something beside his bladder stirred inside him. Purpose—

“Ow, damn!” Elisabeth's blade slid across his elbow, and opened the flesh to the bone. Cheshire dropped his knife. His left hand shot out and caught it by the hilt before it fell to the rocks. His back popped a staccato beat as he whipped himself sideways.

He held the blade up less confidently than a moment before. He looked between his exposed elbow and Elisabeth who smiled at him viciously.

“This old elbow, it's not what it used to be, not what it used to be, not what it used to be.” Blood was coming on faster than it should. He'd had too much to drink at the party. He'd need to finish this quickly. “This old elbow, it's not what it used to be—”

He leaped forward from large rock to large rock, bringing his knife down like an ice pick. It wasn't graceful, but his size and power finally tipped her balance. She stumbled on the rocks.

Cheshire seized the opportunity to find a path to the sandy beach, making a wide arc across the largest rocks.

“Soon it won't... what? Bend? Soon it won't bend no more? That's a bit boring, don't you think, dear?”

Elisabeth raced toward him, Quintal's Charge. He needed his right arm for Quintal's Shield, but there were other methods to counter Quintal's Fivefold Strategy. As she closed, he kicked. The sand exploded in a cloud. She jerked back, and he put his bare foot to her face. His hip popped.

Her nose cracked and blood spurted down her face. She fell back and dropped her dagger. Cheshire dug his foot into the sand beneath it and flung the weapon into the water. He moved in behind her while she rubbed her eyes clean. He wrapped an arm around her neck like a snake around a country mouse.

“Tell me your name, girl,” he growled. “Or this old arm will snap your fucking neck.” He gave her a hard jerk just so she knew he was serious.

“You bwoke my node.” The girl pawed at her face over Cheshire's arm. He would pin her hands, but his right arm couldn't stand the pressure. It would need stitches when he was done here. He certainly wouldn't be able to bury the body in this state. He was glad he was taking this one with him.

“I'll break a lot more than that if you don't tell me. I won't stab you in the appendix, not this time. I'll cut your arms and legs off and bury you back in those rocks. I'll leave you trapped in that husk of a body until I have the rest. Then I'll know one way or the other.”

Cheshire bent her sideways until her arm was pinned agianst the beach. He pressed against her elbow with his knee and leaned forward. She breathed hard and blood showered across his sleeve. The shirt was already ruined. She panted and grunted but didn't speak. He jerked forward and felt the arm snap. The girl screamed, thrashed about, but he kept his grip firm. She clawed at his face with her good arm, but he bit down hard on her fingers.

“Tell me.” She only screamed louder. He broke her other arm. He let go his choke hold and stood. Her feet dug into the sand as she tried to push herself to her feet. Without her arms to lever her up, she just dragged her face across the sand until blood mixed with the grit and turned into a thick gristle.

Cheshire cut into her leg. The knife point stuck into her bone.

“Helb!” she howled. “Domeone helb me!”

“Scream all you want.” Cheshire circled her but she rolled in the sand, hiding her one good leg from him. “No one can hear you over the rocks.”

“Helb! Helb!”

“Tell me your name!” He kicked her in the side, rolled her over, and cut into her last good appendage. She lost use for speech then. She began a caterwaul louder than a mountain lion with its tail caught in a trap. That was the answer he needed.

“Howler.”

The sand beneath the girl was wet and mucky, not only from the tide but from the blood that spilled out of her. There was but a trickle left, squirting out in pathetic bursts, but still she howled. She thrashed and screamed and kicked. Life leaked out of her but still she moved.

Cheshire wiped his knife clean with a rag. He had no idea why. He was not done yet. It felt like this last act deserved something extra. He walked up behind her and grabbed her hair with his bad arm. His elbow burned hot and fierce, and he felt a little light headed, but he was strong enough to manage this. He stretched her neck to the side, then opened the bottom of her throat with the dagger.

Her howling disappeared. She tried to scream, but the air only gurgled out of the hole in her throat.

“That's better,” he said. He wiped the knife clean a second time, then slid it back into his sleeve. He took the cloth and wrapped it around his wounded elbow. With left hand and teeth, he managed a knot.

“Stand yourself up,” Cheshire said. She gave him an incredulous look. “Drop the act, Howler. If you were still Elisabeth, you would be long dead.” She did not move. “You can walk to the wagon and lie down, or I can lash you to the back and drag you to Four Corners. The choice is yours.”

Howler mouthed a litany of what Cheshire assumed were curses, but her throat only gurgled.

“Forty-nine years,” he said. “I've hunted demons for forty-nine years. It will all be over soon.”

When still she did not move, he found a large rock nearby and struck her over the head. He hoisted her up onto his shoulder and carried her down the beach away from Field House.

A wagon was parked where no one would see it. He threw her into the back. Cheshire hopped up onto the buckboard, took the reins in his good hand, kicked the break free, and gave his horse a snap. The wagon pulled onto the road and headed inland, away from the peacefulness of the ocean.

Wind Sprints

I wrote the first draft of THE TRIAD SOCIETY. I didn't like it. It wasn't bad necessarily. It just wasn't the story I set out to write. The story I had planned was this huge intricate intrigue that spanned the politics of the university, the city, the kingdom! And in the end, a meeting made at the beginning of the book would afford the hero an opportunity to make his case and win the day.

In the first draft, he fills out the paperwork for the meeting and then it's never mentioned again. The story took a MASSIVE left turn and finished in half the word count I originally expected. After what I felt was the success of WANTED: CHOSEN ONE, NOW HIRING (in terms of story even though I never landed an agent), finishing THE TRIAD SOCIETY with such a mediocre offering really brought me down.

So, I broke my routine. Normally, when I finish a manuscript first draft, I will take a few weeks off and read a book or three. Then I'll go back and revise. This time, I read a couple books, but then I started work on JEHOVAH'S HITLIST. I usually start a new manuscript while the previous ms is with beta readers. I'll then stop and revise for the third draft. This means I'm only about 12,000 words into a manuscript.

Instead, I wrote 32,000 words before even starting on the second draft. What happened, though, was THE TRIAD SOCIETY went from mediocre to solid. I still like WANTED's story more, but Liz tells me that she likes TTS better. After struggling to find my rhythm and pacing, I wrote another 25,000 words on JH before revising TTS again.

So now we're done with TTS and it's ready to go to agents in its awesome state. The longer break, I think, saved an average manuscript from remaining average. HOWEVER, it's also affected the newer manuscript in a negative fashion. It's hard to bounce between voices, especially when one is a bureaucratic fantasy and the other is an anarchic sci-fi. It's even harder to do it twice!

If writing is sunshine, revising is sunshine bent through a magnifying glass that burns the ant in the driveway. It's a complete immersion in a manuscript where you question every word choice, sentence structure, and plot point. You can't just revise an entire manuscript and then go back to another manuscript that's 2/3 finished. At least, I can't.

So once again, I find myself without momentum on JH. Maybe I really should stop and try something else for awhile. In addition to breaking the rules, it feels shitting to stop working on a manuscript that is 30,000 words from the end. What I really need is a jumpstart. I'm not having trouble writing JH. I know what comes next. But the motivation is gone. I feel like I should still be working on TTS or even (in total violation of the rules), it's sequel THE RED SOCK SOCIETY.

That is when I thought of a new exercise. Wind sprints. Run, stop, run, stop. Get your heartbeat up before basketball practice where you'll have to run up and down the court and Joe is a chubby little kid and sucks at running, so he needs all the warmup he can get.

I have a number of stories on deck: THE SEVENTH SACRIFICE, WHAT'S BEHIND THE CROOKED DOOR?, THE RED SOCK SOCIETY, and THE HOUSE ON SANDWICH NOTCH LANE. Plenty of things to dabble in. And dabbling is exactly what we're going to do. I'm going to write the first chapter on all or some of these but not commit to writing any of them. Basically, I'm doing writing wind sprints. I need to get my writing heart rate up so finishing JH doesn't seem so laborious. And, it lets me create some new things with new voices and just revel in creativity for creativity's sake.

Two posts following this one will have chapter 1 of 7Sac and CROOKED. I may post more later if the need arises or I may hop back into JH and finish that thing off.

I'll Make a Bajillion Dollars!

So, as we all know, the reason there is still resistance to the ebook is because some people worry about losing their pretension. How can one prove that one is better than those around one if they cannot see that the book one is reading is clearly far beyond the reading level of everyone else gathered.

There had been a quickly-abandoned proposal of creating ereaders with screens on both sides, one for reading and one for showing the cover. Given that nearly all ereaders are immediately put into a protective cover, this proved a waste of time and monies.

But there must be a way we can welcome the coming epocalypse while maintaining our pretentious superiority! Well, there is, with the Selbomatic eBook Attenuated Label (SEAL-the bad ass of ebook covers).

Take the standard design for an ebook cover. Thick, padded sides with straps to hold in your ereader. Cut a rectangle into the top cover and shave off a few millimeters so there is a book-like divot in the cover. Slice an opening in the side. Print out a color image of the cover of the most pretentious book you want people to think you’re reading (and if you’re really concerned about looking superior, I suggest you actually read the book too lest someone else ask questions you cannot answer). Put the paper image between two thin pieces of plastic, then slide them into the opening until the image is situated in the divot. This divot being in truth a window to your intellectual superiority.

Ideally, you could manufacture this entire thing, but if your intellect can’t wait to be on display, you can accomplish it with a razor blade and a file. I am now accepting start-up capital.

The Tlot Thickens

As I mentioned on Friday, my productivity fell to shit when I joked about being the anonymous subject of an agent's impending rejection. I checked my email over and over and over again until the day came to a close, and it was time to go home.

Of course, there was no rush to go home since my wife was in New Brunswick. I decided instead to walk across Boston Common and take in a movie at the AMC^{1, 2}. When the movie was over, I bust out my Palm Pre (smart phone of champions) and check my email to see if my wife had the results of her competition³. She had not, but the agent had.

OH NO! The rejection, it came! Calm down Mr. Pessimist. Maybe they're asking for a full. Ha! Yeah right! This is the agency that holds my personal record for fastest rejection to a query ever⁴. Of course it's a rejection.

Walking out of the theater, I open my email...

A REQUEST FOR A FULL!!!!!!

Now, I could in all haste send them the finished manuscript. I'm a professional. I wasn't so foolish as to start all this without finishing my work. BUT, this is a big flipping deal. When once this blog held a list of agents I wanted to work with, these people ranked number one. You don't just send a manuscript all willy nilly because they want to see it. You go back over that shit and make it shine like a diamond, like your combat boots with the drill sergeant waiting to look at them. You'll be able to see your reflection in this manuscript when I'm done with it.

So I go back over it. Again. All weekend, this is what I did. I sat in front of my computer, and I pored over this thing to find every typo and unnecessary past progressive verb. Moreover, the super fabulous awesome Elizabeth Poole, beta reader extrodinaire, went back over it in a single day to offer me new comments. (My favorite of her comments was "The tlot thickens!" Of course, this was followed by my own typo, "What he wouldn't give for a clean shit." Awe yeah. I'm a professional.)

A half hour ago, I sent in the revised revised revised manuscript along with a stylesheet (not asked for, but I think they're helpful). I now begin the nerve wracking two-month wait to hear whether they want to rep me. Liz tells me the thing is good, but is it good enough?

We'll find out. In the interim, I will return to JEHOVAH'S HITLIST. That thing is only 40k away from an ending. It would be fun to say "I finished another book while I was waiting for your response. Would you like to take a look at it? (I'm a show off like that.)

Wish me luck.


¹ $11.50 for a movie? Are you crazy? I'll stick the the weekend morning shows for $4. Get off my lawn!

² I saw "Unstoppable" with Rosario Dawson. Helllooooo nurse!

³ Her quartet moved up two spots to 6th place out of 30 something quartets. Phenomenal for their second year together.

⁴ 3 minutes⁵ in case you're wondering, and you know you were.

⁵ Yes, you read that right. Minutes. Not days or months. Minutes.

How to Kill Productivity

How to Kill Productivity in Five Easy Steps

Review your Twitter as you do often during the day.

Reply to an agent who you follow when she asks for feedback on whether saying "it was a close call but no thank you" was cruel or encouraging.

Suggest that it would be crushing at first, but over time would become exciting and encouraging.

Follow said response with a joke of "unless it's me, in which case you should say 'Yes, more please.'"

Check your email obsessively to see whether or not it really was you.

The Six Books of Harry Potter

Nathan Bransford invited readers to post comments about Harry Potter on their own blogs and link back in his, for which this post is created. Depending on how long you've been following me, you might have listened to the episode of the PodgeCast or even read the older post on my LiveJournal that covered the matter. Rather than digging through all that, I will repost here why I think the seventh book should be erased from the collective memory.

Why to read HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS

Molly Weasley vs. Bellatrix Lestrange


Why NOT to read HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS

Like many of the previous novels in the series, HPDH lacked a firm editorial hand¹. The 300-page trek through the woods was interminable. At least 100 pages could have been cut from that scene without detracting from the story.

The climax of HPHBP enumerates a number of rules for the final book. Harry is chasing after Snape and not having any success at all. Snape tells him that he'll never succeed without learning how to cast without speaking. More over, if Harry ever hopes to face Voldemort, he must first defeat Snape. Neither of these issues are addressed in book 7.

Never, not once ever, does Harry cast a spell without speaking in the seventh book. When it comes to the final conflict, it has no bearing whatsoever to the outcome.

Harry never faces Snape. Nagini kills Snape while Harry watches, so really, the whole ending of book 6 is negated.

WORSE, that negation also reduces Dumbledore's sacrifice. Why did he let Snape kill him? To protect the Elder Wand. Snape defeats Dumbledore and thus is the owner of the Elder Wand. Harry is supposed to defeat Snape so he can get the Elder Wand. The Elder Wand is one of three items that GIVE THE BOOK ITS NAME! That plotline is entirely disregarded.

Lupin and Tonks die so that Harry can be father to an orphan, bringing to a ridiculous conclusion to the character arcs of two of the most reasonable characters in the series up to that point. They throw their lives away to avoid responsibility² and their deaths are a complete throw-away. It's not even a scene of the book.

Harry sends Ginny, the most badass combat wizard of the group, away at the end of the sixth book. And she stays away. What character is this? Certainly not the one that had grown into a strong-minded woman in the two previous books³.

And the clincher, JKR's comments following the publication of the book. No, not that Dumbledore was gay. Who gives a shit about that? No, she made two comments that just make me wonder how she managed to write such an amazing series in the first place as she seems completely out of touch with her own characters.

Blog post 1: JKR answers the questions of what happened to the characters after the end of the series. Harry and Ron become aurors and revolutionize the field. AYFKM?!?!? Neither of them are smart enough to be aurors much less to revolutionize the field. They lucked into potions class and would never have been able to last in any long-term capacity in that profession.

MORE IMPORTANTLY, she had created an arc she never resolved. Voldemort had tried to be the Dark Arts professor and failed. Following, the school never had another professor for more than a year. Being his opposite and given his proven track record at surviving the dark arts (and experience leading DA), Harry should have taken on the roll to break the curse. Ron could have taken his self-confidence and gone on to play professional Quidditch, which is the only activity he ever truly loves in the entire series.

Blog post 2: JKR says she crafted the ending specifically for Harry to represent Jesus in an effort to draw readers to Christ through her fiction. Hey, if that's what she wants to do, that's her choice. But to accomplish it, she derailed her own series and turned it in a direction where she could recreate Good Friday in a wizard combat zone. Never sacrifice your story for your message. A skillful author could use the former to deliver the latter.

Adendum 1: I also contend that Neville is more popular because of the movies than he is because of the book. JKR uses Dobby as the character that arrives with the timely answer (e.g., gillyweed). In the movies, they use Neville who is a lot cheaper than a CGI house elf. Not only did it work, it was BETTER than the books. It fit the character better and fleshed it out. The Neville of the books never got any real attention (other than being a practical joke) until HPOP, whereas the movies began his evolution one story earlier in HPGF. While he gets a great scene in the final book, I wonder how much attention he would have got if he hadn't grown so popular.

Adendum 2: What would have been cool? In HPPS/HPSS (depending on your nationality), Ron is the knight and has to sacrifice himself for Harry to continue on to the end. If that had been paralleled in the final book, it would have been a stroke of genius.


¹ After the series became popular, there became a standard format to any Harry Potter novel. Part 1: Main plot. Part 2: Awesome subplot. Part 3: Lame subplot.

Parts 2 and 3 always got equal attention and swelled the book well beyond an appropriate page count. Parts 3 from every novel could have been chopped with no loss to character or primary plot flow. It would have just chucked lameness that we all had to wade through like we were sewer workers or something.

² I have yet to meet a (sane) mother who would sacrifice the life of her kid to be with her husband while he runs off to get himself killed.

³ In all their previous fights, Harry and Ron have required a third person to force them back together. When Ron returns with the sword, it should have been Ginny hauling him there with whatever cattle prod Ron needs that book. They abandoned their strongest weapon and the story abandons her too⁴.

⁴ I will admit to some bias, as she's my favorite character, but really. If you're going to war, you don't send the guy with the machine gun home because it's dangerous. Certainly the guy with the machine gun doesn't stay home once he's there.

Echoes of Halloween

This is our first year in our new townhouse and as such, we did not know how many kids would stop by (10-12 was the final count). We WAY overbought on candy. Suggestions of taking the left overs into work have been shot down by the missus. The plan is to keep the bag until we have guests over in January. Now, the only question that remains is whether the bag will actually last until January (peanut M&Ms are no more, as of last night).

This inspired me to make a LIST! (Because it's what I do. I hope none of the candies will be offended by said list.) What are your favorite candies?

1. Twix (after refrigeration, this achieves candy bar nirvana) AND Reese's Pieces (not at the same time, but they're both wicked awesome)

2. Watchamacallit (some people still haven't heard about this one. How is that possible?)

3. Peanut M&Ms¹ (I eat all the red ones first)

4. Mars (briefly renamed Snickers with Almond, the Mars bar has recently made a comeback)

5. Krackle (akin to Nestle Crunch which is also awesome, there's something about the Krackle's chocolate that tastes better than Nestle's offering)

Runners Up: White chocolate kit-kat (holy hell, the amount of saturated fat will kill you!)

Thousand Grand (not even sure why, I think I liked the struggle I had as a kid to actually bite off a piece of this bar, so filled with caramel that I felt like an alligator)

1 I got in trouble a lot in 8th grade. Me and detention became good friends (sometimes even when we shouldn't have). In an effort to get me to behave, my Spanish teacher bet me and my best friend, Jeremy, 1 pound of peanut M&Ms each that we couldn't behave for two months.

Two months and one day later, we both sat in detention eating our peanut M&Ms.

Stuart Greenman has the right of it

Livia Blackburne tipped me off to Stuart Greenman's entry into the Bulwer-Lytton bad writing contest. In one sentence (and pay attention, it really is one sentence), Stuart Greenman shows everything that drives me nuts about fantasy:

A quest is not to be undertaken lightly--or at all!--pondered Hlothgar of the Western Boglands, son of Glothar, nephew of Garthol, known far and wide as Skull Dunker, as he wielded his chesty stallion through the ever-darkening Thlargwood, beyond which, if he survived its horrors and if the royal spittle reader spoke true, his destiny awaited--all this though his years numbered but fourteen.


Let that soak in a little.