Category: Uncategorized (Page 7 of 10)

Today I sent queries to 57 agents begging for them to represent me and my novel. Despite reading numerous advice columns from agents assuring me that this is the way to do it, I’m skeptical. Blind applications don’t work well in any other job search, so why would they here?

Yet, two of the writers I know who’ve gotten from where I am now (overcommitted hobbyest) to where I want to be (overpaid pro) succeeded this way, so I’ll try it.

At least these days all it costs me are electrons.

Tonight, I heard Zarati De Paz read my as yet unpublished story “Waiting on the Stress Boxes” read to a couple dozen colleagues at Stories on Stage, a great local performance venue. It’s always unnerving when you give your work to someone else, but this guy was great.

After trying (and failing) to get my first novel published through an agent, I decided to try another tack: the small press. By going directly to the source, I hope to skip over the middle men who previously ignored me. So today I sent my novel to a dozen small publishers.

The big boys don’t even maintain a slush pile for unknown authors any more. They typically use literary agents to separate the pretenders from the contenders. Yet I’ve always suspected that both of them are more concerned with profit than art. They all say (on their blogs, websites, etc,) that they want to fall in love with the story, yet when you see the kind of stuff that gets published, you have to question if anyone really loves it. Do we really need more self-serving celebrity autobiographies? Yet if Kim Kardashian queried, I suspect they’d all take the account.

The small press, though, is immune to such concerns as profit and publicity. It is happy to service the noble artist who only wants to read his/her words in print. At least I’d like to think so.

Today my comp edition of Big Pulp arrived in the mail, complete with my story “Catching a Case” on page 51. It has a decidedly pulpy look, as you can see at left, but I’m proud of it.

It’s one of several inspired by my time working in jail, and the first I’ve ever attempted from the POV of a gay man.

Copies should be on sale soon @ http://exterpress.com/catalog and on instant download from Amazon.

Writing a play is harder than it sounds. Everything has to be conveyed through dialogue: character, plot, voice, theme. So I’ve been studying/watching a bunch of classics (Mamet, Sartre, Pinter) for ideas while plugging away @ 500 words per day.

This is an idea I’ve sat on for years (11 at least) and that I attempted once before but never finished. Again it was inspired by my time in jail (a source I’ve reverted to often in the past few years). Apparently, I can’t understand my life until at least a decade after the fact.

Seeing a production in Mendocino inspired me to think “hey, I could do that.” Time to bend over for a shot of humility.

Check out my latest story, about a hypoxic love triangle, at:

The Lowestoft Chronicle

At the Oscars, people always talk about how honored they are to be included. Now that I’ve also been so honored, I can honestly say they’re not lying. I learned today that my story “The Pot Hunters” was short listed for a Derringer Award by the Short Mystery Fiction Society. Truthfully, I had no idea they existed. But thanks to them and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, which published the story.

2.5 YEARS IN THE MAKING

Last week I finished my MFA! I still don’t have the diploma, but the blank space on my wall feels less delusional.

Now comes the hard part: getting an agent and a publisher for my novel.

A thousand to one. That’s the odds of having your manuscript pulled from the slush pile by an agent, at least according to Andy Ross, an East Bay rep. He gets 3-4,000 submissions per year, and from those he selects 3-4 to represent. Even this is no guarantee of publication. Some of those he picks are not in turn picked by publishers.

So if the odds are so poor, why do so many people strive to be writers? It’s equally likely that we’d become pro athletes or doctors (both of which would be more lucrative and prestigious). Do that many people have something to say (something which the rest of us apparently do not want to hear)?

Perhaps the satisfaction in writing is not the adulation but the challenge. Finishing a book is a huge accomplishment, even if no one ever sees it. It’s a way to satisfy yourself (go ahead, make the obvious masturbation analogy), like climbing a mounting or finishing a marathon.

And even though the odds are long, someone has to make it. I know three people who’ve run the gauntlet to getting published and now have successful careers. In fact, every writer I’ve met has warned that rejection is rampant and persistence a prerequisite to success.

So starting new month, I’ll be querying ten agents a month until I either run out of names or I find representation. Odds be damned!