A contest to enter

I generally don't post twice in a day but I learned about this contest this afternoon.

So if you are an aspiring novelist like me, this is something to think about.

Thanks for reading and good luck.

M

___

http://bethanyray.blogspot.com/2010/09/query-submission-party.html

Word count

I need some advice from any writers out there.

My current murder mystery, AN UNTIDY AFFAIR, clocks in at just under 72,000 words. Is that too short? Do I need to bump it up, somehow, to more than 75,000 words, with a target of 80,000 to 85,000.

As a journalist, I have always believed that you should write the story until it's complete. It is better, and easier, to cut it down, than to try to pad it.

The novel is the length that it is because that is the length of the story. I'm not sure what to add in order to increase the length. I see the story as complete at just over 71,500 words.

Send me a comment below or send me an e-mail with your thoughts please. Thanks.

And thanks, as always, for reading.

50 percent

In the first two weeks of this month, I went on a tear and sent out 30 query letters. And today, I got my 15th rejection letter. So I am at 50 percent.

Normally, I get about 50 percent replies, so I suspect I probably won't hear from any more agents unless I send follow-up letters to agents I didn't hear from. I generally only send a follow-up if the agent is on my A-list. And come to think of it, I don't think I have ever gotten a reply from a follow-up e-mail.

(I am a little loopy today because I went to the dentist this morning and had two teeth extracted. The numbness is gone but I'm on painkillers and am having a little trouble with focus. So that's my excuse for poor writing today. I will have to think of another excuse for all the other days.)

Ten days ago, I was talking to an editor at Writer's Digest who said it is a mistake to send out more than a handful of queries at a time. If all of them are rejected, you know it is the query that is the problem. You won't have wasted a lot of time and you know to work on the letter.

He said I should take a step-by-step approach. Get past the query stage, then the partial stage, then the ms stage. By then, I should have an agent.

An online friend who is very good at query letters -- she's my own Obi-Wan Kenobi -- re-wrote my letter this morning and sent it back to me. She also suggested only sending out seven at a time. So that is my strategy at the moment. Seven-at-a-time. But this time, I am going to start with only my A- and B-list agents and see what happens.

Well, my meds are really kicking in at the moment so I will go before I forget how to spell my name. (It' Michael, by the way.) Since I didn't work today and I have a large freelance project in the works, I will be very busy for the time being. Not sure when the next batch of query letters will go out. But perhaps I will get a few requests for partials before I hit the 50 percent rejection mark again.

Thanks for reading, especially you folks in Russia this month. Now get back to writing.

Oh that name!

The second most popular blog post I have is from Jan. 4, 2008, and is called, What's in a Name, Part II. In that post I discuss the possible name of the book I was about to start. It was about the murder of a black newspaper publisher and the novel, still unsold and unrepresented, is called DEATH AT THE JUNGLE-BUNNY JOURNAL.

I worried that no publisher would risk taking on such a non-PC title. Or that they may be brave enough to take the chance since I am an African-American writer. Nothing so far.

But given that that blog posting is the second most popular posting I have, the title must strike a cord somewhere.

I haven't decided on what the title will be for the novel I plan to write in November. It probably won't be something as interesting as Jungle-bunny Journal. But maybe . . .

Haven't had a lot of time this week to query or blog. But I have been working hard mentally on an outline for the NaNoWriMo novel. Perhaps more on that in the coming weeks.

But for now, have a good weekend. I have a booksigning for BEDLAM AT THE BRICKYARD tomorrow in Bloomington and another one in Speedway next Saturday.

Thanks for reading.

Who's lookin'?

Fellow blogger Anne Gallagher pointed out something to me last week and I have been fascinated by it ever since. On blogspot, there is a category on your dashboard called "stats". By clicking on it, you can view general statistics on who is looking at your blog and from where.

I was a little depressed at the numbers at first but got over it once I realized this feature apparently only goes back as far as May or June. (I think June.) But there is some interesting information, although I have no idea what it all means.

I am an aspiring author in the American Midwest blogging, well, about myself, mostly. I wouldn't expect to have much appeal to someone outside the country, and certainly not outside of English-speaking countries. I only write in English. (Don't get me started on how hard it is for me to learn another language.)

But only 67.6 percent of my pageview hits are from the United States. I have hits from five of the seven continents of the world. Apparently, no one in Africa or Antarctica has read me.

After the United States, some 4.6 percent of my pageviews come from The Netherlands, followed closely by 4.3 percent from Canada (which doesn't completely surprise me) and -- get this -- 4.1 percent from Bolivia. Who in the world in Bolivia is reading me?

I also have 13 page hits from China and 10 from Russia. What in the world am I saying that would interest someone in those countries? Is it the Secret Police? I don't know. They aren't leaving me any comments.

Some 28 percent of all my pageviews have come in the last month. But that doesn't mean my September posts are what people are looking at.

Two posts make up one quarter of all my pageviews -- and they are both from 2008, more than two years ago. My No. 1 most popular post (at 12.7 percent of all pageviews) is Querying Agents, from June 18, 2008, followed closely by What's in a Name, Part II, from Jan. 4, 2008 (12.3 percent of all pageviews).

They also have the most pageviews in the last month. But at No. 3 in pageviews this month is Finding an Agent? WTF does it take?, from last week. I was clearly frustrated when I wrote that one. But in terms of overall hits, that post from Sept. 13, is only tied for eighth in overall pageviews.

Now, what does any of this mean? I really don't know. But I hope to figure out why people are reading certain things and hopefully address those concerns more often. But it would be helpful if some of you people in Israel, Brazil, Italy, Denmark and Japan would leave me a comment from time to time.

I am glad, however, that people are reading. I hope you keep doing it.

Thank for reading everyone out there. Now get back to writing.

Query News, Part II

It's been quite a week in the Query Wars. Two weeks, really.

Since the Friday before Labor Day, I have sent out 29 query letters for AN UNTIDY AFFAIR, some with partial pages attached and some without. Twenty-six were e-mail submissions, two were submissions through the agency's in-house process via their website and one went by snail mail.

No requests for additional pages, a partial or the entire manuscript. There have been 12 rejections, including one in the return envelope through the U.S. Postal Service.

This week was the big week, of course. I got four rejections on Monday, more than on any single day since I started sending at queries for my first book, FIGHTING CHAOS, three years ago. Tuesday saw two additional rejections, none Wednesday, one on Thursday and none (so far) today.

Totally, my response rate is just over 40 percent. But it may increase in the next week or so and in about two weeks I will send out reminders to selected agents. In the past, that has also generated a couple of responses.

I was reminded this week, more than once, actually, that all it will take is for ONE agent to love my book. I can't do much except send out queries until I find that ONE.

Enjoy the weekend. I will be attending a book fair tomorrow at the Hancock County Public Library and, hopefully, signing some copies of my story in BEDLAM AT THE BRICKYARD.

Thanks for reading. Now go out and write something good.

A class act

I piled the family in the car yesterday -- well, actually, the wifey and one of my two daughters -- and high-tailed down to Cincinnati for a book signing of my friend and fellow author James King. Got there just before the start.

Although we have communicated online, it was my first face-to-face with Jim, who is as friendly and courteous in person as he is over the Internet. A few of his peeps, some dating back as far as his high school days in Ohio, were also at the bookstore and were wonderful to meet.

It was a small but very attentive crowd. Jim read from his novel, BILL WARRINGTON'S LAST CHANCE, and answered questions about the book and about writing in general. I tried my best to keep the reporter in me at bay and not inundate him with questions.

The book is quite interesting and I had hoped to finish reading it before the book signing. But time and work conspired against me. I'm only just past the halfway point. No matter. He signed my copy and left me a terrific inscription.

But the thing that surprised and impressed me most was a simple gesture. And it wasn't even a gesture directed toward me.

The signing was over and my daughter Ericka and I were sitting and talking to Jim. Actually, I was boring the poor man about my kids. But he asked me whether she -- meaning Ericka -- would read the book. I said yes. She is a voracious reader and planned to read it as soon as I finished.

Jim turned around, grabbed a book from the table and autographed it for her and then went downstairs to pay for it.

I was stunned and pleased. It was such a kind and unexpected gesture. And he left such a wonderful message for her in the book. She was excited and used a book light in the car to read some of the book on the two-hour ride home.

I'm sure he made a new young fan. And I can certainly say James King is a classy guy.

If I ever get a book published and go on a book tour, I'm definitely going to make a stop in Wilton, Connecticut. And perhaps, just perhaps, make a small repayment on a simple, kind gesture.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.

Finding an agent? WTF does it take?

As much as I can, I try to stay positive in my blog postings but at the same time try to state how I feel at any given moment. And I try not to curse too much. (The sermon at church yesterday was on James 3: 1-12, which deals with the evil of one's tongue -- how the same tongue can sing the praises of God and also curse man, who is made in the image of God.)

That having been said, WTF does it take to find an agent? I have worked on my query letter. I have done the research. I am professional and business-like. I don't curse (at least not in a query letter). WTF does it take?

I got two rejections already this morning. Now I know what you are about to say. "Rejections are part of the process." "Everyone gets rejected." "Agents reject 98 percent of all the queries they get."

Shut the f*** up. I know all that. I'm not as big an idiot as I look.

I expect rejections. Really. I do. But I also hope and pray for a little light at the end of the tunnel and I don't seem to be seeing any. One rejection in a day I can handle. Two starts to get a little dicey. Three in a day will send me to bed. And four in a day? Hasn't happened but I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't end up in a psych ward.

I did get three in a day last week and it wasn't pretty. So with two already today, I'm a little on edge.

I always send off a thank you note to an agent after a rejection. Sounds stupid, I know, but I want to do my part to encourage agents to answer writers even if it is to say no. After I thanked the agent this morning, I got a note back saying she rejected me because they handle children and youth adult books.

Now I was totally confused. Because I read every word of her agency's website and under her bio it stated that she "is especially looking for horror, ghost, mystery, thriller and dystopian tales."

I have no idea what it's gonna take. I truly don't. What am I to do? What am I to think?

Well, I have more letters to get out today and so that's what I'll do.

And now you have it. Thanks for reading. (Glad someone reads my stuff.) And keep writing.

P.S. No. 3 came this afternoon, a bit late, I'd say. So I assume someone was late getting to the office this morning and didn't have time to send me a rejection until mid-afternoon. Three rejections in a day is my personal best -- it happened last Wednesday, too -- but I have so many queries out there it wouldn't be hard to top it.
mbd

P.S.S. I got No. 4 at four minutes to midnight, thus setting a new personal best. Amazingly, I don't feel bad about it. I got a lot of support from friends and writing colleagues during the day. Now we will have to see what Tuesday brings.
mbd

Verisimilitude -- "Spread it and stamp it out."

In the last couple of weeks, I have been paying much more attention to the discussion/argument over literary fiction vs. genre fiction. And the more I read about the subject, the more I am reminded of one of my favorite episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show in the early 1960s. The episode is called "I'm No Henry Walden" and ran in the second season of the show, which ran five years. (I know all this because I have all five seasons on DVD.) The show is a classic and quite funny.

In the episode, Rob and Laura Petrie (Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore) are invited to a party of literary and intellectual snobs to raise money for foundation of poet laureate Henry Walden. They don't know why they were invited, though Rob is a top television writer. They are clearly out of their element.

They are introduced to Felicia Fellows and anti-existentialist Yale Sampson, played brilliantly by Carl Reiner. In explaining his views on the decline of modern culture, Yale (whom Rob once mistakenly calls "Mr. Harvard") blathers some incoherent mumbo-jumbo about the "plethora of the mundane" and "banality" and ends, to the absolute delight of Fellows, by saying, "Surely you can see the danger!"

The TV audience laughs, and Rob and Laura have no idea what he is talking about. None of us do. The rest goes like this --

Rob: What can one man do?

Laura: Yes, or one woman?

Felicia: We can spread the word!

Rob: Uh, what word is it?

Yale: Verisimilitude.

Rob: Verisimilitude. (Smiling). It's a good word to spread.

Yale: (Shocked, indignant) To spread, sir, to stamp out!

Rob: Well, that's what I meant. Spread it and stamp it out.


I always laugh through that part. The episode is probably the reason my 16-year-old daughter learned the meaning of verisimilitude about six years ago.

In the episode, there is another brief exchange I love after Yale walks out of the camera shot.

Felicia: Hasn't he a MARVELOUS mind?

Rob: (Mocking) Marvelous.

Felicia: (Thinking) He has the gift and ability to say things that, uh . . .

Rob: (Pausing while he thinks) . . . uh, seem vague but are in reality meaningless.


The episode reminds me of the gap people see between literary writing and genre writing, which is intended for a wider audience. There is a same sort of intellectual snobbery in the discussion.

Literary types, it seems, often look down their noses at writing for a mainstream audience, as if such writing lacks intellectual and artistic merit. I have a very dear friend whom, I think, berates John Grisham for that very reason. His thinking, apparently, is that Grisham is a hack because he isn't writing the next FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS.

But Grisham writers legal thrillers and is quite good at it. They are generally entertaining and occasionally thought-provoking.

The idea is that genre writing isn't serious enough or weighty enough to withstand the test of time.

That is intellectual snobbery at its worst. (In the TV episode, Sampson wrote a book called DEATH FEARS ME, while a strange-looking poet wrote LAVENDER LOLLIPOPS and POINT ME TO THE MOON. The show made snobbery a well-deserved target.) One merely needs to consider Dashiell Hammett -- I particularly love THE THIN MAN -- or the works of Agatha Christie to see great writing that withstands the test of time.

I have nothing against literary fiction. Some of my best friends read literary fiction. (That was an attempt to lighten the mood here.) Generally, though, when I want intellectual heft, I read non-fiction. But I hate intellectual artistic snobbery in fiction. I love genre fiction, particular mysteries and thrillers. They can be serious and thought-provoking. And a lot of it will stand the test of time.

And perhaps my mystery fiction will, too.

Thanks for reading me today.

And keep reading and writing fiction, whether it is literary or mainstream. It all has value.

Cancer

I generally don't post twice on the same day but I forget to mention that this afternoon at 12:52 marked the One Year anniversary of learning I had prostate cancer.
I was at my desk working when the moment came and passed.

I'm glad I survived it (though the radiation therapy last winter sucked big time). I'm a better writer today than I was a year ago.

So I'll keep going . . . and so should you.

The 27

I planned to blog today about an op-ed piece John Grisham did a couple of days ago for The New York Times. It was about being a writer. But just now, I changed my mind. I have taken a couple of blows in the last couple of days and, against my better judgment, I decided to say just a little about it.

The main story in the current issue of "Writer's Digest" is called 27 Agents Looking for New Writers. Sounded good to me. I'm new.

I looked them all up and, not surprisingly, they don't all represent the sort of material I write. But a sizable portion of them do.

Since last week, I have queried five of them, including one already today. I will query a sixth one later today.

And while as a group they may be looking for new writers, many of them obviously are NOT looking for me. I've gotten three rejections so far, all saying basically the same thing. Nothing personal but I don't want you. (One form rejection was badly written. If I were her, I'd re-write my rejection form letter.)

I know it's not personal but when the rejections are coming in waves, it is a little harder to take. Agents as salespeople and are rejected by publishers all the time. They, apparently, don't take it personally. But they also didn't write the manuscript.

So, I am going to lick my wounds for the moment and go for a walk. It's wonderful outside -- warm and sunny. Then, later today, I will get back to work. It is what a writer does.

And I am a writer.

p.s.

And I ate steak. I only had a light lunch earlier but this afternoon I was hungry -- and a little depressed. So I ate steak.
I took Angela to dinner Saturday night for her birthday and brought home a doggie bag that contained part of my steak. It was 3 oz. So to make myself feel better, it's what I had this afternoon. Helped a little.

mbd
Thanks for reading and don't give up.

Query Shark

I had been thinking about it for a while and decided last week to jump into the deep water and swim with the sharks. Well, in this case, just one shark -- Query Shark, the blog by agent Janet Reid of FinePrint Literary Management.

Like many agents, Reid has a regular blog but in Query Shark, she provides a service most agents don't -- critical analysis. Examining a query letter, she points out what works and, most importantly, what doesn't work. And she offers the chance to improve.

I don't always agree with her. There was one letter that broke all her rules in terms of content. Plus I thought it was boring. But she loved it and requested the manuscript. For whatever reason, it appealed to her, which she says is the only point of any query letter -- to get the agent to request more material.

Query Shark isn't for the faint-hearted. But neither is the publishing industry. Reid's comments can be harsh, particularly for mistakes she has repeatedly commented on earlier. To avoid such criticism, she STRONGLY encourages writers to read the Query Shark archives before submitting to the blog. She wants to see new mistakes, not the same old mistakes.

I read the blogs of several agents whom I won't mention in today's post. (They get enough online promotion already.) They are valuable in offering suggestions and in pointing out general mistakes they see regularly in the scores of queries they get each week. Query Shark does that, too.

But what I like about Reid's blog -- and where I think is its greatest strength -- is that she points out specific problems in specific queries. The names of the innocents are redacted, of course, as is any identifying information, except the title of their work. But if you read through the blog archives -- again, strongly suggested, though for the uninitiated, it will take days to read through them all -- and take notes, you can improve your query letter whether you decide to submit it or not.

That is what I did. I tried to apply everything I learned on the blog in my letter. At 250 words, it was short. I got right to the action. While I did mention more than one character, the main character was the only one mentioned by name. I presented the problem the character faced and who sought to foil the character's plans. The writing reflected the tone of the novel. It was in present tense. And on and on.

I sent the query to the blog and got a form letter e-mail reply the next day acknowledging my letter's arrival.

In the e-mail reply, Reid pointed out, "The chance your query will be posted are low." She reads some 200 manuscripts a year but posts less than 160 query letters on Query Shark. There are about 100 pending queries for each query letter that makes it online. No writer's query appears without their permission and the writer can at any time request that their letter be removed.

I am of two minds in this adventure. I tried to send the best letter I could and I'd like it to appear on the blog. If it's too good, she won't use it. Letters in Query Shark are used as a learning tool for others. There needs to be problems. But if it's too bad she may not use it, either. In fact, she may not use it for any number of reasons that I will never be aware of. It's still a crap shoot.

I did send the same basic letter to a number of agents late in the week, including on Saturday to an agent in the South. (I won't mention her name but she is mentioned in the current issue of "Writer's Digest" as one of "27 agents looking for new writers.") I got a form letter rejection in less than 24 hours, even though it was a holiday weekend. Obviously, the query letter didn't impress her. No idea why. I will never know. No matter. She only made my C list of agents to query.

But perhaps I will have better luck with the Query Shark. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

And in the meantime, I am pouring over AN UNTIDY AFFAIR word-for-word, and working on an outline for my next novel. Life goes on. So does writing.

Thanks for reading. Enjoy the holiday.