Election 2012

I was considering the Electoral Map today, as I do everyday, in light of today's polls. And while it still looks like a likely Obama win, a shift that I believed would possibly happen is apparently happening.

Republican Mitt Romney has bottomed out and is beginning to recover. Perhaps Barack Obama's campaign has peaked. Some polls out today show the president still leading the challenger but only by 2 or 3 points -- and well within the margin of error.

Yes, the Electoral Map looks much the same as last week. I'd say the president has a strong hold on around 247 electoral votes to Romney's 191. That hasn't changed. But the margins in the swing states has narrowed as Romney has picked up greater support among independent voters. As a result, Wednesday night's first debate will matter more than ever to both men.

I generally have felt that debates such as these don't change things unless one candidate makes a big mistake. given the practice these guys have been doing I doubt that will happen. And both sides have tried to play down expectations.

But now I think this will be a game-changer.  Either the president surges further ahead or the race will narrow even more by Thursday morning. Only time will tell. We will probably have to look at the electoral map in a whole new light this weekend.

Those foot steps you hear back there are Romney's.

UPDATE:

The president tanked in the first debate and recovered in debates No. 2 -- where he spanked Romney on a minor point -- and No. 3. Plus he had a good ground game on Election Day and was re-elected, winning with more than 50 percent of the popular vote and with well over 300 Electoral Vote. mbd.

2012 Presidential Election: Electoral Map

2012 Presidential Election: Electoral Map: This map displays the projections of the sender and does not reflect the opinions of 270toWin.

I am going to try something different. I will venture out of only talking about writing in this blog for the next month and a half, and also discuss politics. After that, I will go back to discussing my journey as a writer.

As of today, Sept. 24, we are six weeks out from the 2012 Presidential Election between Democratic incumbent Barack Obama and GOP challenger Mitt Romney. I think there currently are nine toss-up states -- Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida -- and Obama is leading in the polls in all but one (although by slim margins in most).

So, as of today, this is how I think the election will turn out, with Obama winning by a wide margin in the Electoral College. My estimation could change as the election nears. There are three debates planned (though I doubt they will change many people's minds), many possible gaffes by the candidates and their campaigns (this is highly likely) and there is the possibility of an October Surprise. Therefore, I will update this map as time goes by. 

Gore Vidal, celebrated author, playwright, dies

Gore Vidal, celebrated author, playwright, dies

I try to mark the passing of a giant in our industry and there are few giants as large as Gore Vidal.

Brilliant and opinionated, Vidal was a thinking man's writer who was always willing -- quite willing, in fact -- to talk truth to stupid. (And he was the sole judge of what was stupid.)

I don't write like he did. I am not as willing to write or opinionate -- is that actually a word? -- to the edge. And I try not to criticize other writers in public.

But I have to admire a people who stands up for their beliefs and battle publicly for them. In a way, he could afford to do that. His was a life of privilege and breeding. Any fall from grace would be cushioned. Yet he didn't let that stop him from saying what he thought.

Like it or not, there aren't a lot of public people like he. And that will be missed with Vidal's passing.

Why Parents Need Freshman Orientation More Than Freshmen - National - The Atlantic Wire

Why Parents Need Freshman Orientation More Than Freshmen - National - The Atlantic Wire

Getting off topic with this but, with an 18-year-old daughter heading off to college in college weeks, I thought this was an interesting article.

As a writer, not having my daughter around all the time is going to affect my writing and as well as my output. It will probably be good. But regardless, I don't plan on being a helicopter parent. Unless there is a life- or health-threatening problem, she is going to be on her own to handle whatever comes up. I will cheer her on but it will be from the sidelines.

Thanks for reading.

Contradictory feelings

It's a strange thing. When I finish a novel or short story, I feel excited about what I have just done. I'm sure it reads well. But at the same time, I am gripped by a incredible insecurity about my writing.

It's a contradiction.

But then I get comments from those whose opinions I trust -- both good and bad opinions. And while offering suggestions for improvements, they are always encouraging of my progress as a writer.

So, I feel better and keep writing.

Anyway, I decided to let you in on a little of my insecurities. Have a good day and keep writing.

The Missing Medallion

The Speed City chapter of Sisters in Crime plans to publish a basketball anthology next year, with the publication date possibly being during March Madness. When we pitched the idea to the publisher more than a year ago, he jumped on it immediately.

The deadline for the story submission was yesterday, July 15. The deadline was set months and months ago so there shouldn't have been a problem with making it with plenty of time left over.

One would think . . .

I got my story in under the deadline by a little over two hours.

My story is called, "The Missing Medallion", and is the fictional story of an legendary old high school basketball coach who for 40 years held on to a winner's medallion for a player who disappeared minutes after scoring the basket that clinches the state basketball championship. It was a lot of work but I think the end result is good.

Thanks to the five people who braved the first draft and who offered wonderful suggestions for improvements. The suggestions, many of them taken, greatly improved the project.

Now I wait to hear what the editor and publisher have to say. I am ready for any notes they have to offer.

The title of the anthology is Hoosier Hijinx. It will be the chapter's third anthology, following Racing Can Be Murder (2007) and Bedlam at the Brickyard (2010). My story in Bedlam was my first published fiction.

The editors for Racing are serving as editors again.

I contributed factoids for Bedlam two years ago, and this time will help write and edit profiles of prominent basketball personalities with connections to Indiana.

Well, that's it for now. Thanks for reading and keep writing.

Query shark

I have decided to again test the waters of the Query Shark.

I know I have blogged about literary agent Janet Reid before. She has a very popular following on her blog, Query Shark. On that site, aspiring authors like me send her their query letters for critique. Some of the letters she publishes -- names and identifying characteristics removed -- are reasonably good but most as bad, for a variety of reasons. Often she asks for the author to re-write the query and re-submit. Occasionally, she publishes a letter and a request for additional material.

The site is a great learning tool.

Getting on her site is harder than getting an agent through a query letter. She has said she only picks about one in 100 to critique, which is only 1 percent. (Nationally, agents reject all but about 2 percent of queries.) But I thinks she must have been getting lots of poor queries this year because her stats are way down.

I submitted to Query Shark some time ago. I haven't looked but it was probably the query for An Untidy Affair. And while she sent an e-mail acknowledging that she got the query, in the end it was neither good enough nor bad enough for her to publish with a critique.

So, I will try again, this time with The Last Tontine Survivor, though probably not until next week. Before I do submit, I plan to read through all her requirements and blog posts again. If I'm going to be rejected, I don't want it to be because of mistakes others have previously made -- and on things the Query Shark has already chomped on. After I read through the blog again, I'll make one last re-write of my query and ship it on.

Given the work I need to finish first and the amount of Shark prep I need to do, I probably won't submit until some time next week, undoubtedly just before I head out for a vacation.

Reid's comments are helpful but she still breaks some of her own rules. But her main rule is that the query be well-written, readable and interesting. All the other rules are subject to breakage.

Therefore, I will do the best I can and let it fly, and not worry about the rest.

Thanks for reading and don't give up.

So much work to do

I have so much work to do today, and for the rest of this week, in fact. I am editing a couple of stories for an anthology, writing a short story, completing work on a newsletter -- deadline was last Friday -- and lining up interviews for a writing project I am doing. Plus, I have to look for work to do in the fall.

On top of all that, there are still query letters to write. It never seems to stop.

But I should have a little rest in a couple of weeks when we go on vacation for a week. Yes, I will still do some writing. That never stops. And while I am gone I plan one, and possibly two, meetings with potential clients. Even if nothing comes from that, the tax write-off will help pay for part of my vacation. And if something comes of it, all the better.

So, I must get back to work. Time's a-wastin'.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.

It's been a busy couple of weeks

It's been a busy couple of weeks, and not necessarily in a good way.

We had a lot of work to do helping my daughter complete an online phy ed class in order for her to graduate from high school with the rest of her class on the Saturday before Memorial Day. After four years of high school, it was only done with 20 minutes to go.

Bit of a calm for a week -- during which time I sent out some query letters -- then preparation was in full swing for my daughter's graduation open house. (That's all the rage now, apparently.) Lots of yard work everyday -- the good thing is there are a lot fewer weeds in the back yard -- that we finished just prior to her party.

In the week leading up to the party, we learned that my dad's oldest sister, which was 87, had suffered a couple of strokes and wasn't expected to live. She died the day before my daughter's open house. My aunt was very close to my dad and was the first of his six siblings to die. It hit him very hard.

I was also working on some of the final details of the weeklong High School Multimedia Workshop that the Indianapolis Association of Black Journalists sponsors at Butler University.

The next week, which was last week, I worried about my dad and prepared for a two-day trip to my daughter's college for freshman orientation. That was last Wednesday and Thursday. I was back on Friday but, exhausted from the trip, I didn't work. (I also learned that day that the mother of one of my closest friends had just died -- yet another blow to my heart.)

I originally thought my aunt's funeral would be in Texas, where she had been living for the last six years. But her children, my cousins, decided it would be here in Indiana where she had spent the majority of her life. So there was lots of family obligations over last weekend. The funeral service, which was beautiful and classy -- like my aunt -- and blessedly short, was two days ago on Monday.

I spent much of yesterday trying to catch up on all the things that had slipped through the cracks over the last couple of weeks. I still haven't looked through all my e-mails. And I haven't finished a short story for the anthology my chapter of Sisters in Crime is publishing. The story deadline isn't for another month but I promised a first draft to my critique group by next Wednesday. So, I have a lot of work to do.

That pretty much covers things. The upshot is that I have had a lot on my plate. And hopefully in the next few days I can get back to some serious writing.

Thanks for reading. And don't give up.

Iconic science fiction writer Ray Bradbury dies at 91

Iconic science fiction writer Ray Bradbury dies at 91

Ray Bradbury, perhaps the world's greatest science fiction writer, died today. He was 91.

Probably his best known works are Fahrenheit 451, Something Wicked this Way Comes and The Martian Chronicles, of which I particularly liked Fahrenheit. But he was more than just those early works. His short stories are classics of the genre.

He was a great writer and like with all great writers, he will be missed.

Keep him and his family in your thoughts and prayers.

Thanks for reading.

A New Novel, Part II

Gotten off to a slow start with my new novel. Distractions caused by work, children, our garden and a volunteer group I am working are taking a toll. My pace is only half of what it should be. But I have time to kick it  into grear. It is an interesting murder story that is a sequel to An Untidy Affair.

Yes, yes, yes, I know. I generally don't write sequels (although I plan them for the future) because if I haven't sold the first book yet, why waste time on a sequel that also might not sell? Sound thinking. But I want to crank this one out in less than a month and then sit it on a shelf until later. I won't be wasting that much time and if Affair is ever sold, I will have another novel waiting in the wings.

But that can only happen if I get myself in gear. I should have more than 6,000 words done by now and only have about 3,000. However, the storytelling is going well. It's just finding the time, the will and the energy to work on it.

I guess I am getting old.

This effort is part of NaNoWriMo in June. It had a summer camp theme. I registered, of course, and can even text a small group of writers for encouragement and support. Haven't done much of that -- it's also distracting -- but I can probably use the encouragement.

Well, I have a headache and other work to get done, so I'm going. But you keep the faith and keep writing.

Thanks for reading.

P.S., I saw a political bumper sticker yesterday that I thought hit the nail on the head. It said Republicans in 2012 are willing for throw millions of people out of work just to get one man (Obama) out of a job.

Interesting assessment.
 
 

Discover Mystery contest, Part II

The winner and four finalists for the Discover Mystery contest of Poisoned Pen Press were named today, and needless to say, my name wasn't among them. I'm a bit bummed, of course, by not winning, though I knew, with nearly 200 entries, it was a longshot. But I'm not hatin'. I'm proud of my novel, An Untidy Affair, and I know there are other publishers. Affair one day will find a home.

The winner is Ronald Sharp, whose novel, Human Pest Control, will be published in October. (That struck me as a particularly short publication schedule but what do I know.) Congratulations Ronald, and best of luck. (I'm assuming Ronald reads my blog, although I have absolutely no evidence that is the case. But I put my congrats out there anyway.)

The other finalists are:

Slone's Last Dance by Bill Butler; In the Market for Murder by Dawn Marie Fichera; Who Killed Julian Emery by Susan Lumenello; and Mortgaged to Death by Bruce Rolfe.

Congrats also to the finalists.

On Poisoned Pen's website, I asked publisher Jessica Tribble whether those who didn't win would have any feedback as to why. Given the likelihood that there'd be a large number of entries, she said no, we wouldn't hear anything from them -- only who the winner was. She wouldn't have the time to provide much of anything else.

So once again, I face rejection and don't know why. But I'm going to keep writing. I enjoy it and know that one day, lightning will strike.

Thanks for reading and keep writing and submitting.

Random thoughts

Hello, my readers. Sorry I have been a little distracted for the last couple of weeks. Whenever possible, I have been planing for my next novel but I have been interrupted a lot.

The main reason for the disruption in my work and in blogging was my daughter's high school graduation. Or more precisely, getting her out of high school.

For reasons I won't go into on this blog, my daughter was short a course credit required for graduation. So, since early May, my wife, daughter and I worked many hours getting my daughter to complete an online course in three weeks -- work that should have taken three months. In the end, her principal set a 4 p.m., May 25, deadline for the school to hear from the online administrators that she had passed the course or she couldn't walk with her class at the graduation ceremony the following day.

They got the fax notification at 3:42 p.m., with just 18 minutes to spare.

I stressed out enormously over this graduation. Education is extremely important and something my wife and I greatly value. So getting my daughter out of high school and moving her onto the next major stage in her life development was important. I have earlier blog posts about being a worrier but I was probably more stressed about this graduation-thing than any other thing in quite some time. (There are other details I haven't mentioned regarding my daughter's graduation, so I wasn't just going nuts over the ceremony.)

But she walked and we were all proud.

On Sunday, my oldest daughter and I attended the Indianapolis 500, which we do every year. It was a thrilling race in incredible heat. But she and I survived it and had a wonderful time. I have been a Dario Franchitti fan for many years so I was pleased that he is now a three-time winner in what I think is the world's greatest auto race.

All that is to say I haven't gotten as much writing done in the last two weeks as I should have. But I'm trying to get back into the swing of things.

So, keep writing and thanks for reading.   

ABNA finalists for 2012

The three general fiction and three young adult fiction finalists in this year's Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest were announced yesterday. Congratulations to all six of you. Enjoy the next two weeks as Amazon customers read your excerpts and vote. And good luck to you all.

The finalists in the general fiction category are: Alan Averill (The Beautiful Land), Charles Kelly (Grace Humiston and the Vanishing), and Brian Reevers (A Chant of Love and Lamentation).

You will notice all the finalists in this category are men. But women, keep the faith because the finalists in the young adult category are: Cassandra Griffin (Dreamcatchers), Rebecca Phillips (Out of Nowhere), and Regina Sirois (On Little Wings).

And you noticed only females made the finalist in YA this year.

Not sure who I favor in general fiction. Haven't read any of them. (And they had all better be better than my entry this year.) But I have a favorite in YA, though I won't say who.

We will just have to see.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.

Discover Mystery contest and Schrodinger's Cat

I was thinking today about Schrodinger's Cat, the thought experiment in quantum theory -- stay with me on this, please -- as it might apply to my entry into Poisoned Pen Press' Discover Mystery contest.

As with Schrodinger's experiment (and this is the short version, and I hope I get this correctly), the live cat is placed in a sealed steel box that also contains a vial of acid. If the vial breaks, the cat dies. But since we cannot observe anything inside the steel box, according to quantum theory, the cat is both alive AND dead in what is known as superpostion of states. When we open the box, the superposition is lost and we know if the cat is dead or alive. In essence, there is no single outcome unless it is observed.

I entered the Discover Mystery contest months ago, and the winner will win a small cash prize and a publishing contract with Poisoned Pen Press, a small indie publisher in the mystery genre. They specialize in finding new talent and new voices in the genre (which sounds a lot like me, by the way). The submission period ended on April 30 -- they had nearly 200 entries -- and Poisoned Pen hoped to declare a winner by the end of May.

We are a little past the middle of the month and there hasn't been a word. And I am still sitting on pins and needles. I sometimes look at my entry, which is An Untidy Affair, and some days all I see are its strengths and other days all I see are its potential weaknesses. Emotionally, I am all over the way.

But today I thought of Schrodinger's Cat. Since the announcement of the winner hasn't been made, and in any event, I haven't observed an outcome, I can say I have both win and lost the contest. And if I stay with having won, I make my life a lot happier.

So that's what I'm going to do, choose the happier choice. And it should serve me well, at least until someone opens that damned box and looks upon that stupid cat.

Thanks for reading and don't give up on writing.

A new novel

Started the outline for a new novel today. I don't like to do sequels. (Someone at Writer's Digest once told me why write numerous books in a series if you haven't sold the first one yet. It would be a huge waste of time and creative energy.) But this is a continuation of story with private eye David Blaise.

The first novel was set in May 1985. This novel is set several years later. But I like the plot and the characters and, frankly, it could be a stand-alone, not just a book in a series.

I plan to write, in longhand, eight or 10 pages of outline and see what I have from that. And I decided to do this now, instead of in the fall, because I plan to attempt the first draft in June, as part of the NaNoWriMo in June.

It will be more difficult than in November, when there is a holiday. There is no holiday in June but with graduation, and open houses, and college preparation and registration, I have a lot going on it June. (I can barely wait until August when we send our daughter off to school. I don't remember it being this hectic when I started college.) Plus I have a story for an anthology to finish in June. Lots of stuff for my brain to handle.

Anyway, my untitled book should get underway on the first of June. And if for any of a number of reasons it doesn't get finished in June, I can always attempt it in November. It's a wonderful detective mystery story that's begging to get out. So, I'm going to let it.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.   

In the beginning . . .

A story has no beginning or end; arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.

Graham Greene, The End of the Affair (1951)


This is very true. Where to start is an arbitrary thing. But it also an important element of storytelling.

As I look at novels today -- and, more importantly, as I consider the advice of other writers, agents and higher ups  in the literary food chain -- I see that modern novels need to have some action very near the beginning. I don't always think that is the best approach but what you hear is that there needs to be action near the beginning to hook the reader in.

That is why I shortened the first chapter of both my last two novels in order to get to some action sooner.

But the actual beginning is still somewhat arbitrary. With The Last Tontine Survivor, I kill off an old guy in the first three pages. But there is a reason for his death dating back seven decades. While I do cover that period later in the novel, I could have started there.

And the ending -- the bad guys are vanquished and the protag survives. But she is entering a new phase in her life and I could have written a little more about what that happens to be.

I like the way the Harry Potter series starts and finishes. It doesn't start when Harry is born, or just before them, when his parents are terrible danger. It starts when Harry is 15 months old, on the day his parents are murdered. (That's Oct. 31, 1981, just in case you were wondering.) And at the end, there is an epilogue, which set 19 years into the future. Or, more correctly, 19 years after the conclusion of most dramatic events of the series. (Which means, the last scene in the last book won't occurred for another five years, in Septemeber 2017.) But even then, Harry and his friends are only in their mid- to late-30s, and presumably have much more life to live. And more stories to tell.

While I sometimes struggle with where to start, I generally know where to stop. It's at the end, which is where I am now.

So thanks for reading and keep writing.

The End

Taking on Amazon

(NOTE: This is a link to a New York Times piece on a small publisher that is taking on Mighty Amazon:http://finance.yahoo.com/news/daring-cut-off-amazon-140209029.html )

When I was in high school so many years ago, I remember one day in Philosophy class we discussed the difference between being brave and being foolhardy. While I can't remember what, if any, conclusions we reached, I would imagine we probably decided that success or failure ultimately defined the difference.

That certainly came to mind when I read a New York Times article (link above) about a daring small publisher, Educational Development Corporation, which decided to take Amazon over the pricing of books.

Much like with mom and pop grocery stores that were on every street corner when I was growing up, the big stores -- and ultimately, the Wal-Marts of the world -- drove the into extinction. That could certainly happen with small publishers and brick-and-mortar bookstores in the future, thanks to huge companies like Amazon.

That would be sad. Price isn't the only thing customers are looking for in a reading experience. It's also having a knowledgeable person discuss books with you, booksinging and meeting authors, and getting together with other readers. All those sorts of things get lost when companies like Amazon drive others out of the market.

That impacts me as both a reader and a writer, and the prospect saddens me.

Read the article and make up your own mind.

But in the meantime, thanks for reading and keep writing.

Having trouble with this format

I'm having a little trouble figuring out the new format on Blogger. As the person doing the blog -- not just writing it online -- I'm not sure where things are on my blog, and not how i go about finding them. It's somewhat easier today but it's still strange and new, not two words I am always comfortable with.

On other news, a friend from my critique group who made the quarterfinals in this year's Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest unfortunately failed to make the semifinals this week. I saw her yesterday at our critique group meeting and she seems to be taking it as well as can be expected. By the time you reach the quarterfinals, you begin to seriously think of making it to the end. But then, when you dreams are dashed (as mind were at this point last year in ABNA), it still stings a little. I feel sorry for her but I tried to be supporter. After all, I know what you is going through.

Also in other news, I started a blog draft last week about Amazon and the publishing industry. I should post it soon. It should be interesting, so be on the look out.

Lastly, not only did I break my single month record for pageviews, I doubled the previous record -- and the month isn't finished yet. We have another four days to go. And more and more pageviews are of recent posts. So I must be getting more readers. I hope so.

That's it for now. I gave my critique group a new short story yesterday. Will hear their comments in two weeks. Sending out query letters for The Last Tontine Survivor. Haven't heard anything yet. My short story for the next Sisters in Crime anthology isn't panning out, so I will try something else.

Thanks for reading and don't stop writing.

Record

Though only half way through the month, my pageviews have reached a new record. I was close last month, missing a new record by less than 1 percent. But I have just blasted through this month.

Thanks dear readers. I appreciate you, even if you are just re-reading old posts.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.

The 100 best first lines

More than a year ago I came across a list of the 100 Best First Lines in novels, as decided by the American Book Review, a nonprofit journal published at the Unit for Contemporary Literature at Illinois State University. This is mostly literary fiction and goes back as far as the 17th century. But there are novels from the 21st century.

First lines are difficult. You want to get them right because they can propel the reader further into the novel. But getting the length, tone, structure, language, feeling and all the other elements correct is a very difficult task.

From the list below, which starts with truly the best first line (from Melville's Moby Dick), I tend to think the best lines are short and descriptive. Some are punchy, some not so much. The truly long ones, such as No. 95 (Double or Nothing) are boring.

Of my novels, my famous first line is from An Untidy Affair. It goes: I'm sometimes called a dick and I abhor the term.

Actually, I thought of it a week before I wrote it down because I knew it was going to be a first-person POV of a struggling private eye, but I hadn't worked out the entire story yet. I didn't want to start it before I knew the end.

I'm going to post the entire list below -- and mention the copyright at the end -- but here are the numbers of some of my favorites: Nos. 6, 13, 18, 26, 29, 38, 39, 40, 49, 54 (which I truly believe), 61, 62, 65, 80, 81, 94 and 99. I won't even begin to mention the ones I hate.

What are some of your favorites on this list? Are there some you think should be on the list that aren't? You can let me know.

Anyway, enjoy. Thanks for reading.

___
Following is a list of the 100 best first lines from novels, as decided by the American Book Review, a nonprofit journal published at the Unit for Contemporary Literature at Illinois State University:

1. Call me Ishmael. - Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851)

2. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813)

3. A screaming comes across the sky. - Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow (1973)

4. Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. - Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967; trans. Gregory Rabassa)

5. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. - Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955)

6. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. - Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (1877; trans. Constance Garnett)

7. riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs. - James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (1939)

8. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. - George Orwell, 1984 (1949)

9. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. - Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)

10. I am an invisible man. - Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)

11. The Miss Lonelyhearts of the New York Post-Dispatch (Are you in trouble?—Do-you-need-advice?—Write-to-Miss-Lonelyhearts-and-she-will-help-you) sat at his desk and stared at a piece of white cardboard. - Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts (1933)

12. You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. —Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)

13. Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested. —Franz Kafka, The Trial (1925; trans. Breon Mitchell)

14. You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. —Italo Calvino, If on a winter's night a traveler (1979; trans. William Weaver)

15. The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. —Samuel Beckett, Murphy (1938)

16. If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. - J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (1951)

17. Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo. - James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)

18. This is the saddest story I have ever heard. - Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier (1915)

19. I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly considered how much depended upon what they were then doing;—that not only the production of a rational Being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind;—and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost:—Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly,—I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world, from that, in which the reader is likely to see me. - Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy (1759n1767)

20. Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. - Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (1850)

21. Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. - James Joyce, Ulysses (1922)

22. It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the house-tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. - Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)

23. One summer afternoon Mrs. Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware party whose hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue to find that she, Oedipa, had been named executor, or she supposed executrix, of the estate of one Pierce Inverarity, a California real estate mogul who had once lost two million dollars in his spare time but still had assets numerous and tangled enough to make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary. - Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 (1966)

24. It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not. - Paul Auster, City of Glass (1985)

25. Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting. - William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (1929)

26. 124 was spiteful. - Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987)

27. Somewhere in la Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago, one of those who has a lance and ancient shield on a shelf and keeps a skinny nag and a greyhound for racing. - Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote (1605; trans. Edith Grossman)

28. Mother died today. - Albert Camus, The Stranger (1942; trans. Stuart Gilbert)

29. Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu. - Ha Jin, Waiting (1999)

30. The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. - William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984)

31. I am a sick man . . . I am a spiteful man. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground (1864; trans. Michael R. Katz)

32. Where now? Who now? When now? - Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable (1953; trans. Patrick Bowles)

33. Once an angry man dragged his father along the ground through his own orchard. "Stop!" cried the groaning old man at last, "Stop! I did not drag my father beyond this tree." - Gertrude Stein, The Making of Americans (1925)

34. In a sense, I am Jacob Horner. - John Barth, The End of the Road (1958)

35. It was like so, but wasn't. - Richard Powers, Galatea 2.2 (1995)

36. —Money . . . in a voice that rustled. - William Gaddis, J R (1975)

37. Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. - Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (1925)

38. All this happened, more or less. - Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)

39. They shoot the white girl first. - Toni Morrison, Paradise (1998)

40. For a long time, I went to bed early. - Marcel Proust, Swann's Way (1913; trans. Lydia Davis)

41. The moment one learns English, complications set in. - Felipe Alfau, Chromos (1990)

42. Dr. Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature. - Anita Brookner, The Debut (1981)

43. I was the shadow of the waxwing slain / By the false azure in the windowpane; - Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (1962)

44. Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. - Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)

45. I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story. - Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome (1911)

46. Ages ago, Alex, Allen and Alva arrived at Antibes, and Alva allowing all, allowing anyone, against Alex's admonition, against Allen's angry assertion: another African amusement . . . anyhow, as all argued, an awesome African army assembled and arduously advanced against an African anthill, assiduously annihilating ant after ant, and afterward, Alex astonishingly accuses Albert as also accepting Africa's antipodal ant annexation. - Walter Abish, Alphabetical Africa (1974)

47. There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. - C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)

48. He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. - Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea (1952)

49. It was the day my grandmother exploded. - Iain M. Banks, The Crow Road (1992)

50. I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974. - Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex (2002)

51. Elmer Gantry was drunk. - Sinclair Lewis, Elmer Gantry (1927)

52. We started dying before the snow, and like the snow, we continued to fall. - Louise Erdrich, Tracks (1988)

53. It was a pleasure to burn. - Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

54. A story has no beginning or end; arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead. - Graham Greene, The End of the Affair (1951)

55. Having placed in my mouth sufficient bread for three minutes' chewing, I withdrew my powers of sensual perception and retired into the privacy of my mind, my eyes and face assuming a vacant and preoccupied expression. - Flann O'Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds (1939)

56. I was born in the Year 1632, in the City of York, of a good Family, tho' not of that Country, my Father being a Foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull; He got a good Estate by Merchandise, and leaving off his Trade, lived afterward at York, from whence he had married my Mother, whose Relations were named Robinson, a very good Family in that Country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer; but by the usual Corruption of Words in England, we are now called, nay we call our selves, and write our Name Crusoe, and so my Companions always call'd me. - Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719)

57. In the beginning, sometimes I left messages in the street. - David Markson, Wittgenstein's Mistress (1988)

58. Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress. - George Eliot, Middlemarch (1872)

59. It was love at first sight. - Joseph Heller, Catch-22 (1961)

60. What if this young woman, who writes such bad poems, in competition with her husband, whose poems are equally bad, should stretch her remarkably long and well-made legs out before you, so that her skirt slips up to the tops of her stockings? - Gilbert Sorrentino, Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things (1971)

61. I have never begun a novel with more misgiving. - W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge (1944)

62. Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person. - Anne Tyler, Back When We Were Grownups (2001)

63. The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. - G. K. Chesterton, The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904)

64. In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)

65. You better not never tell nobody but God. - Alice Walker, The Color Purple (1982)

66. "To be born again," sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, "first you have to die." - Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses (1988)

67. It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York. - Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar (1963)

68. Most really pretty girls have pretty ugly feet, and so does Mindy Metalman, Lenore notices, all of a sudden. - David Foster Wallace, The Broom of the System (1987)

69. If I am out of my mind, it's all right with me, thought Moses Herzog. - Saul Bellow, Herzog (1964)

70. Francis Marion Tarwater's uncle had been dead for only half a day when the boy got too drunk to finish digging his grave and a Negro named Buford Munson, who had come to get a jug filled, had to finish it and drag the body from the breakfast table where it was still sitting and bury it in a decent and Christian way, with the sign of its Saviour at the head of the grave and enough dirt on top to keep the dogs from digging it up. - Flannery O'Connor, The Violent Bear it Away (1960)

71. Granted: I am an inmate of a mental hospital; my keeper is watching me, he never lets me out of his sight; there's a peephole in the door, and my keeper's eye is the shade of brown that can never see through a blue-eyed type like me. - GŸnter Grass, The Tin Drum (1959; trans. Ralph Manheim)

72. When Dick Gibson was a little boy he was not Dick Gibson. - Stanley Elkin, The Dick Gibson Show (1971)

73. Hiram Clegg, together with his wife Emma and four friends of the faith from Randolph Junction, were summoned by the Spirit and Mrs. Clara Collins, widow of the beloved Nazarene preacher Ely Collins, to West Condon on the weekend of the eighteenth and nineteenth of April, there to await the End of the World. - Robert Coover, The Origin of the Brunists (1966)

74. She waited, Kate Croy, for her father to come in, but he kept her unconscionably, and there were moments at which she showed herself, in the glass over the mantel, a face positively pale with the irritation that had brought her to the point of going away without sight of him. - Henry James, The Wings of the Dove (1902)

75. In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. - Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms (1929)

76. "Take my camel, dear," said my Aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass. - Rose Macaulay, The Towers of Trebizond (1956)

77. He was an inch, perhaps two, under six feet, powerfully built, and he advanced straight at you with a slight stoop of the shoulders, head forward, and a fixed from-under stare which made you think of a charging bull. - Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim (1900)

78. The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. - L. P. Hartley, The Go-Between (1953)

79. On my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he parbly ben the las wyld pig on the Bundel Downs any how there hadnt ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen. - Russell Hoban, Riddley Walker (1980)

80. Justice? - You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law. - William Gaddis, A Frolic of His Own (1994)

81. Vaughan died yesterday in his last car-crash. - J. G. Ballard, Crash (1973)

82. I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. - Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle (1948)

83. "When your mama was the geek, my dreamlets," Papa would say, "she made the nipping off of noggins such a crystal mystery that the hens themselves yearned toward her, waltzing around her, hypnotized with longing." - Katherine Dunn, Geek Love (1983)

84. In the last years of the Seventeenth Century there was to be found among the fops and fools of the London coffee-houses one rangy, gangling flitch called Ebenezer Cooke, more ambitious than talented, and yet more talented than prudent, who, like his friends-in-folly, all of whom were supposed to be educating at Oxford or Cambridge, had found the sound of Mother English more fun to game with than her sense to labor over, and so rather than applying himself to the pains of scholarship, had learned the knack of versifying, and ground out quires of couplets after the fashion of the day, afroth with Joves and Jupiters, aclang with jarring rhymes, and string-taut with similes stretched to the snapping-point. - John Barth, The Sot-Weed Factor (1960)

85. When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon. - James Crumley, The Last Good Kiss (1978)
86. It was just noon that Sunday morning when the sheriff reached the jail with Lucas Beauchamp though the whole town (the whole county too for that matter) had known since the night before that Lucas had killed a white man. - William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust (1948)

87. I, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus This-that-and-the-other (for I shall not trouble you yet with all my titles) who was once, and not so long ago either, known to my friends and relatives and associates as "Claudius the Idiot," or "That Claudius," or "Claudius the Stammerer," or "Clau-Clau-Claudius" or at best as "Poor Uncle Claudius," am now about to write this strange history of my life; starting from my earliest childhood and continuing year by year until I reach the fateful point of change where, some eight years ago, at the age of fifty-one, I suddenly found myself caught in what I may call the "golden predicament" from which I have never since become disentangled. - Robert Graves, I, Claudius (1934)

88. Of all the things that drive men to sea, the most common disaster, I've come to learn, is women. - Charles Johnson, Middle Passage (1990)

89. I am an American, Chicago born - Chicago, that somber city —and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent. - Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March (1953)

90. The towers of Zenith aspired above the morning mist; austere towers of steel and cement and limestone, sturdy as cliffs and delicate as silver rods. - Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt (1922)

91. I will tell you in a few words who I am: lover of the hummingbird that darts to the flower beyond the rotted sill where my feet are propped; lover of bright needlepoint and the bright stitching fingers of humorless old ladies bent to their sweet and infamous designs; lover of parasols made from the same puffy stuff as a young girl's underdrawers; still lover of that small naval boat which somehow survived the distressing years of my life between her decks or in her pilothouse; and also lover of poor dear black Sonny, my mess boy, fellow victim and confidant, and of my wife and child. But most of all, lover of my harmless and sanguine self. - John Hawkes, Second Skin (1964)

92. He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. - Raphael Sabatini, Scaramouche (1921)

93. Psychics can see the color of time it's blue. - Ronald Sukenick, Blown Away (1986)

94. In the town, there were two mutes and they were always together. - Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940)

95. Once upon a time two or three weeks ago, a rather stubborn and determined middle-aged man decided to record for posterity, exactly as it happened, word by word and step by step, the story of another man for indeed what is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal, a somewhat paranoiac fellow unmarried, unattached, and quite irresponsible, who had decided to lock himself in a room a furnished room with a private bath, cooking facilities, a bed, a table, and at least one chair, in New York City, for a year 365 days to be precise, to write the story of another person—a shy young man about of 19 years old—who, after the war the Second World War, had come to America the land of opportunities from France under the sponsorship of his uncle—a journalist, fluent in five languages—who himself had come to America from Europe Poland it seems, though this was not clearly established sometime during the war after a series of rather gruesome adventures, and who, at the end of the war, wrote to the father his cousin by marriage of the young man whom he considered as a nephew, curious to know if he the father and his family had survived the German occupation, and indeed was deeply saddened to learn, in a letter from the young man—a long and touching letter written in English, not by the young man, however, who did not know a damn word of English, but by a good friend of his who had studied English in school—that his parents both his father and mother and his two sisters one older and the other younger than he had been deported they were Jewish to a German concentration camp Auschwitz probably and never returned, no doubt having been exterminated deliberately X * X * X * X, and that, therefore, the young man who was now an orphan, a displaced person, who, during the war, had managed to escape deportation by working very hard on a farm in Southern France, would be happy and grateful to be given the opportunity to come to America that great country he had heard so much about and yet knew so little about to start a new life, possibly go to school, learn a trade, and become a good, loyal citizen. - Raymond Federman, Double or Nothing (1971)

96. Time is not a line but a dimension, like the dimensions of space. - Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye (1988)

97. He - for there could be no doubt of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it - was in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which swung from the rafters. - Virginia Woolf, Orlando (1928)

98. High, high above the North Pole, on the first day of 1969, two professors of English Literature approached each other at a combined velocity of 1200 miles per hour. - David Lodge, Changing Places (1975)

99. They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did. - Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)

100. The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting. - Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage (1895)

Copyright 2011 pantagraph.com.

I had to laugh

So many times I read something or hear something and wish I had written that. Well, the wife of a prominent Republican presidential candidate said something about her husband on the radio that was so funny I can't imagine anyone ever writing it, let alone saying it aloud.

GOP candidate Mitt Romney is, by nearly any measure, a stiff white guy. Now that's okay, if that's what you are looking for in a president. But being stiff on the campaign trail isn't generally considered an asset.

Clarence M. Mitchell at WBAL asked the candidate's wife Ann Romney in a radio interview: "Sometimes he appears stiff. Do you have to fight back like, 'My husband isn't stiff, okay.'"

She replied with a bit of a laugh: "Well, ah, you know, I guess, I guess, we better unzip and let the real Mitt Romney out 'cause he is not" stiff.

Now that is certainly what you want your wife to say on the radio. But I laugh everytime I think of that because one would want one's wife to say you get stiff once you are unzipped.

Funny stuff. I wish I could have written something so funny.

But I should get back to work, and so should you.

Thanks for reading and don't give up writing.

Oh, so close . . .

March was a good month for viewership for my blog. I had the second highest views since I started nearly four and a half years ago. In fact, I only fell only three views short of my record, set in October 2009.

Oh, so close . . .

It helped that my viewership is up considerably for recent posts -- those in the last two months. I am getting more hits on posts soon after I write them. However, the most views I get are for posts several years old. I don't what that means. Whether the same people keep viewing the same posts over and over again -- for heaven knows what reason -- or whether I am getting new views on the same posts. It's a mystery to me.

Regardless of the reason for things, I will keep posting on the journey this writer is on to becoming a published novelist. Talk to you again soon.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.

Querying agents, Part II

I was wondering whether any other you had an useful suggestions on how to pique a potential agent's interest in representing me. Yeah, I know. Write something interesting and worthy of being read. All that goes without saying. I need some help in attracting them in the first place.

I always read up as much as possible on an agent before I query them. I visit their website, read anything I can find of their writing if it is relevant, read comments on them by others. But is there something I'm missing?

Agents mention different things about what catches their eye in a query letter. But even that can be random.

One agent who blogs alot states repeatedly about the three rules she needs to see in a query letter. But she also shows a query letter that she loved -- she went on to request a full manuscript -- that broke all those rules.

That makes it hard to discern what an agent may ultimately want.

So, as I am completing a list of agents to query, any advice from any of you would be helpful. Thanks in advance.

And thanks for reading.

300th Blog posting

This is a somewhat special day. This is my 300th blog posting since I started this blog, today is my birthday and this month I have had the second highest number of views on my blog -- and the month isn't finished yet. While I doubt I will break my personal best blog views, it's possible.

I planned to say something profound today but I have been so busy I haven't had the chance to think of something. I just want to say that while it has taken me a long time to reach 300 postings, I don't intend for it to be nearly as long before I reach 400.

My critique group meets tomorrow and I am handing in a short story for consideration in two weeks. Also in the next two weeks I plan to finish my currently untitled short story for my Sisters in Crime anthology.

I plan to register for the Midwest Writers Workshop seminar in July. I'm checking The Last Tontine Survivor for possible mistakes and still compiling a list of agents to query.

So, I have been busy.

I am planning to discuss agents and query letters again soon. But for now, I think I will go have some more birthday cake.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.

Music

Not much to say today. It's been raining and I have been inside most of the day attending to some freelance work. (I did take my mom to a viewing of a woman who attended my mom's church. We mostly got in, signed the book, sat for a few minutes and got out, though I did say a few words to the poor woman's grieving husband.)

Since it has been gloomy outside all day and I didn't have any sunlight through the window to brighten my day, playing music while I work has been very important. I have been going between One of a Kind, a CD by Dave Grusin, and a recording of The Planets by Gustav Holst, with two selections by John Williams tacked on at the end.

I am especially fond of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter on Grusin's CD. It is probably my favorite music. It lifts my spirits when I am happy or, if I'm sad, leaves me feeling melancholy. It's such a great melody for either end of my emotional scale. (I also love the book of the same name, which was made into a film with that name in 1967. Grusin wrote music for the film.)

The Planets is a seven-movement composition and perhaps the Brit's most famous work. I particularly like Jupiter: the Bringer of Jollity, and Neptune: the Mystic. But it is one of the two pieces tacked on at the end of the CD that I listen to the most. It is a full orchestral suite for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It is great, uplifting music that I can play in the background as company and that I can enjoy without it distracting me.

So, what do you listen to when you write? Whatever it is, keep listening to it and keep writing.

Thanks for reading and don't give up.

Query News, Part III

Since last fall, I have concentrated on writing a novel for National Novel Writing Month (then changing my mind), doing a final re-write and edit of The Last Tontine Survivor for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, starting a short story for an anthology, re-writing another short story for a Writer's Digest contest and, finally, doing a final read-through and edit of An Untidy Affair for a contest with a publisher. Sounds like I have been busy, and I have been.


But as I sit and think about it, all that work had another purpose -- distracting me from doing something I need to focus on but generally don't enjoy doing -- sending out query letters for my novel.


I now have two really good works I feel comfortable with querying in their current forms. And I have queried Affair before. Since it is under consideration with a publisher, I will hold off on querying it for now.


Which brings me to Tontine. It's Tontine's time.


A month ago, back on Feb. 22, my blog posting titled "Nervous Nellie" included the pitch I used for Tontine for ABNA. Though I was eliminated from the contest based on that pitch, I still will use it as the basis for my query letter for the novel. I think it conveys the story well. But in case I'm wrong, I will only send out a limited number of queries with that letter. If I don't get any bites after sending five to seven letters, I will strap it and start with an entirely different letter for Tontine.

I truly don't know what it's going to take to pique an agent's interest but I know it won't happen as long as I stall trying. I can keep busy with contests but unless I win, it won't get me closer to publication. So it's Query Letter Time.

This evening I will put in some serious effort in compiling an agent list. By the weekend, the letters should start heading out. Rejections, and the accompanying depression, will probably start next week.

Just wanted to prepare you.

Thanks for reading and keep writing (and querying).

ABNA: A quickie

Tomorrow is the day the guardians at the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award announce the winners in the second round of this year's contest. A select 500 -- 250 each in general fiction and young adult fiction -- will move on to the quarterfinal round.

I was on pins and needles last year at this moment hoping against hope that I would advance. I know the tiny nerves that support ones hopes and dreams. And last year I made the cut, advancing to the quarters, though I was cut after that.

I don't have such worries this year, having been cut in the first round about a month ago. (And with an even better entry this year than I had last year.) But I still truly support this contest and congratulate all the brave souls who enter it each year.

This year in particular, I have a couple of friends I am pulling for -- Jeff, an online friend from Kansas City, and Marianne, whose a member of my critique group. Both are in the YA category.

Jeff keeps coming back to the contest year after heartbreaking year, always funny and cheerfully honest. He has played it cool this year, not venturing onto the ABNA threads to comment very much. He is a good guy and it would be nice to see him advance. I'm not sure if her has ever made it to the quarters before.

And Marianne. What can I say about Marianne? She's a lawyer and a suburban mom. Not very scary, really. But as a writer, she is truly creepy. And she loves writing that sort of stuff. Her brand, which she has printed on her author business cards says, "Wake up and smell the creepy." That's excellent. And so is she.

Her writing is crisp and clean and compelling. Though her YA novel in ABNA this year isn't creepy, which is a surprise, the story is interesting and original. I can see her going far this year on talent alone. But as always, she will also need some luck.

So good luck Jeff and Marianne . . . and everyone else in the contest this year. I'll see you on the other side.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.

Editor: One friend made the cut and one did not. Well done, Marianne! And best of luck in the next round. mbd

Who's Looking, Part II

I don't think I have posted anything on this subject in 18 months but it's about time. Who's reading me?

I still don't have a good answer to that question but I do have numbers and this month has been a great month. Not half the month is over and yet I already have the fourth highest monthly totals since I started this blog more than four years ago. At the current rate, this could be my highest month after October 2009. And with a little luck, I could top even that month.

Posts from last month are very popular. Hits from February 2012 make up six of my Top 10 posts this month. But still, the three most read posts so far this momth are oldies but goodies. They are: Being a picker at Amazon, from Dec. 20, 2010; What's in a name?, a four-year-old post from Jan. 4, 2008; and Querying agents, from Jan. 8, also in 2008.

I am still trending heavily in the United States, which isn't surprising. I'm an American writer.

This month, 48 percent of my page views are from the U.S., with The Netherlands coming in second with 24 percent. That is trending well with my all-time hits, where U.S. views make up slightly more than 50 percent of total views, followed by Germany and France.

There is lots more information from the stats section on my blog and in the weeks ahead I am going to try to better understand what readers are looking from (other than posts from 2008 and 2009). And I will let you know what I find.

In the meantime, thanks for reading and keep writing.

One final read through

It's taking much longer than I expected to do one final read through of An Untidy Affair before I ship it off to an contest. A lot is riding on the contest but there is always a lot riding on a contest. So that isn't what is slowing me down.

I am tweaking it here and there, tightening the writing and spotting problems that I should have seen months ago. But the novel itself is still strong. I guess I just want to put the best foot forward. Yet at some point you have to conclude you have done the best you can do at the moment and let it go. Not there yet but am probably close.

Once I completely finish the read of Affair and send it in, I will concentrate re-writing the query letter for The Last Tontine Survivor, and compile the list of agents to send it to. That means lots and lots of reading -- on query letters and on the interests of particular agents. I am tired of doing that but I have no other choice. It is the nature of the industry.

So, I wanted to give you an update. You will also notice I have changed styles once again on book titles. I will boldface and italicize them. Perhaps it will make them jump off the page.

It's a beautiful day outside and I'm going to enjoy some more of it.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.

Black on Black in Black

I entered the 81st Annual Writer's Digest competition today with a short mystery story called Black on Black in Black. (If you don't understand the title, I'm sorry. It's a black-thang.)

A friend at The Philadelphia Tribune asked me a couple of years ago to write a mystery with her as the main character and we actually came up with the name for the protagonist together. But that was the extent of her contribution.

It's a murder mystery that I started two years ago but didn't get around to finishing it until last fall. It's not long -- just over 2,000 words -- but has a nice feel to it.

I had forgotten about this competition, which costs to enter but has really nice prizes. There are 10 categories, including magazine feature articles, rhyming and non-rhyming poems, movie scripts, and short stories. The maximum word word is about 4,000 words.

They offer cash prizes for first through 10th place in each of the categories and a $3,000 cash prize and a trip to New York for the Grand Prize winner, who is selected from all entries. Hard to see how I could win that but you can never tell. And you can't win if you don't enter. Since I entered, I could possibly win.

I haven't entered this contest in several years. But in 2007, a got an honorable mention in the television/movie script category for my screenplay, Loss of Consortium. But I decided to enter this year as part of my goal of entering more contests, and writing more short fiction. This is the second contest I have entered this year, after ABNA, and I am working on one final edit of my novel, An Untidy Affair, for a competition next month. No final decision on other competitions or contests but I'm looking around. There are lots to choose from. I just have to find the ones that are a good fit for me and for them.

So that's it for today. I have to get back to editing. But thanks for reading and I will see you next time.

Smash -- a new show on television

I discovered a new show on television this week. It's called SMASH and airs on NBC, I think on Monday nights. I remember seeing lots of ads for it several weeks ago before its premiere but I missed seeing it and the show fell out of my mind. And I don't remember seeing any ads for it recently.

But my daughter was watching in On Demand one morning this week as I was passing through the family room and I sat down for a moment and was quickly hooked.

That is what good writing and an interesting story can do.

There were several storylines introduced in the first episode -- I think four episodes have aired so far. At least that is how many I have now watched -- but they didn't seem crowded. The characters were interesting, though not always likeable, and the plots and sub-plots were believeable and fun. The writing was crisp and enjoyable. And the songs, both lyrics and music, were wonderful.

(Made me wish I had studied drama when I first went to college, which what I wanted to do in the first place. But I ultimately studied history, which, fortunately, I do love. But being on stage would have been wonderful, too.)

I really enjoy this show and plan catch it at its original time next week. And despite the great performances, it is the writing that pulls me it. It is so good, I rarely venture outside the universe the writers have created. It is crisp, which I said before, and moves at a good pace so that the viewer never gets bored. That is a real gift -- it put everything needed in a scene into that scene without extraneous material. It was well done.

Good writing always inspires me to work harder. It may not lead me to getting published any sooner but it truly doesn't hurt.

Gotta run. I'm reading through AN UNTIDY AFFAIR once more before I submit it to a contest. But in the meantime, thanks for reading.

Researching Hoosier Hysteria

The Speed City chapter of Sisters in Crime held its February meeting last Saturday at the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, which spotlights the highs and lows of high school basketball in the state. It was wonderful trip to New Castle, where the hall and museum are located, not the least of which being because it was such a beautiful sunny day for the 45-minute drive.

The decision for visit and tour the hall was mostly to help people generate ideas for Speed City's next anthology is about Indiana basketball. It was certainly beneficial to me. During the hourlong tour, I took two pages of notes on everything from famed coaches -- the late John Wooden, a Hoosier native, played at Purdue and coached high school ball in South Bend before heading out west -- to famous players, like Larry Bird.

But my story for the anthology centers around girls playing high school basketball. While there were no rules against girls trying out for high school basketball teams, which only had boys, there were no girl teams in inter-school play. Only beginning in the 1950s and picking up stream in the follwing decade did schools begin to develop teams for both boys and girls. There wasn't a girls high school basketball championship until the mid-1970s.

The story I have planned is coming along well, particularly because of the research I was able to do in New Castle. Plus I am developing further questions for the guide, who gave me is business card and encouraged me to call back if I had needed additional information.

While I try to do as little research as possible -- I always remember: "Write what you know." -- some research is always needed no matter what you write about. And I enjoy having as much information on hand as possible even if I don't even use it.

On another note, attended a big Oscar Night Party downtown last night. It is a fundraiser for the local United Way and is always a lot of fun. I attend most years. (The food is usually outstanding.)

And I was so pleased to see Woody Allen win for best original screenplay for "Midnight in Paris," which I saw for the first time last Friday night. (I knew he didn't stand a chance for the best director nod.) I loved the film and the writing was incredible, as you would expect from Allen. He remains my favorite film writer. He is witty and urbane but less neurotic than he was as a young man. When I want to see neurotic, I pop "Sleeper" in the player. It's my favorite of his "early funny films."

Anyway, that's all this aspiring novelist has to say at the moment, except thanks for reading and don't give up.

Eliminated, Part II

What I hate about being eliminated in ABNA's first round is that I have no idea why. Could be a poor plot and a badly written pitch, or I could just put it down to bad luck. I don't know. But a couple of hours ago, a friend whose debut novel was published nine months ago to wonderful reviews reminded me that her novel was eliminated in the first round a few years back. You just pick up and move forward.

So I will pour over the pitch again, shorten it to query-length -- about 250 words as compared with about 300 -- and start querying agents.

Then, perhaps, I will get some answers.

As for now, I am playing sad music, as is fitting my mood, and preparing for what's next.

Thanks again for reading.

Eliminated

Didn't make the cut this year in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, though it's the best novel I have entered in the three years I have tried. But a friend from my critique group advanced to the second round. I'm happy for her.

So, it's on to querying agents.

Thanks for reading and don't give up!

Nervous Nellie

I'm going to try to make this one of my last posts for a while on the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. But ABNA is gearing up at the moment and the first round results will be announced tomorrow.

There are three components to an entry in ABNA -- the pitch, an excerpt and the complete manuscript. In the first round, the only thing that is judged is the 300-word pitch. It's like a sales pitch that needs to include the main character, the plot and some really good writing. (It's kind of like the description you see on book jacket covers.) But since 80 percent of the entries are eliminated in the first round, more than a good story and good writing are required.

Luck will play a major factor.

Some of the past contestants estimate that luck plays up to 50 percent in whether you advance out of the first round/pitch stage and into the excerpt stage, which is the second round. If the reviewer is having a bad day or doesn't care for your genre, you likely could be bounced.

Just today on one of the ABNA community discussion boards I was reading the pitch of someone whom is active in the ABNA contestant community and who revised their pitch for a fantasy novel several times before it was entered. It is still a complete mess. I had no idea what the story was about and, worst of all, I didn't care. If I was a judge, I'd eliminate them immediately, although the book itself may be quite good (although I doubt it). But then, I don't care for fantasy novels. If I were judging, it would have a hard time with me anyway.

All that is to say I am a Nervous Nellie waiting for the first round results tomorrow, which should come in by early afternoon. I keep dreaming of advancing but know realistically the odds are against me.

All that said, below is my pitch. Read and send me a comment if you'd like. And above all, thanks for reading.

___

Rachel Edelstein is a rarity - it's not easy being black AND Jewish in America - but she has developed her own unique survival instincts. When Nazis come to kidnap her and she finds out her boyfriend is an Israeli intelligence agent, her life depends on trusting those instincts - and in trusting the right people.

The person she trusts most is her grandfather, Julius Edelstein, but he has suddenly disappeared. As Rachel searches for him, she learns Julius is the surviving member in a financial agreement called a tontine, which was created with millions of Deutsche Marks stolen from the Nazis during World War II. The men planned to use the dividends from the tontine to fund a resistance movement and ultimately support Jewish charities for the rest of their lives.

But the Nazis have long memories. Now, seven decades later, the descendants of a former Gestapo chief who escaped judgment are still looking for Julius. And they will stop at nothing to recover the money, including murder or kidnapping. That puts Rachel, who doesn't know why Julius is missing, in their cross hairs.

After the bad guys attempt to kidnap her hoping she will lead them to Julius, Rachel must use her instincts to determine whom to trust - her boyfriend, who lied to her about being an Israeli agent, or the black New York City police detective with a sketchy past who is investigating her grandfather's disappearance.

The wrong choice could lead to more chaos - and more dead bodies.

THE LAST TONTINE SURVIVOR is written in a style similar to that of authors Jeffrey Archer or Jack Higgins, and its target market is educated readers over the age of 30 who enjoy mystery and suspense, and a bit of history.

PSA and other thoughts

If you have read my blog for some time, you know I am a prostate cancer survivor. Or at least so far. But I still see the doctor every six months to have my PSA levels checked. I generally don't think much about the cancer except just before having to see the doctor again.

And that time is upon me again.

I had bllod drawn last week and my appointment to see the doctor for the results is on March 6. Can't wait. (Well, actually, I can.)

If all continues as it should (and as it has been), I probably won't touch on this subject again for about six months. If not, well, I'm not sure when I will bring it up again.

On other matters . . .

The Speed City chapter of Sisters in Crime is working on another anthology, this time with basketball as the theme. The deadline for submission is in July.

Over the weekend, I hashed out the outlines for an interesting story. I won't bore you with the details at the moment but it will involve a female high school basketball player. Our SinC chapter is meeting at the Indiana High School Basketball Hall of Fame in New Castle this Saturday so I will be able to do some research while I am there.

(Oh, for the first time in three years I'm NOT the secretary of our chapter. Was tired of that, thank you very much. But I was roped into being the membership, so I am still on the board. That's not so bad. I just check the membership rolls once a month or so. It's do-able.)

I had something else on my mind but I can't remember what. So I am going to go for now.

Thanks for reading and catch you on the flip side.

Discover Mystery contest

Poisoned Pen Press, a small but well-thought-of indie publisher, has a new contest this year for unpublished authors. It is called the Discover Mystery contest and I have decided to enter AN UNTIDY AFFAIR.

The mystery manuscript must be between 60,000 and 90,000 words, and the winner will be offered a publishing contract with a small ($1,000) advance. The submission deadline is April 30, with the winner being announced one month later on May 31.

Though I like Poisoned Pen Press, I have never submitted a manuscript there before, mostly, I think, out of fear of rejection. The publisher prides itself on the fact that it accepts and considers authors without representation. And I know a local author who has had several of her mysteries published through Poisoned Pen and has enjoyed some success them.

As you may remember, I originally wrote AFFAIR in November 2009 during National Novel Writing Month and it has gone through numerous rewrites. I think I am up to 12. Because it is polished is one of the reasons I decided to submit it. That and the fact that I have another work currently in the Amazon contest. The Poisoned Pen rules state I can't enter the same mss to another publisher at the same time it is being considered in the Poisoned Pen contest.

So this is two contests this year -- Poisoned Pen and Amazon -- with different novels. Way to go, me!!

One of my stated goals was to enter four contests this year for novels or short stories and so I am nearly half way there. Plus I am looking around for other contests to enter. Both AFFAIR and THE LAST TONTINE SURVIVOR are good works which are completed and edited (as best they can be by an non-professional editor). So I am prepared to shop them around and hope for the best.

Your prayers would also be helpful.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.

The first step is to admit your addiction

I have met so many wonderful people through the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest over the years. The way you meet your fellow contestants -- and well, anyone, really -- is primarily through the community forums. And while Ammy monitors the conversation threads, they can, and do, cover virtually any topic.

And they are addictive. So much so, you can get lost reading and commenting on the various conversation threads that you don't get any of your work do.

The topics cover everything from the serious, such as questions about the contest, writing suggestions and information on other contests; to the silly, such as bad song lyrics, and posting stupid questions.

This year, I promised myself that I would stay away from the threads as much as possible or, if I went there, I would merely 'lurk' and not comment on any topics.

I failed on both counts.

I tend to visit the threads everyday, though to my credit, I have commented less this year than in previous years. I am lurking more. Viewing and not commenting is made easier because many of my friends from years past are not in the competition this year, so I don't see them commenting much. And I don't know most of the regulars who are commenting this year and they don't know me. I posted an excerpt from my novel this year seeking comments but didn't get any.

This is the fifth year for ABNA and unfortunately something that generally happens later in the contest has started to occur, although the first round eliminations aren't due for more than a week. The problem is negativity.

When you pour your heart and soul into your work and then have it eliminated from competition is often hard to take. Most people accept it quietly, although it hurts. Others do not. There can be whining and crying and lashing out, saying the contest is unfair (which it isn't) or that the contestant was unfairly targeted for elimination (which also doesn't happen). Plus, some people take shots at the non-professional Vine reviewers who act as judges in the second stage of the contest. And the Vine reviewers sometimes fire back.

The problem this year seems that the Vine reviewers are complaining amongst themselves and to some degree on the ABNA threads even BEFORE they have any of the materials to judge. And there is one self-righteous, myopic SOB who takes pride in -- and indeed seems to get a perverse pleasure out of -- writing harsh reviews. Many of the contestants are afraid of him. I am not but I also avoid reading any of the comments on the contest or its contestants that he writes. He is a cancer, vile and ugly. He ruins the contest for many people and I don't understand why Ammy continues to use him.

That is another reason I am trying to stay away from the threads this year. There are 10,000 entries in the contest and there will only be two grand prize winners. They rest of us will eventually face our disappointments. Before that happens, I'd like to keep my dreams of winning alive and not have them killed prematurely by people who take joy in the misery of others.

I hope this doesn't sound like I am whining because I'm not. I have nothing to whine about. I wrote a good novel and wrote a good entry into the contest. Now, it is out of my hands and I will just have to wait and see what happens.

So, I'm going back to lurking, and working on my next novel.

Thanks for reading and you also, get back to writing.

My Muse Can Beat Up Your Muse: The Road to Publication: Part Three

My Muse Can Beat Up Your Muse: The Road to Publication: Part Three: [ This is part 3 of a summary of Spookygirl’s journey toward publication. Use the Progress tag to access all related entries. ] ...

Hello. It's me again. Finally.

I entered the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest again this year. I first entered in 2009 with A MURDEROUS DISPATCH. (I should have kept the original -- and once again -- title, "Death at the Jungle-Bunny Journal.") I didn't make it past the first round.

Last year, I entered A NASTY AFFAIR. and again I should have kept the original -- and once again -- title, "An Untidy Affair." The original title is a better fit for the story. It implies something both sexual and non-sexual.

I made it to the quarterfinal round last year, which was farther than 95 percent of all the entrants. And though I got a reasonably positive review from someone at Publishers Weekly, I failed to advance to the semifinals. Unfortunately, the review was vague and I couldn't get much out of it.

AFFAIR was written during National Novel Writing Month in 2009 and my entry this year, THE LAST TONTINE SURVIVOR, was originally written during NaNoWriMo in 2010. (It's original title was merely, "The Tontine," but this time, I like the change.) It is a good story and I think the writing is strong. I have gotten three critical reads of the manuscript, including an edit. But I have no idea how it will do in the contest.

So much of ABNA comes down to luck, particularly in the first round. I have no idea whether I have any of that. But I have done my part. I have written a good novel with an interesting plot. I have done what I could. Now, I just have to while until the first round results are announced on Feb. 23. The finals will be in late May. I hope I make it that far.

There are two categories in ABNA -- general fiction and young adult. I am entered in general fiction. There is a grand prize winner in each category.

And while I don't believe the best novel always wins, I certainly believe a deserving, well-written novel always wins. And the winner last year in the YA category was a delightful novel called, SPOOKYGIRL, PARANORMAL INVESTIGATOR. And its author is a wonderful woman named Jill Baguchinsky.

Jill just started a blog on what it is like to win ABNA. And if I do things correctly, there should be a link to her blog in this blog posting. You should go check it out. I enjoy reading it and look forward to her next posting.

Well, that's it for now. Thanks for reading and, always, keep writing.

Hello

I know I have been away for months -- since last June. But my focus has been on other things and, frankly, I didn't have a lot to say.

But I am trying to get back on the stick.

Look forward to coming posts, starting with when I entered ABNA this year.

Bye for now. Chat you up again soon.