Meet The New NEIGHbors

Perhaps an update is in order.  We bought a new house and moved in a couple weeks ago.  It's a far cry from South Florida and even farther from Howard and the Nazi Homeowners' Association.  We've got a nice big yard at the end of a cul-de-sac, with only one other house and acres of vacant land on either side of us.  And where we had a freeway in our backyard in Florida, in Michigan we back up to a horse farm.

Well, apparently someone left the horse gate open yesterday, because I looked into my backyard and there were the new neighbors, Dazzle and Diesel, munching my grass.  Not what I was expecting but boy it was exciting.  We met there owner too, who also has four other horses, including Secretariat's grandson.  She promised to teach me to ride.  She also showed me how to lead them home in case it ever happens again, which it did today when Dazzle came by for an encore.

Even more exciting, for this blog, is that I seem to have moved into the middle of a neighborhood feud.  This is a great relief after leaving Howard and the hillbillies in Florida.  Seems the horse lady rode a few feet onto the grass of the other house on the cul-de-sac one time and set off a chain reaction of phone calls to the police, registered letters and angry accusations.

Now, both sets of neighbors seem nice to me, but then, I've never lived anywhere without wacky neighbors, so what should I expect?  Hopefully it makes good fodder and keeps me blogging a bit more regularly.

Agent Kristin Nelson In An Elevator

If by sheer happenstance you find yourself in a hotel which happens to be hosting a writers' conference, and if at that conference there happens to be some of the publishing industries biggest names, and if you happen to be a writer who has queried some of these big-named agents, it would behoove you to prepare for the possibility you might happen upon one of those agents.

Preparation means coming up with some sort of pitch for that once-in-a-career making novel you wrote that no agent without brain damage could pass on.  It means being the salesman you don't think you can be when you have to be without which you are nothing more than another writer who wants to be an author but will never be until you nail down that pitch.  It means whipping out that pitch with no notice and dazzling that super-agent so well they see sparkles for weeks.

Sadly, I didn't come up with this advice before needing it.

So, I'm in Chicago on a layover and there is a writers' conference in the hotel.  By gum, I think, I've crashed these things before.  Remember DragonCon?  Why not do it again?

A quick google turned up a list of attendees, including Super-Agent Kristin Nelson.  Wouldn't it be something to run into her, I thought.  Except that my time was limited.  I have to fly later today, so I looked over the workshops to see what would be the best one to sneak into.  Sadly, none fit my schedule, so I headed down to stroll around.

Well who do you suppose ended up in the elevator with me, but Kristin Nelson?  So, not thinking at all, I introduced myself and told her I'd sent her a query about a kid living on a pirate ship.  She very convincingly acted as though she remembered it, to which I quickly called her bluff.

Brilliant move.  Then I reminded her that she rejected it.  Not in a bitter way, just making conversation.  She laughed and told me not to take it personally, which I didn't and don't.

She had to run.  I had to run.  She remembered my name as we parted.  Classy lady.

But boy did I blow it.  Because when I got back to my computer and looked up the query I'd sent, it wasn't to her, but one of her staff.  Nit picky, I know.  Query one agent, query them all.  But it had been a while.  I should have pitched her the story right there.  I'm sure by the eighth floor she'd've been hooked.  Alas!

The point is I was unprepared.  Well I was never a boy scout, but you never know when you'll need those skills.

Anyone else have a similar stupid story?

The Long And Short Of Nine Months

My son will be nine months old on Sunday.  The quickest nine months of my life.  Prior to his birth was the longest nine months of my life.  I thought he would never get here.  I had no idea who he would be.  Whether he would be a he.  Or a she.  We called him END Baby, to distinguish him from Our Korean, the baby we had hoped (and still hope) to adopt.  The weekly doctor's appointments.  The fears we would lose him.  The slow realization we wouldn't.  And then came the planning and prepping.  Buying baby stuff.  Decorating a nursery.  Arranging time off from work.  Visits from out of town relatives, eager to meet END Baby.  When all that was done came the waiting.  And the waiting.  And the waiting.

And then...

I was a dad.

Now he can pull himself onto his feet and has teeth.
He says Mama and, quite sparingly, Dada.

That was fast.  Too fast.

Lucky 7

Someone out there started a meme.  I saw Erica do it over at Laugh.Write.Play.  I've never done one but what the hell!

Wanna partake?  Go to page 77 of your current manuscript, down to line 7 and post the next 7 lines on your blog.

Here's mine:

Whether or not the so-called Spring Break Senorita is the nun some of these students, some of the boys anyway, have referred to as Sister Very Pretty, the future of this Catholic school, with sagging enrollment, is sure to be a lot more colorful in the coming days.”

The camera lingered on the kids.  As Tony tried to disappear into the crowd, Seymour spied Mike Jeffers.  Tony’s back was to the camera, but it seemed the boys’ eyes locked.  For a moment, but only a moment, Mike wore an expression of fear, hatred and something Seymour did not expect.  Vengeance.  Whoever was responsible, and Mike’s eyes suggested he knew who

Wearing A Strap-On

Every so often I fly around with some goober who thinks he's saving America from terrorists.  Thanks to a giant, collective over-reaction about a decade ago some of these doofuses now carry guns when they fly.  As a result I now have to fear for my life every time I work with one of them.  And I'm not just being Kelly Killjoy either.  A few years ago a John Wayne Wannabe put a hole in the plane when he was fooling around with his gun while at the controls.  That hole could have been in my gut, so I'm less than enthused to have these Silly Sallys strapping one on next to me.

Except most don't actually wear their guns Wyatt Earp-style.  They carry them around in locked cases that I can't even see from my seat, and in some cases I don't even know until day two of the trip when said pilot goes through a different security door from everyone else.  Then I have this conversation:

"Um, weren't you supposed to tell me you had a gun when we started this trip?" I ask.

"Oh, did I forget to mention that?"

And so on.

Well, thank you Mr. Obama.  In an effort to reduce federal spending, there is now a proposal to limit the budget for this ill-conceived program.  Of course the pilot's union is all up in arms (pun intended) and begging our support to keep guns in the cockpit.  They're even soliciting members such as myself to go to Washington to offer testimony.

I'm considering it.  If I could do justice to the image of John Wayne wearing his holster at the controls, which I had the displeasure of seeing not long ago, I could do my part to get rid of these boneheads.

What do you think?  Guns in the cockpit?  Or cocks with guns?

Arrgh! I Been Pirated!

Well damn!

You may recall I wrote a book or two about pirates.  It didn't start out that way though.  My original idea was about a band of pirates so bad at what they did as to be laughable.  The only way to convey it, I believed, was as a stop-motion animated movie in the style of Wallace and Gromit or The Nightmare Before Christmas.

I was convinced it would be a huge hit, bigger than Finding Nemo, which was a huge hit at the time.  Alas, I realized I was not a Hollywood writer and even if I were, I was savvy enough to realize that whatever I wrote would wind its way through massive re-writes, multiple re-writers and the final project would end up looking nothing like my original idea.

So I made it a book instead.  Which has gone through massive re-writes, although with only one writer, but the final product ended up looking nothing like my original idea.

But somehow, my original idea ended up getting made, although not by me.  Which makes me wonder if I wasn't too loose-lipped somewhere down the line and my idea found its way into the ears of the fine people at Aardman Animation Studios, which is set to release The Pirates: Band of Misfits.

To be fair, from what I can tell, they have done it much like I would have, so I can't be too disappointed.  Heck, I'll even watch it with my son when he's old enough to realize Dad once had a good idea someone else made some money off.

Arrgh!

An Eric In The Myst

My old critique group in Florida had a great mix of folks who wrote a variety of things and offered fantastic feedback.  We also had a fellow I'll call Eric.  Eric passed himself off as the real author of the group because he'd had a book published.

The problem with Eric was that he attempted to turn every group meeting into Eric Night.  It may have been subtle at first, but still annoying.  Eventually, he actually suggested we only talk about his writing.  Someone finally let him have it and Eric stopped coming to the group.

My new group in Michigan appears to have its own Eric.  Again the "published" author who makes every critique an opportunity to point out what he did in his "published" book.  He's loud.  And boisterous.  And pretty naive.

I got a chance to look at a query he'd written to a local publisher.  It was pretty bad and subsequently rejected.  New Eric took offense to this rejection, pointing out the great market that exists for his subject matter and if this publisher was any kind of salesman they would have been able to sell thousands of copies.

I was not the first in the group to point out the tried and true, "but if they don't love it themselves," line, but New Eric would have none of it.  He was the expert.  He should be winning Pulitzer Prizes.  He will continue spouting off his greatness and the others in the group will continue licking it up.

I sense my days in this new group are numbered.