Funny Thing Happened On the Way to Slowing Down ...

Uhhhh - I got seven queries out tonight. Holy damn.

Quick Hello

There is material waiting to get up on the blog, even a perfectly lovely post all written - however, as it would take me a few minutes to hunt down links and format and get everything done, the blog loses out, these days, to query research and other types of networking. I have some burning thoughts even still waiting for formulation, so things aren't dead around here (just ask the 400-500 bots coming to visit every single day now ... and what the heck is that? It's like the time LeVar Burton retweeted me in my stats these days, but it's all Russia and France - and who knew France was so infested with bots?). Just not prioritized. I haven't even been able to comment on Janet Reid's nor Jessica Faust's blogs lately, though I'm at least reading the posts and getting lost in increasingly arcane food in jokes.

Just wanted to say to everyone - don't forget PI DAY tomorrow! 3.14.15 - and celebrate twice, at 9:26 and 9:26, if you're feeling extra fancy. "Mmm. Pie."

Since we don't have time for a real collection post, do enjoy Two Nerdy History Girls' two recent posts: one on using shampoo safely in your own home! and another (with video!) featuring NOT Princess Leia making a new dress from an old.

Okay, ciao for now. See you all soon (bots and all - sigh).

"... ... NEXT!"

I haven't been around here or Twitter a great deal lately, not only because the paying job has involved a major launch this week, of which I was a core part for several areas, but also because it's seemed to me wise to let the page enjoy a little fallow time while I have been querying again.

Not so long ago, I was thinking I might be coming to the end of a resource to find more agents to look into, but more options have cropped up, and I'm quite enjoying the process right now. More than a couple of very interesting agents indeed have bobbed up, the kind I'm surprised and/or kicking myself for not having found sooner; but the nice thing is, it's not like I'm running out of options at a point where I've got a decent head of steam going.

We've also apparently set up a regular schedule of Thursday snowstorms in these parts, and I can't help but feel a bit like Arthur Dent about the whole winter thing in this regard.
But, even coming to appreciate the unique sense of anticipation for change living in a climate with season tends to include, I seem to be hanging in there with the ongoing winter. Whatever is absent, whatever is lacking, in my life, I'm managing to cope with.

Even Thursdays.

Researching Agents

Old as I am, I’m not exceptionally naïve, and yet … every now and then, I find myself a wee stupefied when I inadvertently stumble upon laundry that’s not merely dirty, but borderline offal, and of course being flapped about in public (Teh Intarwebs) by those professing themselves laundresses. Such is the peril of researching agents.

When it comes to actual querying, I’ve become jaded enough that research is not as maximal as it once was. I verify they rep my genre, decide whether or not their website is intolerable, pay attention to submission guidelines, and read any interviews readily available. (The sad, but not to-the-point fact on these latter is that they tend to date to 2011 and earlier in the vast majority of cases; I truly need to ask some agents to let me interview them here.) If they’re not a gross mismatch, and especially if they appear to have some sense of humor, I personalize and query. The entire process can take less than fifteen minutes; but then, at the query stage, I suspect their side of the transaction often occurs far more speedily, though the time it takes for them to read my blood, sweat, and tearjerking introduction can be weeks and even months.

It’s when I get a request I’m going to re-read and more deeply research an agent, and my can that be edifying.

Not about the agent.

But about the kinds of special snowflakes who query them, and the extreme umbrage taken when Mr. or Ms. Agent shirks the obvious moral duty to fall into transports of wonder at the offering before them. It happens at the query stage and beyond, once requests have been too-long ignored, or follow-ups not responded to, and so on. And, yeah, maybe it actually is useful for me as another querier, to learn that someone with whom I may consider a business relationship might be a poor responder or the like.

But when an entire website is built around broadcasting theoretically-polite complaints about rejections which are not (right or wrong) actually outrageous, or when indeed SIX entire websites appear to have been generated to literally campaign against the usefulnes of another site often used as a queriers’ bible (and which is, in fact, littered with twits and bullies, but does contain bits of useful info) … It just gets weird. And distasteful.

I researched Janet Reid once, because I read her site (uh-DUH), and because I was curious the experience people have with her. This led me to one of the six shrill sites screaming about that parenthetical site alluded to above, and some extremely specific and veeeeeerrrrry angry particulars about her relationship there.

If I were researching her as a querying author with no previous experience of her (and, remember, Gossamer is her dollbaby and has become one of the known “mascots” on her blog/FaceBook etc. – he got his “the Editor Cat” sobriquet from her!), this coming as high as it does in the search results might put me off quering her in a trice. If I didn’t read enough to see the sparks flying off the ax being abused on the polishing stone.

As hard as it can be to face 5 rejections in 3 days (and, in case my regular readers have not guessed – finally got a full request today … so nine more to go!): damn. I don’t get the luxury of watching my entire reputation slagged on a regular basis by angry writers who may not have followed the rules, who have an inflated sense of the Sooper Sooper Specialness of their work, who really had their heart a bit too set on Mr. or Ms. Agent, or who are, frankly, batsplat crazy. I sincerely hope never to see six websites built by one angry rejectee, vigorously seeking recruits to the inexplicable cause of b*tching and moaning.

As difficult as it is to face editing and revision with no beta readers, and to allow myself to become paralyzed for a YEAR while facing the dragon with a butterknife: (so far) I’m not being publicly slagged for the temerity of Doing my Job.


The fact is, it’s a necessary truth that there are some slacker agents out there. Just as there are slackers everywhere else. However, I’ll learn more about them during the querying/full-requesting/prospective stage from ARTICLES they have written, interviews, their Publishers Marketplace and Agent Query and so on profiles, and fulsome blogs by clients discussing working with them than I ever can learn about them from whinging, no matter how pretend-politely it is couched.

Or how batsplat crazily it is spewed. Ahem.

From the complaints, all I *really* learn about is the complainers. It’s possible to get some ideas about the way an agent works, and form some questions, but until I have the privilege or trial of working with someone myself, even if only on a first-read (or second-read) basis, it’s not only premature to get het up about that one person they once kept waiting in 2008, but pointblank pointLESS.

It is, too, extremely quick to go “off” and become distasteful. It doesn’t feel helpful and informative, as would “this agent charges reading fees” or expects exclusive consideration before even requesting a full (I’ve seen agents – just within the past week – who “required” exclusive QUERIES, which is … sputter-inducingly ridiculous), or has left agenting, or has never made a sale despite claiming 10 years’ experience …

Reading the complaints of others, about an agent, especially where there is a group dynamic, or at least the clear desire/campaign to create one, gets me all QPF(*) in a big hurry, these days. It feels like research in the wrong order, like I’ve accidentally stumbled into that ever popular millennial quagmire: Doing It Wrong. It kind of feels mean, too – as mean as any given agent must seem to the many, many authors of such complaints, for giving them the HIDEOUSLY PAINFUL AND UNJUST cause to complain.

Erm.

Cart, horse, submit.


(*QPF: quizzical puppy face)

Query Count Count

Okay, after a couple days' worth of rejections, I wanted to reassure myself, and there are still eleven queries live out there. Researching more tonight, and I have a NICE fat list to keep submitting to.

So we've got that going for us ...

Synopses: Begotten, not (re)Made

This actually exemplifies for me *exactly* why synopsis-writing is frustrating. Not only is there a very wide range of quantity requested ("three to five paragraphs" or "one page" or "three pages" and so on), but there are a number of agents I've queried who in fact specify that all characters *must* be mentioned. I know this is a sure way to clunk-ifying a synopsis. And mine is clunked, because I've seen more guidelines instructing the inclusion of characters than not. Like a lot of neurotic pre-published authors - I obey like a spanked puppy.

Then there is the reworking of the clunker for almost every single query, because of all those varying particulars in submission guidelines. It's a bit like the Biblical genealogies; "who really reads The Begats?" But The Begats are canon.

Okay, here at the ranch we're not supposed to post autoerotically about querying hell, but ... these three posts at BookEnds are not just relevant to my authorial audience, but a perfect example to non-writers of what those of us seeking publication have to deal with, and an interesting point on the continuum of madness that is the path to success.

Readers here know I'm not precious about my darlings, and kill 'em off with dispassion - even with elán, often.  It feels good to improve my product, to be honest.

It feels like hell on a stick with cheese to work and rework and deploy and redeploy the tools to shill said product, just to get a professional to say "I'm willing to try selling this."  It's exhausting, and as often as you find advice on how to write The Perfect Synopsis, you find the submission guideline for which TPS is defined by entirely different terms.

Truth be told, I like the three posts above.  BookEnds' blog is a good one, and advice from those professionals you respect is worthwhile by extension of that respect.

The real point is that there is no such thing as TPS.  There is no industry standard, and there's no one single synopsis any author will ever be able to use for every single query.  Just as there is no single query.

This is both the joy and the head-desking frustration of publishing.  For all I complained on that third post at BookEnds:  for me, ultimately, this is just the minor pain that will make the pleasures stand out as they transform into success.  It's the gauntlet, the dues to pay.  And I have the luxury of choosing when to pay.

At post-ten-p.m. on a Thursday night:  I don't have to come up with a toll right now.  I can rest, get through the gate, and make better progress tomorrow.

Processs of Elimination

Unpublished authors, I think, often forget that there are two sides to every slush pile.  On the one hand, agents are out to eliminate queries so they can devote time to those magical manuscripts that will set them afire - and with which they can set the publishing world on fire in turn.

On the other hand, authors (lest we ever forget: the ones who create any and all possible product in the publishing market ... ALL. OF. IT.) have to remember we must eliminate agents, too.  We can't just query 'em all, it's no way to find the right one.

And research can be grueling.

Here's the thing, though.  Sometimes, we can make it easy on ourselves.

I just eliminated an agent from my list because, though they are listed as repping histfic, their own list of what they're looking for included "women's lit, chicklit, lady lit, and lad lit".

Nope.  Not my agent.  Ever.

Also:  gag.  Gag me with a spoon, even.  GAH!

I no more accept that literature needs a pink label on it so my soft little female brain will know I'm allowed to read it than I accept that razors and soaps and automotive accessories and anything sold in a hardware store (.... or, you know, anywhere at all) need to be pink so I'll know my soft little female hands are allowed to use them.

Ya gotta have limits.  When it's 74 degrees outside one day in December, 41 the next, and bouncing back up to 66 the NEXT, it may be said that limits can get as tight as your headbone.

Still, I don't think I'll run squealing back toward this one any time soon.  I'm on the lookout for the agent who reps my genre and maybe gushes about puddy lit too.

Cluster. You Know the Rest.

For the first time in years, I seem to have returned to The Land of the Cluster Migraine.  In some ways, "cluster" can be a misnomer for this type of headache.  When I was working for That One Guy lo these many years ago, I once endured a headache over the course of something like four months (no, it never stopped; no, not even when I was asleep - it just got worse or less-worse, with no cessation whatsoever, for actual months on end).  That ain't a cluster, that's a single nasty monster-ache, over a season or more.

Right now, though, "cluster" is about right - it's letting up from time to time.  But, I believe, my output here has been affected, and I can say for certain my output at Twitter has plummeted.  Perhaps all to the good, that part.

Unfortunately, the output in querying has been constrained as well.  I've never been an email blaster, but I can recall getting three and even six or eight queries out in one night, in the past.

So it is with tempered joy, but at least some satisfaction, I realize I've reached the point where I'm soldiering on through the pain.  Got some good submitting done tonight, and that after a seriously hectic, but rather rewarding (and long) day at work.

Not half bad, considering the unseemly relations I indulged earlier today, with a fist full of NSAIDs.

And so now:  beddy-bye time.  Anything that happens there with Gossamer the Editor Cat is strictly seemly.

#AmQuerying ...

Uuuugghhh.  I can't get the next query out until I revamp that stinking synopsis YET again to tailor it to yet another set of submission guidelines.  I refuse to flub "3-5 paragraphs" to the entire page it is right now, but sometimes (after a 9-hour workday, just for instance), following the rules gets exhausting.

Don't go thinking six or seven revamps is ever enough, either.  Sure, you might have a 3-5 page synopsis, a one-pager, a 3-5 paragraph one, and the query itself, but some agent you crave-crave-crave to impress is going to turn up asking for one seven pages long, or one TWO PARAGRAPHS long.  It's not their fault there's not industry standard!

Or is it ...?  :)

How to Write a Great Query Letter ... What They're Not Saying

There are likely thousands of articles and blog posts out there offering advice on how to get an agent's attention.  There's also no shortage of agents at conferences, explaining what to do/not to do quite passionately.  I've read and listened to my share, and after a while you start to shake your head because either people are stupider, en masse, than you can comfortably contemplate, or it is just far too easy.  Some of the commonest advice boils down thus:

• Address queries to a particular agent - this means, don't send out a blast email query to every agent whose email you could find, without personalizing nor, perhaps, even researching to whom you are sending.  Choose to whom to submit by researching, and know your audience - and create each submission for its recipient.
• Corollary to addressing a particular agent - spell his or her name correctly.  Seriously, getting a name wrong is a pretty basic insult to avoid in an attempt to get someone's professional attention.
• Follow the agency's submissions guidelines - if an agency as a whole or a particular agent prohibits attachments, or specifically says they like to see word count, or requires the use of an electronic form, counting yourself as the Special Snowflake who doesn't have to conform to simple guidelines is a dealbreaker.  Just do it.  It's the low-low price of admission.
• Content - keep it to a page or less.  Don't yammer about the money you're going to make an agent.  Don't cast the movie.  Don't be a braggart, and don't be an apologetic milquetoast either.  Get the synopsis done, introduce yourself as a prospect, include what is required/allowed, and get out.  With THANKS for time, attention, etc.  (Yes:  this kind of thing actually needs to be said.  Sad, isn't it?)
• Mechanics - anything you send represents your writing.  If it's not free of typos, misspellings, outright construction errors, and precious formatting, it will speak very very VERY poorly indeed of your skill in the field of writing.  If it lacks energy and momentum, the assumption will be:  so does your manuscript.  Your main character, setting, and major dramatic question should be clear in your query. (Again, yes:  this kind of thing actually needs to be explained.  Ad naseum, yet.)

A lot of it is professionalism and common sense, and of course - unfortunately - it's all too necessary to advise professionalism and simple common sense, particularly in a field so dominated by dreams.  People as a whole aren't super with the self-awareness thing, and self-awareness is unfortunately very necessary when it comes to successfully presenting that self to others in patent bids for attention.  Know your assets, know your work, be confident without being a tool, go forth, and conquer.

The thing is ...

I have heard, personally, and read countless times:  "If you can get these things right, you WILL GET ATTENTION."  I've heard agents say, if you get these things right, you're ahead of 95% of the queries they see.  It is a song oft-sung, and it has a pleasing melody.

It gives a fat whack of us confidence that that's all there is to the magic.

Then we send out several dozen queries, all conforming to these general standards, and - not at all astonishingly - do not receive 100% requests for full manuscripts.  Incomprehensible!

No.

The unspoken fact is this:  the advice above constitutes only the minimum, and only the beginning.  Regardless of how many times I've heard that properly created queries are an extreme minority - and the "if you get this right you are better than ninety-some percent of the queries we see" figure is an often-heard quote, I can tell you - the full scope of a slush pile still leaves that magical ten, or five, or one percent of acceptable queries at a prodigious figure.  If an agent receives one to two hundred queries every week, you're still up against ten or twenty other competent queries in that week.  And you would be beyond fortunate to find an agent who took on even as many as five new authors in a year.  And not all of those new authors' properties even SELL.

So what they're not telling you is that there is still a lot more than just getting it mechanically, professionally correct.  There's actually making a connection with the agent - sparking their imagination with your story, your character(s).  There's the imperative of how good a story is, how artful your words are, how important it is to tell what you have to tell.  There's the chemistry, simply, of getting the right work in front of the RIGHT agent.

The little-known fact is:  any given agent might be the right one at one time and the wrong one at another.  I've had personal experience with this - an agent I'd love to work with was intrigued with my subject in 2011 - and, indeed, was a guiding force in my revisions.  I got priceless feedback, and significant correspondence with this query.  A year later, revisions done, this same agent was very frank in saying this wasn't his current area of interest, and it may take a very long time for him to read it again - if he ever does.  Even with my work in a better place, the agent himself wasn't in the sweet spot where my work would hit the target for him professionally.  Because it's not about "what I like" with agents, and most of them will tell you that very candidly.  The market can exert its demands, and any human being may be subject to fatigue with repetition.  "I loved Work X so much, but I knew I could not sell it" is hardly an uncommon phrase in agents' blogs.  This business - is a business, it's not always about "liking".

You can't make lightning strike, all you can do is set up a lightning rod and prepare, prepare, prepare.

And, keep the faith.  The work is the thing.  Give it a good vehicle, but it has to speak for itself.

Genres I Don't Want to Know About

Researching agents just now, ran across one (who still doesn't even accept electronic queries - good lord, people) who is especially drawn to "chick lit, lady lit, lad lit" ...

This is a woman I clearly do not wish to work with.

As offensive as the idea of chick-lit is (because, like razors and other perfectly ordinary products, it is necessary to color things pink and/or outright label them For The Ladies so we'll know we're allowed to consume ... and avoid anything else our dainty tiny little brains might not be able to cope with), "lady lit" frankly terrifies me and "lad lit" - given what I know about lad culture - scares the pickles out of my not at all pink little brain.

Holy crud.

Irritating Query Research

I'm going to paraphrase a quote from an agent bio found tonight as I was trying to work on queries.

She wants stories told with an honesty that can only come from the heart of the storyteller. 

Apart from being a bit purply-prosaic, this agent's blurb is maddeningly non-specific as to genres she represents.  It does, however, wax not-at-all-helpful with the encouragement to excite her with the following undefined requirements:  "artful" storytelling, a "unique" voice, and "a new perspective" ...

How is an author supposed to know what this agent finds "new", "unique", or "artful" (something I'd prefer to stay away from, as "artful" is to me a term limited to the coy romantic stylings of young Victorian heroines I find repellant)?  My voice as expressed through Clovis is without question unique - but I get the sense from the schmoop here it would hardly appeal to an agent hunting through her submittors' hearts.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:  we as writers owe a great deal of work and research to our submissions, and gratitude to agents, along with a modicum of respect for submission guidelines.  But agents and agencies owe us the courtesy of *clarity* in those guidelines.

Sheesh.

Process of Elimination

Tonight seems to be one of those nights when query research is definitely more a process of elimination than a big glut of new emails to send out.  Ah, well.  At least I am doing the work.

In other news:  agencies without websites in this day and age drive me BANANAS.  Likewise those who won't accept queries except via dead-tree mail.  *Le sigh*

Agencies not only having no site, but agents whose interviews are available only via blogs viewable BY INVITATION ONLY - or are so old they no longer even exist on Teh Intarwebs ...  Seriously.  Are you kidding me?

Good Advice from Denise Marcil

I just started researching this one, but it looks like I'm probably not a fit for this agency.  Even so, the advice at the link is VERY good to always keep in mind.

Querying

Tonight I put aside the ghost story and the still unorganized researching, and got back on the querying horse again for the first time in TOO long (I realize, by looking at the dates of my most recent submissions).  Amazingly, the first two agencies/agents on the list I have to finish out were query-worthy, which is pretty unusual.  Most often, query research is a process of elimination; so how nice to be able to actually fire off two emails in relatively quick succession!

A good evening, all around.  Even with Spring Forward.

Two Tonight

So far, tonight's list has yielded two agents I will query (but haven't yet; I'm culling first this time).  Not bad, actually - but I'm coming close to the end of my current list, so will need to create another one soon.

With my mom traveling for the holiday, I'd been looking forward to being an orphan and using the time entirely for myself, but plans changed when a neighbor turned out also to be orphaned for the holiday.  Now the two of us will be the three of us, and things are looking a bit more "traditional" - particularly in terms of the $70 worth of groceries I bought today - for the holiday, but it'll be nice.  BUT not productive in the way I'd half anticipated.  Hah - poor, sad me, to have company over Thanksgiving!

At least tonight I'm finding some possibilities.  There's progress in that, too.

Progress, Then Off to Bed

An update for those who (astoundingly!) claim to find this sort of thing interesting (hi, Cute Shoes!) ... querying still going well.  After nothing but eliminations last night, found a good one tonight, and got that off a little while ago.  One query in a night may not be much - perhaps other authors do more at a time - but I start with a pretty large list as a rule, research carefully, and eliminate based on a fairly well-educated-at-this-point set of criteria.

I don't query in hard copy.  This made me feel guilty for a bit - what if I am missing out? - but in this day and age, it's the rarer agency who won't accept electronic than who will, and I look at this as a business consideration.  If even a Luddite such as myself finds email etc. a convenience, the refusal of the practical advance using it represents (not to mention the affront to trees; what a wasteful practice, even with recycling) and the excesses of time it requires are, valid or not, a deal-breaker for me.  We're coming to a time when refusal to go electronic almost looks like pointless posturing - whether to intimidate or just look snobbishly elite - and I don't need that noise.  (Yes, it has occurred to me that sticking with hard copy reduces the slush pile flow.  But I have to draw my personal lines somewhere.  Your lines may vary!)

If an agent's idea of historical fiction is undefined, and their website is predominantly pink and precious, I won't query.  It's my guess you're looking for romance-in-a-corset, and that's great stuff, but I'm writing ahead of the (European) invention of that bodice-heaving accessory, and my work is passionate, not romantic.  It also involves an awful lot of blood and blades ...

... but, muscular as my work may be, I'm also not quite Bernard Cornwell, Conn Iggulden, nor even (and I love this guy!) Ben Kane.  If I think the cover designs for your histfic would work as well for genre video games, I might not query there either.  Or I will be pretty careful about it.

I'm even getting so I want to eliminate agents who don't clearly state their taste profile on their website, or at Agent Query, QueryTracker, or another such clearinghouse listing site.  Yes:  the need to research agents and read interviews is understood; but, if I have to open three or more pages to get to the meat of the matter, you're fatiguing me unnecessarily.  It's almost as wasteful of my time as snail-mail querying.  And wears authors out.  Have a page on your agency website with a blurb for each agent, and IN THAT BLURB please tell me what you want to see - genre, taste preference, authors on your list - I don't care which way you do it, but give me some sort of an indication.  With everything we have to do to appeal to you guys, coyness is just a cruel return on our quest to attract literary (publishing industry) attention.

So only one query out tonight.  For me, given the grumpy exclusions above - that's not a bad night at all.

It doesn't stop me querying extensively.  I just don't blanket-spam every member of the AAR without any consideration.

Interview: Alec Shane

Today is the day!  I emailed the questions to literary agent Alec Shane of Writers House last night, and today I found a shiny new interview in my Inbox.  Everybody - please enjoy ...




DLM:  Before you became a literary agent, you spent some time in Hollywood as an assistant, a martial arts coach, a production assistant, and a stunt man.  What was the moment you decided to leave the West Coast - or did you decide to *come* to the East Coast?

AS:  My time on the West Coast was never a permanent move; I’ve just always been a big proponent of doing as much as you possibly can while you still have the opportunity to do so. Life is all about collecting experiences and having some great stories to tell your grandkids, and that’s mainly what my trip out West was about. When I felt my time in LA had run its course, I came back East, as this is where I’m from originally.


DLM:  Was it really their great-looking building that brought you to Writers House?

AS:  Pretty much. When I first started looking for a job in publishing, I didn’t know anything about the industry. I just kind of started researching based on some of my favorite books, and I eventually found my way to Writers House. It looked exactly how I would expect a literary agency to look, and combined with their wonderful client list and even more wonderful people, it was an easy decision. From the moment I first walked in the door, this is where I knew I wanted to be.


DLM:  It looks like your entire publishing career has been with Writers House, starting as an intern four years ago.  Would you give us a look at the arc you have had there, and what it takes to become an agent?

AS:  I have been very lucky to have Writers House as my first and only publishing job. Like pretty much everything in life, it’s all about being at the right place at the right time, and there just happened to be an assistant position available as I was completing my internship. I interviewed with Jodi Reamer, and I was offered the job. The rest is history, as they say. As for what it takes to become an agent – ask me that question again in about 30 years. I may possibly have an answer for you then.


DLM:  Now that you’re actively building your own list, what genres or topics do you most want to see?

AS:  I grew up on Stephen King, and so I’m a huge horror fan. I also love mysteries, thrillers, and all things sports. On the nonfiction side, I’m always reading interesting biographies or books that look at well-known historical events from a completely different angle. At the end of the day, though, as long as you can make me miss my subway stop or keep me up all night reading – or too scared to turn off the light - I’m yours.


DLM:  Are there stories or subjects you definitely do not want to represent?

AS:  “Definitely” is a strong word; like I said before, if I love the story, then I’m open to it. In general, though, I’m not much of a romance guy. I also don’t really like to read about people with problems that 99% of the world would absolutely kill to have.


DLM:  Aspiring authors have a morass of sometimes-contradictory advice and unwritten rules to navigate in creating queries - some agents insist on having a word count, for instance, while others hate seeing such administrivia.  In terms of content, are there any must-haves or deal-breaking elements to avoid for someone who would like to query you?

AS:  No real deal-breakers, no. But I would advise, for querying me and for your career in general, to know the difference between “breathe” and “breath.” That’s like fingernails on a blackboard to me.


DLM:  What advice or parting thoughts would you like to share with readers - not only aspiring authors, but lovers of literature, history and Trek nerds, or possibly even stunt men wannabes?

AS:  If you don’t love what you are doing, then you need to find something else to do. Life is way too short to be unhappy.

Query Research

I had forgotten how much of querying consists of eliminating options.  Still no actual queries to add to my active spreadsheet!

Columbus Day

Ahhh, a long weekend actually feeling long.  Happy mini-vacation to me!

Friday I don't know what the heck I did, but Saturday was spent meeting dogs.  Dogs, wonderful dogs!  Mom came out with me, and we went to a farm first, where they breed and I believe compete labs.  Boy, purebred labs are HUGE.  Not for me, sadly, though a couple of these kids were total sweethearts to be sure.

Then the adoption stand where ten years ago this month I first met my beautiful, wonderful Siddy-La.  They had a LOT of dogs there, so many adorable animals of many shapes and sizes.  Sadly, EVERY one of them would be bad with cats.  Mom and I did spend a bit of time with one Eliza, who was a nice size, very very sweet indeed, and purty puppy eyes.  We talked with the woman volunteer, who said, no, probably not good with cats.  Then her husband came by, and he said, aw, not true.

Of course, he also said - when he saw a customer coming in the store with a muzzled dog who appeared to be less than happily socialized - "It takes forty-five cents to fix that!" and went on to explain to my mom about a forty-five cent shell and a three-fifty-seven magnum ...

TIP TO ANIMAL ADOPTION AND RESCUE FOUNDATION:  Please do not let this man come to any more of your events.  Hearing a man discuss SHOOTING A DOG at a DOG ADOPTION STAND perhaps undermines your mission.  And goes beyond seriously creepy.  Just sayin'.

Anyway, we took Eliza inside just to *see* how she might respond to a real live cat - and she was perhaps way too interested.  So.

The next adoption stand was out in mom's neck of the burg, and there we met Penelope.  Aww.  Some similarities to my Siddy - much younger than I meant to be looking at, but finishing up her house training, a body just like Lolly's, a way curlier tail, hilariously amazing funky ears, and a wompy lump in the middle of her head where Siddy had a deep groove down the middle.  Got along great with the other dogs, super with a little kid or two, and liked people - but given the likelihood of something else in common with Sid (a strong look of a husky mix), it seemed to me Gossamer might make her a deal breaker.

So we took her inside that store, too, to see how she would react to the cats.

And she had zero response at all.



At this point, I've put in applications for three dogs - two I haven't had the opportunity to meet just yet, but would like to set appointments to see, and Penelope.  One of the two unseen is also part of the same rescue group as Penelope, and I hope to hear from both rescue groups somewhat soon.

Yesterday, I cleaned, and had some of my favorite friends over, ate great pizza, laughed a lot, and just enjoyed.

Today ... ahh, today.  Query research, comfy clothes, a cozy kit, and whatever I want to do.  Rapture!