Here's a Bummer

I don't mind rejection slips. Of course I cherish contracts and awards. Payment is nice. But what about those agents who ask you to send more, then after a week send a note saying they read your work and aren't interested? If you've ever queried agents then you probably received similar letters like mine. They all use the word "enthusiastic." They don't feel enthusiastic, they can't get enthusiastic, you need someone more enthusiastic to represent the work. How enthusiastic can you make a query letter without making it corny? I'm not sending gift cards and smiley faces, just plain white paper and a formatted letter. Can you be enthusiastic and professional at the same time? My letters keep getting more and more enthusiastic. Eventually they will be hysterical. It's hard to keep it real when you send queries, a synopsis, and chapters and they need more to decide if they're interested. All I need is the back cover of a book to figure out if I want to read it or not.

Lots of barracudda off the coast of Destin. I think about life alot when I dive-being a part of a water wormhole where you can forget your humanity. When you've sucked enough compressed air to keep you from worrying about predators it all becomes very surreal. Just another walk in the woods. The barracudda follow you up the line when you're getting out. Sometimes they get really close as if daring you to run. They want to chase you before they take a big bite. Of course I've noticed if you move toward them they take off. Chickens with sharp teeth and scales. I wish literary agents were more like barracudda.

From Florida with Love and Writers Digest

I yelled at my partner when he played games on his cell. We were sitting underneath the umbrella on the beach. I did my snorkling, combed the seaweed out of my hair, and relaxed without pen and paper in hand but I did have July's Writer's Digest stuffed in a bag. Yeah, I pulled it out and read. The pages got wet. I dog-earred the good stuff (great interviews), and then I scolded my much more enthusiastic-to-snorkel-better-half for whipping out his phone to play poker. There's just something wrong about having any form of technology when you're sitting in the beach chair with blue skies and topaz waters.

Tomorrow we have two dives. I've done this before, got certified last year, but all in fresh water. It will be my first salt water dive. We're doing a 90 foot and a ship wreck. Now my companion can't control air traffic while he's on vacation and I shouldn't write. And I'm not. Only I have no doubt there's a niche for a diver's first salt water dive written in first person. As far as this blog, he MADE me bring the laptop so he could watch the stock market and of course I would have worried myself sick not checking e-mails, so it worked out.

Leaving a blog note from Florida is important because I need to post that I did hear back from a literary agent last week and sent them some chapters. No way am I going to get my hopes up, but just in case they call and want to see the whole mauscript, I thought it would be nice to have evidence that I'm not avoiding, and of course, not writing. I'm on vacation.

Pirates of the Caribbean and Agent Angst

Picked up #17 in Master and Commander series I've been reading the past couple of years. Highly recommend it. Saw POTC-Dead's Man Chest- this weekend in a jam packed theater at an early afternoon showing. The beginning of the movie made me panic when I thought they were using the same plot as my manuscript (pardons/privateering in the West Indies). That's what you want to look like-a great big copycat. Fortunately, the entire storyline turned into some never ending Scooby Doo episode. Sucks they didn't wrap it up so it could stand on its own two feet like the Potter movies do. They turned on the house lights during the previews so a bunch of folks could walk in LATE and take up one of the best rows that had been roped off. I thought there was going to be a mutiny and probably would have joined it. So much for opening weekends. The first weekend showing of the last Pirates film next year will be a bloodbath. Mark my words.

I'm going to wait until late August and early September to send out the third batch of queries to literary agents. Why does it have to take so long to slip a nice form letter into an envelope and mail somebody a rejection? Ain't like they have to stamp it. I know everyone likes to joke about being a slave to their mailbox but I'm becoming phobic. I'm really hoping the mometum of these Pirate films will raise more interest in Caribbean fiction. If I don't hear something by the end of the year I am going to have to rethink the whole writing career thing. One good thing--I don't miss freelancing. If I had to eat off of my fiction though, I'd be on food stamps.

Summer Progress

I just sent out my second round of queries to a pool of New York agents. The manuscript is finally done. I've never had a harder time completing a story than I did this one. When you spend so much time, months to years creating people and becoming a part of their lives it is difficult to put them to rest. Some people write their last chapters first. I don't, although I know how the story will end. In this instance I didn't know how the details would work out but I realized that I was going to have to let go of one of my main characters (who I wanted to serialize) and kill him off. There is a quote somewhere that if you don't cry when your writing your novel, at least at the end, it's missing something. I bawled like a broken hearted school girl. It would be a lot better though if I could get this on the market and have fans crying instead. I know it's the best work I've ever done. The literary agent hunting is new for me. It's overwhelming and easy to get discouraged. I'm not a salesman, I'm a storyteller. I guess it's time to learn a new profession.

Just FYI--Pirates of the Caribbean II comes out tomorrow. I've been waiting for this for three years. Almost as much fun as Harry.

Dream, Write, Believe--
d.t.