Writing news

As mentioned in a couple posts past, we have an agent coming to class to talk about agent-y things. Our writing teacher asked us to send the agent a pre-emptive strike of our sample query letters, as written up weeks ago for a confidence building exercise...a way to help get out into words what we were working on so we could sell our babies with convinction. The agent had agreed to read them, giving us feedback on what agents are looking for. Stuff we eat up in class with fresh pens, clean pads of paper, and fevered intent to get all the arcana we can use.

Well, this morning, I got a reply from the agent.

Here it is (name omitted).

Dear John,

   I find your story line intriguing, but as you know, with fiction, it is all in the telling.  If you would like to, please send me an overview (synopsis) and a representative sampling of the work via e-mail. (Please do not send more than 100 pages of the manuscript, however, and try to break it in a logical place.  I will take a quick look before Tuesday's class.

   Thanks for your query, and feel free to e-mail with any questions.

Just sent the first chapter, synopsis, and a nice, low-on-the-slobbery-buggery thank-you note to Agent X (as she'll be known from now on). Trying to keep calm. It's not a contract. It's not a door open to fame and fortune. It's just an agent who is doing a favor.

But still...there's an agent who wants to read me. Even if I get rejected, it's a wonderful starlight feeling in my heart today. I'm lighter than helium. I'm made of sunshine and I feel as if I can leap tall buildings in a single bound. My life, the one I want, grew a little more real today.

Holy crap.

Big writing news. Coming soon.

Today's Word: Wisp

A flutter of fabric, the fragment of the suicide bomber's shirt. A soft, drifting snowstorm of clothing and hair and flesh, all the size of dandelion feathers.

Deep, calming breaths

Okay, turned in my resume for Nintendo. I know, I know. Said I'd wait until Tuesday, until after the Memorial Day holiday, but my ever-wise wife made rightly concerned sounds about the job opening up May 17, which is a million years ago in terms of volume of applicants. We don't know how many people applied. We also don't know when Nintendo is going to slam down the gates, stopping any new entries from coming in. So...

Drafted up a cover letter and resume, sent only the resume today through Nintendo's nifty resume vacuum, which sucks since I cobbled together a quite righteous cover letter last night...fueled by alternating moments of self-aggrandizing bullshit, raw fear, and a hell-yeah attitude. Oh well, it's practice.

And by the way, if any of you out there applied for the job I did using my blog as a resource, just keep in mind that if you get the job, you owe me some free games. Just sayin'. Right thing to do and all.

So, anyway, sent in the resume. Now, just relaxing. Or I would if my writing dominatrix hadn't sent an e-mail last night asking the class to send in query letters to a local agent (who is coming to speak for the last class). Back I go into my hard drive to find and correct the query letter homework the dominatrix gave back to me weeks ago. It's a thrill to get professional feedback, but it's a sudden lurch up to the edge of the cliff. No more fun and games now. I'm pitching the novel, and it's something I wasn't ready to do until July and the PNWA conference.

Luckily, work today is very light, so I'm working on writing assignments in between my normal office stuff. It looks like I'm typing away at a computer either way. Covert keyboard-fu, away!

Game On

Imagine me hyper-caffeinated and angry as all hell, and you'll get this Gamer Manifesto for the Next Generation.

I don't agree with all of it, but more than once I found myself nodding in agreement.

Today's Word: Speed

It's a bit ironic that One Word entry 747 is speed, when you get the obvious link between transoceanic aircraft and acceleration. But what I think about these days is the talk about better video game consoles and speed. Eye candy, but no story telling.

Meh. Not one of my better efforts up there. Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.

Anyway, some news and two updates. Updates first.

First, I'm working on summing up the second half of the novel these days, along with some more key scenes. Next week is the last class for the program, and I have to say I'm in a lot better shape than I was at the start. I don't think I'm going to go on to the second level, if only because I wince at dropping $2,000 at the deal and I fear I'm entering that cocoon where you only write in class and not on your own.

Second, S (who I mentioned a few posts ago) is doing a lot better, although she had a big debt she has to deal with thanks to her CAT scan. The leading theory for her pain is latent injuries from a car accident a few months ago. She's now seeing a chiropractor, who assured S that her visits will be billed to the auto insurance of the fool who hit her. Even after a couple short appointments, S is feeling less pain and getting better acquainted with a good night's sleep.

And now, the news.

Nintendo of America (which is headquarters a few miles away from yours truly) is seeking a staff writer for a publication. People who have read my ramblings know that a few years ago, I applied to be a copy editor at NoA, and even got in for an interview. I didn't get the job, but I'm not disheartened enough to miss this opportunity. I'm mapping out time for the novel and time for a kick-ass resume and cover letter. Hopefully, I'll have both done by Tuesday. I'll send it in after the Memorial Day holiday and then distract myself with the novel so I don't go mad waiting for my mobile to ring.

And not that I'm pre-emptively sucking up or anything, but I'm groovin' on what Nintendo has in store for next-gen consoles. To me, Sony and Microsoft are too much eye candy/not enough innovation. It's all thug games, movie tie-ins, EA sports, shooters, or RPGs. And while that makes money (and is sometimes fun), it gives gamers who are beyond the golden 16-24 demographic a limited sandbox to play in. While Nintendo has its own sandbox problem with Mario-Zelda-Metroid, there's a funky-cool "What the hell" vibe with the Big N. Animal Crossing, Nintendogs, Electroplanton. Quirky is cool, and I'm growing to love it a lot more than zapping pixels. I have to admire Nintendo for not rushing to mimic Sony or Microsoft in the thug/shooter/"mature" department.

There is one problem I have with the job: It's a position I've seen crop up a few times in the past 18 months, making me wonder if there's something wrong with it. Something to keep an eye on.

When Navel Gazing Gazes Upon Its Own Navel

Or something ridiculous like that.

Great. Now, the blogs have become high school, with cliques and cool kids and everything.

There's one thing to be said for blogrolling or having Blogs of Note on the rail of your site, but this whole "People" magazine approach to the blogsophere (or blogtopia or whatever) makes me feel as if the Heathers are running the show.

One thing that does strike me about reading the A-list is most of the bodies up there come from either a) a strong, well-trafficked poli-blog, b) previous prominence in the sci-fi/fantasy world (Neil Gaiman, Wil Wheaton) or c) a mish-mash of people who blog about other blogs or have had a career in the public eye before blogging (James Wolcott, Andrew Sullivan).

I think I'd like it better if there were different categories (personal, political, arts, sports, tech) instead of an e-celebrity model. What I see here is the akin to looking at a table at a school reunion. You recognize the names, but have little recall of who they are.

Just repeat to yourself 'it's just a film...'

"...I should really just relax."

Today's Word: Match

The identical snowflake came down onto the clone's eyelashes, and in that moment of Zen brought to him by the Copycat Cola, he realized everyone was unique, even the man standing next to him in the mirror.

Off to class in 10 minutes. In other news, I'm about to embark on a tilt at a long-past windmill. More soon.

Impromptu novel soundtrack

And in the death
As the last few corpses lay rotting on the slimy
thoroughfare
The shutters lifted in inches in Temperance Building
High on Poacher's Hill
And red, mutant eyes gaze down on Hunger City
No more big wheels

Fleas the size of rats sucked on rats the size of cats
And ten thousand peoploids split into small tribes
Coverting the highest of the sterile skyscrapers
Like packs of dogs assaulting the glass fronts of Love-Me Avenue
Ripping and rewrapping mink and shiny silver fox, now legwarmers
Family badge of sapphire and cracked emerald
Any day now
The Year of the Diamond Dogs

"This ain't Rock'n'Roll
This is Genocide"


David Bowie
"Future Legends"

Today's Word: Hidden

The little pieces she put in the small velvet box, the fragments of her father who came to her in a cloud of loathing and whiskey. She took the pictures and notes, everything he gave her from prison, and tore them up, placed them in the box, and buried it all.

Burning Blurs

My iPod is not long for this world. Contracted some kind of gadget venereal disease, causing an acrid brown-yellow discharge from its USB port. The Dismantling Nerd Ninjas at Apple have called me, and they want my Shuffle to experiment on, presumably in darkened chambers where much Bwahahahaha-ing happens. I shall bid my little gumpack-sized distracter a final farewell in a couple days, when I get the SoftPak from Apple for the return shipment. Alas, it was a winter romance that faded too fast as spring crept up on us, causing my sweet to cry toxic tears.

So, I'm going au naturalle into the gym/office/world, having to listen to everyone else's lives via cell phone-fragments and those who use their outside voices inside.

In other news, the Sci-Fi Dystopia-rama conference Saturday was alternatively interesting and depressing. The first panel, a quartet of sci-fi writers who think that civilization as we know it is well and truly boned. None of them clever to envision a solution to the problem, just making cash out of visions of the machine grinding to a halt. But just when was the world ever really safe, free of danger of some kind? And maybe, just maybe, it's a sign that The Way Things Are shouldn't be the way things will go in the future, and that's just fine. Maybe we do need a little push to head in the right path. Maybe pricey oil will cause a new science to develop cheap, clean power. In general, the audience (outnumbering the panel by a good 5-to-1) believes that life will go on, and well as there are good times and dark times, and that stories will make us aware of these problems. The ideas that dystopias bring to mind do seep into public consciousness (see Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring."). What's needed are writers to take the next step in showing what can be done, or that hope is all you need (See Butler, Octavia).

The second panel was far better. An actual flesh-and-blood scientist stepping up to talk about the wonders of science, and how not all hope is lost when it comes to the natural world. A strong advocate of real science, horrified by the flim-flam men peddling Intelligent Design. Imagine a blend of Gandalf, Arundhati Roy, that cool uncle who knew how to fix things, and the best science teacher you ever wanted but never got. He was joined by a sci-fi author who made a far more enjoyable, accessible panel than the Sulking Four who preceded.

Nearly ran out of pages to take notes. So much inspiration for the novel and no idea where to put it. My brain is in overload. I know what Patrick feels like once in a while, concepts roiling in my mind, jumping out of my grasp as I reach for them in their perfect, solid-steel state. The University Street Fair Sunday gave me an idea for Rayelle's daily life. I'm trying to imagine summer fair crowds like that, but drugged and vicious and times one hundred.

I'm not happy about what I'm turning in for class on Tuesday. I got the minimal stuff done, but I'm not proud of it. Summarized the first half of the novel, which is my high ground for the week. In eight days, class will be over. I have done so much writing, and covered so much literary real estate. I'm glad to have been in the program for nine months, but it feels as if I haven't given birth yet.

By the way, the "Revenge of the Sith" video game is a must-avoid.