Monthly Archives: February 2010

A Crisis of Major Proportions

I’ve done a 180 in my publishing plan for ORIGIN: Book of Truth.   All the offers for representation aren’t pouring in from Literary Agents all over the world — as my fabulously confident ego had promised.  

In addition to writing the novel itself, in order to ‘pitch’ to an agent you need to write yourself a neat, concise and killer query letter just to get their attention.  Well, how difficult could that be?  I mean, you just wrote an entire novel, right?  Umm, yeah.  After a disturbing number of “thanks, but no thanks” letters in my email inbox, I decided to throw the letter into an author’s ‘show your work’ forum for feedback and critiquing.  I joked that I wanted them to have at ‘er with make-me-cry cruelty — only they didn’t get the joke part.  These folks let me have it with a no-holds barred attack.  They were saying things like “vague” and “wordy” and I took each like a bullet in the chest.  Wordy?  Me?  Pffft… impossible. 

After an hour or two curled up in the fetal position, I decided to engage these folks — take their feedback — and turn it into something positive to fix the query and make it work for me — instead of the ‘against me’ plan I had already implemented on my own.  So, a simpler, more informative (and less wordy) re-write of the query letter is on task for the day. 

In addition to the total re-write of my pitch, it was mentioned that I may want to consider changing the fiction genre from Adult to YA.  Bigger audience, more literary agents, and an easier market to break in to.  I, clearly, have no idea what I’m doing — so, why not?  I’m going to drop my protagonist’s age a couple of years and clean up one  — slightly spicy — scene in the rain.  ::cough::

And there’s more, it was also suggested that I send other work out for publishing in literary journals, and the like, in order to gain more pulishing credits.  Apparently, nobody cares if you’re newspaper or magazine published, but if you’re in a literary journal — hey, you’re somebody.  I dug through my old trunk-of-doom and found a plethora of material to send out.  SO – literary journal success here I come!  And maybe a children’s picture book to boot!

Fingers crossed in I-think-I-can positive affirmation!  Boy, am I ever going to laugh when my fabulous novelist life starts.

~uberscribbler

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If you can’t live without me… why aren’t you dead yet?

Punctuation gets a bad rap these days.  There is little concern for the art and mastery of grammar in an acronym-texting world.  We don’t even realize how much we are missing.  There are some of us who break out in the sweats when we see a sign in a storefront with incorrect grammar or a wayward apostrophe dangling dangerously off a newspaper headline.  There are even those of us — in that select group — who sneak about at night with permanent marker stained on our fingertips, creeping through the city restoring the balance of commas everywhere.  Proper punctuation is just good manners and truly good manners are invisible.  As Lynne Truss wrote so freely, they ease the way for others, without drawing the attention to themselves.  How many friendships and relationships have been broken due to fundamental flaws in correct punctuation? Take this letter for example – written to Jack — from Jill, with an obvious loving message.

Dear John, I want a man who knows what love is all about.  You are generous, kind, thoughtful.  People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior.  You have ruined me for other men.  I yearn for you.  I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart.  I can be forever happy — will you let me be yours? Jill

Now, read the letter again littered with marvellously mispunctuated abuse.

Dear Jack, I want a man who knows what love is.  All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you.  Admit to being useless and inferior.  You have ruined me.  For other men I yearn!  For you I have no feelings whatsoever.  When we’re apart I can be forever happy.  Will you let me be? Yours, Jill

Jack is certainly getting an earful.  Things could have ended quite differently for Jill, if she hadn’t been an indifferent and ignorant punctuation sinner.  To be fair, there are many people who are interested in the way punctuation can alter the sense of a string of words — although they, much like Jill, likely couldn’t punctuate their way out of a paper bag.

So, what has happened to punctuation?  Why is it so disregarded?  I implore you to re-connect with your inner grammar stickler and make the effort to be more sensible with your semicolon.  When you blink in horror at a badly punctuated sign and are unable to move or regain any sense of perspective after you have been blindsided by an abused apostrophe, take a deep breath, and look around.  Do you see others feeling the same panic and isolation?  Are they rocking on the spot and whispering in a petrified sixth-sense tone that they see dead punctuation?  Be brave.  Reach into your pocket and pull out your black — and well used – Sharpie.  Give in to the righteous urge and restore the assaulted sensibilities of the grammatically forlorn. 

Save yourself.  Save us all.

~uberscribbler

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Sneak Peak for ORIGIN, The Novel!

For 23-year-old Willow Alice Jane, sanity has a very slippery meaning.  She has learned to protect her secrets well, especially the growing intimacy with her “imaginary” friend, Boon.   But Willow has more than one secret buried deep in her subconscious.

After travelling across an ocean and isolating herself on an expansive and rundown estate in England, Willow sets out to enjoy her new life as a reclusive artist.  She has granted herself the freedom to pursue and explore her unconventional romance — in private.  An opportunity of chance allows a Professor at the University to share one of her prized paintings – a painting of Boon – with a dangerous Israel antiquarian, who sets out to find Willow and force her to reveal her secrets – in order to steal them.  Bizarre riddles and mysterious allies have Willow chasing down the rabbit hole, bringing the past to life with alternate tales of historical reference, leading her to an undecipherable 13th century manuscript.  This manuscript holds documented evidence to the truth of the origin of mankind; a truth that has been hidden and kept secret for thousands of years, a truth that will lead her back to Boon.   The truth is worth fighting for.  Willow must fight to save humanity – from itself!  The truth must be uncovered.

Keep checking back for chapter excerpts!

~uberscribbler

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Grief, it’s about me — not you.

When we are not courageous enough to adhere to the convictions of our faith and beliefs, grief allows us the out — to wallow in our own smallness.  It is an accepted voice in our head.   When we grieve a loss of life, we grieve for ourselves.  We feel the loneliness that their absence has given us, and we pity ourselves for that loss.  It is easy to be consumed with grief.  To allow every adversity and loss to seep in and control who we are.  We are born of the earth and understand from very early on that physical life is not forever.  It is a cycle.  It is not for us to decide the nature or timing of the death of that physical life.  It is, after all, only a fleeting blink of a life.   Yet, still — we mourn.

 So, what happens to us when our great faith falters?  When we know our loved ones no longer suffer, and that their energy can never die?  It is our own utter misfortune that consumes us.  It blindsides our faith and pushes us back in the direction of our selfish and limited minds.  It is the inevitability of being human.

 Grief is about ego.  It’s about losing sight of the bigger picture.  It’s about the selfish nature of our existence.  What do we grieve for?  We grieve for ourselves.  The dead are not dead — energy cannot be destroyed.  The spirit of the soul — of the one you love — is pure energy.  Even in their physical absence, those that have moved on reach out to teach us this understanding.  They speak to our souls to campaign for the strength of our faith.    

 “Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow; I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain; I am the fields of ripening grain
I am in the morning hush; I am in the graceful rush.
Of beautiful birds in circling flight, I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom, I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing, I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there.  I do not die.”
                                                            ~Mary Elizabeth Frye

~Uberscribbler

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