Red Fox Room

This is the bar where our writing group El Cajon Boulevard met for the first time around 1998.

Red Fox Room

The New Yorker

Got the nerve to submit Loose to The New Yorker. I don't know why I didn't before. It's not like there's anything to lose. I'm glad I waited, though, because, as usual, I made several small revisions I think are very important.

Oh. I remembered why I didn't submit to them before. A story about kayaking is not really their style. They're The New Yorker.

Writing Platform

Jeremy has come up with my Desolation Ghosts writing platform. He will write Desolation Ghosts in Space and we'll review each other's work. He'll give me the cover blurb, "Meh, it's not terrible" and I'll give him the blurb, "Moments of funniness." He will also use the blurb, "My mom says it's brilliant."

Agent Search Over! Ish

I did it! Between 3/8/21 and now, I queried all 161 agents on my list, 121 of them in a big push I made starting at the end of September this year. It took longer than writing the book and feels like almost as much of an accomplishment. The book doesn't feel like a waste though. I was getting rejections to old queries as I was sending new ones out (I've gotten 50 actual rejections so far and 7 presumed). I couldn't imagine Jack Kerouac doing this weird chore, so I looked up how he got an agent. Apparently he "shambled" in to see Sterling Lord in person and made an impression (but it took 4 years to get a publisher - ouch!). Wonder how many agents he tried. Not to compare myself to a genius like Kerouac. I'd rather make 161 queries than try to sell my book in person! 5 agents are currently closed to queries so I may need to come back to them (Ernie Chiara at Fuse, I'm watching for you), but maybe I'm done. It's short story time. I did not query the agent who said she was a "literal bookworm". And, of course, the very last agent asked for something special and different: a curriculum vitae. I didn't even know what that was. So I spent a couple hours making a resume of my writing (and proofreading) education and experience. Then I forgot to proofread it. It had one error, which I just caught, too late. Gosh, I hope my book is better than the 5 published newspaper articles, 1 published short story, 2 unpublished screenplays, 10 unpublished short stories, 37 poems, and 2 songs I've apparently written. Never added them all up before! A lot of creative types do a lot more and are dead long before, but I'll take it.

Trudging through agent search

New job starts Jan. 3. I'm only through the "L's" in my list of potential agents, but I've queried 113 agents total.

The sequel novel where Kate jumps out of the frying pan of surviving suicidality into the fire of the mental health system - which leads to jail - wants to be written, but I know better than to disappear into creative land when I'm starting a new job. That book will have to wait until the right time.

Miller

 Scored at Easton's and got someone's Miller collection.

Rejection

The problem with streamlining your system so you can get more queries out to potential book agents is you get a lot more rejections! As soon as I see or hear the word "unfortunately" these days, I tip my hat, bow, and say, "Thank you. Good night!" Well, one time I said, "I'm going to hire a cheap lawyer!" but that was because we'd watched that episode of the Three Stooges the night before. It wasn't as funny in real life as it was in the Stooges.