LouShy's Blog

# of queries read this week: 108
# of partials requested: 1
genre of partial requested: urban fantasy



Dear Authors:

I wasn't really sure what to write today. I fear my thoughts may have already moved on to the holiday weekend (indeed, much of publishing seems to have taken a 4 day weekend), which may possibly be free of query-reading, though I might still end up taking a look at a manuscript or two. But I was thinking earlier (before my thoughts had flown) about how much easier it is to send an electronic query as opposed to a snailmail one -- no visits to the post office (though now one can print stamps from online), no stamps, no SASE, no paper required. But sometimes I wonder if it's made it *too* easy. The number of queries I get that are completely inappropriate for me (e.g. how-to-books, self-help books, etc.) is much higher than it ever used to be when we only had paper submissions to review. Every week I get queries that haven't even been spell-checked. Or are addressed to the wrong person (the one I just read today was emailed to me but the opening of the letter included another agent at another agency, address and all -- oops). Sure, all these things used to happen with snailmail too, but never so frequently, at least in my experience. I don't tend to hold that sort of thing against a person, but I may be more forgiving than some agents on those fronts, so please, slow down -- it really won't take all that long to check the guidelines, proof your query, and make sure all is in order. You never know when even something that small may have an effect. The devil's in the details, as they say.

Happy 4th of July to those of you who celebrate it. I hope you enjoy the company of friends and/or family, and the weather allows for a cook-out or three. To those who aren't celebrating this holiday, i hope you have a good weekend too.

"The middle of [writing] a novel is a state of mind. Strange things happen in it." -- Zadie Smith


"I taught briefly; there I met students who felt that reading while you write is unhealthy. Their idea was it corrupts your voice by influence, and moreover, that reading great literature creates a sense of oppression....To this way of thinking, the sovereignty of one's individuality is the vital thing, and it must be protected at any price, even it means cutting oneself off from that literary echo chamber E.M. Forster described, in which writers speak so helpfully to each other, across time and space.

Each to their own, I suppose. Without that echo chamber, I would never have written a word. I was about fourteen when I heard John Keats in there, and in my mind I formed a bond with him, a bond based on class -- though how archaic that must sound, here in America. I knew he wasn't working-class, exactly, and of course he wasn't black -- but in rough outline his situation felt closer to mine than the other writers I'd come across. He felt none of the entitlement of, say, Virginia Woolf, or Byron, or Pope, or Evelyn Waugh. That was very important to me -- I think you may have to be English to understand how important. To me, Keats offered the possibility of entering writing from a side door, the one marked Apprentices Welcome Here.

Keats went about his work just like an apprentice; he took a kind of M.F.A. of the mind, albeit alone, and for free, in his little house in Hampstead. A suburban, lower-middle-class boy, a few steps removed from the literary scene, he made his own scene out of the books of his library. He never feared influence -- he devoured influences. He wanted to learn from them, even at the risk of their voices swamping his own. And the feeling of apprenticeship never left him; you see it in his early experiments in poetic form, in the letters he wrote to friends expressing his fledgling literary ideas..

The term 'role model' is so odious, but the truth is, it's a very strong writer indeed who gets by without a model kept somewhere in mind. So I think of Keats. Keats slogging away, devouring books, plagiarizing, impersonating, adapting, struggling, growing, writing many poems that made him blush, and then a few that made him proud, learning everything he could from whomever he could find, dead or alive, who might have something useful to teach him."

--Zadie Smith

Predator's Gold by Phillip Reeve
The main premise for this series is a world where we have long since annihilated ourselves, and in order to live on the ruined Earth, the survivors have turned their cities into half tank, half wedding cake monsters that drive around and eat each other. The Unshelved version. This one and Mortal Engines, take place before a seventeen-year gap in the story. This one involves the city of Anchorage trying to find a way into the long-lost Dead Continent, North America. Along the way they are harassed by sub-sea-dwelling, prepubescent pirates and large carnivorous cities. Very exciting. Lots of snow and ice.

Infernal Devices by Phillip Reeve
The third book follows the daughter of the heroes of the first two books as she travels back to the Hunting Grounds (Europe) and into the middle of a war between the Municipal Darwinist cities and the static Anti-Tractionists, who are led by a beloved character resurrected as a half corpse, half machine. Exciting ending and great character growth of the the heroes from the previous two books.

The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde
This is book three in the Thursday Next novels. It's a break from the two before it, which were more hard-boiled mystery style. This one's more like scrambled eggs, as there's not a constant story arch driving the book. Rather, the hero, whom we get to know quite a bit better than we did in the first two, explores for us the infinitely entertaining Bookworld and its policing agents, Jurisfiction. It was tremendously fun.

A Darkling Plain by Phillip Reeve
The final book in the Hungry City Chronicles starts off quickly, picking up the pieces left by Infernal Devices, but moves a little slower than the rest because it's got four disparate plots that take a little too long to weave together, as the reader knows they inevitably will. Despite that, the ending was extremely beautiful and wrapped up the entire series very well. In the end, this book is best read as an extended epilogue to the entire series, rather than a book of its own. I really really liked this series. Recommended to all! Here's a paragraph from the fourth book that almost made me applaud out loud on the bus:

The woman was tall, and very thin, and she carried a long gun on her shoulder. She was dressed in all black: black boots, black breeches, black waistcoat, and a long black duster coat that flew out behind her like black wings when the wind caught it. In a place where everyone went masked or veiled, you might have expected her to wear a black veil too, but she chose to go bareheaded. Her gray hair had been tied back, as if she wanted everyone to see that she was hideous. A terrible scar ran down her face from forehead to jaw, making it look like a portrait that had been furiously crossed out. Her mouth was wrenched sideways in a permanent sneer, her nose was a smashed stump, and her single eye stared out of the wreckage as gray and chill as a winter sea.

Her name was Hester Shaw, and she killed people.

Glorious.

The ladies in the Georgia office occasionally forward me mail when someone sends something there addressed in my name by mistake. Once in a while it's a thank you note or something from a conference or contest I judged where I've only corresponded through email and the person does not have the L.A. office's mailing address. Mostly, however, it is material for the circular file.

Today I received a form letter snail mail query, addressed to the old Knight Agency address in Georgia (we moved into the new office in October, 2005), for a work of nonfiction. Even better, no SASE. The writer included an address and phone number. I shudder to think the postage this individual has wasted on similar pitches to other poorly chosen agents. Or agents who no longer exist, given that they clearly used a very out-of-date source for our contact information. Certainly does not say much about the writer's research skills, which does not bode well for the quality of the book. Had I been remotely interested in the topic, everything else about this query would have turned me off.

I realize I'm preaching to the choir here. Most of my readers are well versed in proper query/submission procedure at this point. I just want to thank you all for your reasoned and thoughtful approaches, and to remind you that these skills already put you ahead of the pack. Sadly, the individual above is still far more common that you'd imagine.

TKA is officially closed for the holiday on Thursday and Friday. Because I'm being appropriately independent, I will be working Thursday, but out of the office Monday and Tuesday of next week for some R&R and reading time. Happy barbecuing and fireworks to all, and please be safe as you celebrate our country's birth. For those of you non-Americans in the crowd, have a lovely week/weekend and go do something fun.

My friend, agent Lucienne Diver, is having a dialogue with her client, David Coe, over on her blog. It starts with their want ads. These were fun, and now I wonder how mine would read....

Their exchange continues here (where David talks about what he gets out of the relationship besides just deals and negotiation) and here (where Lucienne discusses things writers should keep in mind to keep the relationship going strong). And it looks like they are taking questions in comments, so go on over and ask away!

I've been wondering about client interviews myself, but haven't worked my head around how I want to do the format or who to start with (maybe I'd have to do a poll).

Thanks everyone for the comments on commenting yesterday. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who found it ironic that I ended up with so many on that particular post. It was interesting to see what people thought. I don't tend to actually think about comments when I'm writing, so maybe that explains it too.

In any case.... had a curious thing happen. People respond to my responses to queries all the time. Every week there's a handful of "thanks for your time" or "thanks for your feedback." I certainly don't mind those -- nor, do I think they are a requirement. But, when they are courteous, they are pleasant. When they are not, or if they are downright insulting (e.g. you wouldn't know a commercial novel if it walked up and smacked your momma), then.... they are not so nice. But I had a new one happen this week.

I sent my response declining the query on the basis that I was not excited about the idea. I tried to be straightforward but polite. In response, the person sent me their entire manuscript - as an attachment - with the suggestion that I just read it anyway and let them know where I stopped. I was taken aback. I wonder if when they ask a girl if they can buy her a drink, and she says no, do they order a pitcher delivered to the table? Doesn't no still mean no? In any case, I was uncertain what to do, and certainly wasn't going to open an unsolicited attachment. And I suspected if I emailed them back to explain why I wasn't going to read it, they'd just keep after me. So, I ended up deciding that I should just delete it, so I did. What would you have done?

I cannot tell you how excited I am about this:


Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

July 15th? Can't come fast enough.

1

My book Lord of Bones has been released! Into the world! The wide wild world! Or at least into a scattering of bookstores near you!...Or somewhat near you, depending on your actual geographical location!

(One might note that the above link takes you to a publisher page where LOB and accompanying excerpt are positioned above Elizabeth Bear's INK AND STEEL. This pleases me, and not just because one day I intend to steal the author's last name for a fictional female character whom people can refer to, simply, as Bear. Which pleases me also, because I am like that.)

2

My goal for July is not just to make serious tracks on the new novel (the sequel to LORD OF BONES which is called either SOULSTICE or SOULJACKED depending on my mood) but also to blog every day for a month. If just to see what I am capable of unearthing from my head at the end of a day such as this one. It's kind of an experiment in discipline (and possibly sanity as well, but we won't really go there).

I'm dealing with the issue of just where, exactly, to exercise this new steel-like sense of discipline. Home is no longer -- and hasn't been for a long time -- a reliable consistent place in which to get work done. It occurred to me today that I have this fantasy of leaving the house every morning like a regular responsible person merrily contributing to society and zooming off to my dream office (which has somehow in recent months morphed into a kind of modern luxury guesthouse with sprawling pillow-laden bed on which to take leisurely naps, and I realize this doesn't speak well of that steel-like sense of discipline, but nevermind). Yet I also have this fantasy of writing a novel set in westside LA at various places all around LA -- an outdoor cafe in West Hollywood one morning, a library in Beverly Hills the next, a stylish hotel lobby in Santa Monica the next, a restaurant rooftop patio downtown...you get the idea...one idea being that I would somehow absorb through sight and sound a new deeper knowledge of this colorful postmodern and rather theatre-of-the-absurd kind of city.

And then it (finally) occurred to me that the wish for stability and routine on the one hand and variety, freedom and change on the other don't exactly go together like peanut butter and chocolate in those old Reese's Pieces commercials*. So now I'm trying to strike a balance between the two...as well as a much better balance between the need for solitude and need to be around people (even if it's just being around them without actually talking to any of them). To work some structure and routine into my days more conducive to prolific writing while still having places to fall back on in case my day (or my mood) abruptly takes me in the literal opposite direction. Not to mention, this is a city where falling an hour behind schedule can put you in a rush-hour traffic jam that suddenly has you writing at the Starbucks off Sunset in Brentwood instead of the (maybe not so modern or luxurious yet still very charming) guesthouse off Sunset in Bel Air.

Because in case you haven't heard, traffic here can really suck.





*"Your chocolate got in my peanut butter!" "Your peanut butter got in my chocolate!" And why the hell am I remembering this?

edited to add that one Jeff P. has corrected me in the comments below that it was not, indeed, the Reese's Pieces candy of which I was truly speaking, but the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. An important distinction. Thank you, Jeff.

housematehorror
Horror stories from the world of shared living spaces. EEK!

http://www.nikiburnham.com/2008/07/stuff-to-win-places-to-go-and-important.html

Wanna win a book? Or five? Who doesn't?! Check out this month's Grab Bag of Books Giveaway on TeenReads.com :


Yep, that's a copy of Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, which contains my novella, Last Stand. If you don't have your own copy yet, enter for a chance to win it (and some other wonderful reads!)

In the meantime, my calendar is filling with events. If there's one near you, please come and see me! Here's the official list (with more updates coming soon, so stay tuned!):

Tuesday, July 15, 6:30 - 8:30 p.m.
New Britain Public Library, 20 High Street, New Britain, CT.
I will be appearing at the library to discuss how a book makes it from a writer's laptop to a bookstore shelf, and to answer any and all of your questions. (Okay, maybe not ALL questions. For instance, not about my weight. Or about that time in ninth grade when I had to hide a pair of underwear in the trash--long story. But other questions...fire away!)

Wednesday, July 30, 5:30-7:30 p.m.
Romance Writers of America Annual Literacy Autographing, San Francisco Marriott, San Francisco, CA.
I'll be signing books alongside 450 other authors, with all the proceeds of the sales going to literacy charities. If you're in the San Francisco area, this is a great chance to meet and talk to me (and many other fantastic authors, such as Terri Clark, Lynda Sandoval, and Alyson Noël!)

Friday, October 17, 6:30 - 8:30 p.m.
Henry Waldinger Memorial Library, 60 Verona Place, Valley Stream, NY (Long Island).
What would you ask an author if you had the chance? I will be meeting with the library's Mother/Daughter Book Club for a fun night of Q & A about my books, with a focus on Goddess Games.

Finally, some important info for writers: for whatever reason, over the last few weeks, I've gotten a TON of requests from readers/aspiring writers who want me to read their work, give their name to my agent, find them a publisher, etc. Though I'm honored that you trust me with your work, here's the thing: for a lot of boring (but important) legal reasons, I can't read your manuscripts. If you send one to me, I have to delete it unread. Plus, even if there weren't legal reasons preventing me from reading your work, if I started saying yes to one request I'd feel like I needed to say yes to all requests, which would leave me no time at all to write my own stuff. SO...please don't send me your novel-in-progress, or ask me if I will send it to my agent or editor. However, I don't want to leave you adrift! If you are an aspiring writer, I encourage you to check out the Frequently Asked Questions page on my website. There's a lot of info there to help you. Also, consider finding a few other writers and forming a critique group. Not to tear apart each other's projects, but to be give constructive criticism in a supportive atmosphere. A lot of writers find critique groups to be useful in their careers. You might find one useful, as well.

So.... this post of a video got 16 comments, and this post which was all "thinky" (or at least attempting to be) about art vs commerce, got 4 (the most recent from mcurry and quite "thinky" itself). Now, with over 1000 readers currently "friending" this blog, and who knows how many non-LJ people stopping by* -- these are hardly a representative sampling to draw scientific conclusions from as the percentage is far too small. But it would seem to indicate that a 30-second post gets 4 times as much attention as an essay. Is this a reflection on the worth of those posts? I'm guessing not, but it does make one ponder where one should spend one's efforts. Not that I'm trolling for comments. I just find it curious.

And now that I've pointed out mcurry's comment, people should go argue with him. Or agree with him, if they must. *g*

*Just in case anyone wasn't sure, you can make a comment whether you are on LJ or not -- they get screened but I go through and authorize them frequently.

Now available: Elizabeth Bear's Ink and Steel

Read a sample: Prologue | act i, scene 1

"Elizabeth I rules England in the "iron world" of humanity; the other realm, of Faerie, claims Queen Mab as monarch. Both worlds exist in symbiosis, but each world is threatened by treachery from within. When Elizabeth's personal spy, poet and playwright Christopher Marlowe, is murdered, his ability to weave sustaining magics into his plays is lost. His replacement, rival William Shakespeare, possesses talent but lacks magic. In order to save England, Faerie intervenes, raising Marlowe as Mab's servant -- and Shakespeare's teacher. The latest installment in Bear's historical fantasy series featuring an Earth infused with magic as well as machinery both explores the fertile literary movements of the Elizabethan era and reveals the origins of the Promethean age. The author's mastery of period detail and her ability to interweave literature and politics while bringing to life some of history's most beloved and problematic characters make this a welcome addition to any library." -- Library Journal

Novels of the Promethean Age:
Blood and Iron (June 2006)
Whiskey and Water (July 2007)
Ink and Steel (July 2008)
Hell and Earth (August 2008)

Yay for The Stratford Man! I still remember the box (with the sheep drawn on it) that held the version of this that has become the two volume set being released this summer. Many incarnations later -- long may she reign....

Sharon Stone is really good with kids.

Or to be more specific, she was really good with *my* kid when we met her last night. She was showing E, me and the kid in question (Griffin, a precocious and bossy age 4) around a property in the hills* (in order to respect the various privacies involved, I won't go into details as to how this rather unique situation came about). She kept telling Griffin she had "surprises" for him, dropping her voice to a whisper as if they were co-conspirators. He took to her right away -- adored her -- as she introduced him to different elements of the property (a statue of a fawn glimpsed through the bushes, a stalk of lilac, an untamed rose garden, a bed of mint, a private little sitting area high up in the trees off a rock-lined stream). Excited and intrigued by it all, and of course totally oblivious to the fact that he was dealing with one of the last real movie stars to emerge when real movie stars were still possible, Griffin kept asking her "Do you have another surprise for me? Is there another surprise for me?" while his mother knelt beside him and urged him to be patient and polite and let Sharon talk to the grown-ups. Sharon, used to little boys of her own -- and suggesting we get together for playdates, like any other Beverly Hills mom -- was unfazed.

The thing that's so interesting -- or that I find interesting -- about seeing celebrities in the flesh is measuring the discrepancy between their screen selves and their real selves; how the latter can rarely live up to the former; always a kind of statement about fantasy and artifice and our hunger for these things, and how some people just have the kind of features that look better in photographs and film than real life. (Example: one night at Villa I sidled up to the bar and made eye contact with the dark-eyed dark-haired man beside me who seemed open to a little introductory chit-chat. He looks like Colin Farrell, I thought, except he's not hot enough to be Colin Farrell, since he was kind of short with a soft, pudgy look. I blew him off in the way you do when you quickly signal to someone Nope, nothing here, don't even bother trying and didn't think about it again until I saw a picture of the very same dude coming out of Villa on perezhilton.com and realized that it actually was, of course, Colin Farrell.**

And even when someone does look exactly like himself (or herself) -- I saw Jonathan Rhys-Meyers at Villa, and since I'm a big fan of the HBO series The Tudors and the excellent movie Match Point his presence in my proximity did not go unnoticed, and he did indeed look as if he'd stepped straight from my TV screen and into a contemporary casual outfit*** -- they still seem a little lessened by reality. Sure, they're above-average attractive, but this is westside LA, where the person taking your order or showing up on your doorstep to deliver your whycook order**** is likely to be dropdead gorgeous and you're so used to it and jaded by it that you barely even give a second look. In fact, I always wonder if that faint tinge of hustle and desperation that hangs in the LA air like its own kind of smog has to do with all the people who grew up attractive and got singled out for their looks in smalltown USA or wherever it is they came from -- places where a tall thin unusually attractive person might be granted a kind of weird pseudocelebrity-like status just by virtue of being a little bit like a freak -- and then came to LA to "make it" only to discover that they're actually not as tall/thin/hot as that smalltown had led them to believe and so what the hell do they do now when it appears that other factors -- talent, for example, and maybe even some education and IQ -- might be required if they're to distinguish themselves from the rest of the beautiful herd?

But I digress, because I was talking about Sharon Stone, and she actually does not ( Read more... )

Jonathan Karp is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Twelve, an imprint within the Hachette Book Group. Twelve is an interesting imprint experiment because it acquires and publishes only one book a month. And it has an assigned publicist working on just that one book each month. (See this February 2008 NPR article for more on their individual approach.) Most editors I know handle several titles per month, some of them inherited from editors who have moved on to other houses or other careers. It really makes you think about what kind of attention each book gets. And how incredibly competitive it must be to get on Karp's list.

In any case, Karp says in the article, Turning the Page on the Disposable Book (Washington Post)
"Like most publishers, I want multitudes of readers to buy our books. Moreover, authors prefer publishers who believe in the broad appeal of their work and are committed to selling as many copies as possible. Most authors want their work to be accessible to a typical educated reader, so the question really isn't whether the work is highbrow or lowbrow or appeals to the masses or the elites; the question is whether the book is expedient or built to last. Are we going for the quick score or enduring value? Too often, we (publishers and authors) are driven by the same concerns as any commercial enterprise: We are manufacturing products for the moment."

The article goes on to discuss the options available to publishers to meet the bottom line, and show a profit, which, as a business, they must necessarily do. But the outlook isn't always pretty because it can result in books driven by consumption rather than by the artistic endeavor. That's not to say that some books don't satisfy both. But it can become a struggle to balance quality with expediency, as authors who are pushed to produce at least one book per year know. The compromises can be unsatsifying, particularly when each author generates their best work at varying rates of speed and levels of revision.

This art vs. commerce question is also a quandary I face myself when considering books to represent. When faced with the oft-asked question: "What are you looking for?", I feel I must reply: "Something I love.... and something I can sell." Because without the latter, neither I nor the author can pay the mortgage, no matter how much of a fangirl I am. Nevertheless, here I sit, reading books looking for the love, and hoping that the sale won't be far behind. And, yes, there is currently a book on my list that I took on for the love and knew that it would be a challenge to sell. Luckily, I currently have the option to work on it, whether it takes me three months or three years, but not everyone is afforded that luxury.

dwseason4
A journal where the alternative fourth season of the TV show Doctor Who is being written.

lol_comics
Keep youself smiling at the little things with some funny comics.

bikes
A community for everyone who loves bicycles, motorbikes, and more.

http://www.nikiburnham.com/2008/06/design-star.html

Generally, I take time off from television in the summer. However, Sundays are now TV nights for me. And I mean that in the sense of, "Nobody bug me while I'm watching this show or I will go ballistic!"

I'm completely addicted to HGTV's Design Star. Anyone else been watching it? (If not, you can jump in anytime. It's not a show where you have to struggle to figure out what's happening.) It's totally feeding my television addiction now that my laugh-out-loud shows (Ugly Betty, Boston Legal, Dirty Sexy Money and 30 Rock) are on summer hiatus.

Here's the gist: A bunch of aspiring interior designers are given projects, a budget, and a deadline. (Writers: try to imagine what you'd do if given 30 hours, a laptop, and a writing parameter such as, "Give us a story about green." That's essentially the task facing the competitors on Design Star.) They come up with some phenomenal work. For anyone in the creative arts, or anyone who's simply interested in making their home/apartment/dorm room fantastic on a tight budget, it's inspiring.

The judges--fashion designer Cynthia Rowley, interior designer Vern Yip, and InStyle Magazine editor Martha McCully--go over the pros and cons of each person's work, and each week one designer is eliminated. The last person standing gets a phenomenal prize: a spread in InStyle Magazine AND their own show on HGTV. How cool is that?! The season one winner was David Bromstad (now host of HGTV's Color Splash.) Season Two's winner was Kim Myles (now host of Myles of Style.) Both were at or near the top of my "faves" lists those seasons. I don't have a fave contestant on season three...yet. But I do hope Tracee's out soon. (Yep, there's someone I DON'T want to win, mostly because I know I wouldn't watch her if she had a show on HGTV. How sad is that?)

Tune in tonight on HGTV. If you have even a tiny bit of interest in design, you'll love this show.