A Funny Thing Happened on the Way from the Forums.

I allude, of course, to the 1962 Broadway masterpiece. The book is credited to Larry Gelbart and Burt Shevelove, but for my money, the show wouldn't have gotten off the ground without Stephen Sondheim's score and lyrics.

As sung by Zero Mostel.

Once called "nothing but a belch of a man" by my ever-derisive drama teacher, Zero took the role of Pseudolus, turned down by Phil Silvers and Milton Berle, and worked his big, fat, sweaty magic with it. He's occasionally out of tune, his dynamics lack any sense of subtlety and he's frequently out of breath. It's incredible. If you ever come across the soundtrack, give it a chance. But steer clear of the '66 film version, which did away with half the songs and fell all over itself trying to look like an episode of "The Monkees."

But I digress.

Just when I thought I was ready to forge ahead with my query, rejection after rejection proved me wrong. Having exhausted my friends, family and writers' group, I did what any writer would do under the circumstances: I turned to complete strangers. I used an assortment of forums and posted the current version of my query there and invited feedback. The comments came fast and furious. Over a week or two, I re-shaped it into something meeting with most people's approval--and keep in mind, these are, for the most part, people like me, not authors with dozens of novels to their name or veteran literary agents. But they can step back and be objective about it where I can't.

It’s hard enough being Michelangelo’s son. But find out you’re Michelangelo’s adopted son and you might as well chuck the chisel—genetically, you’re hosed. That’s how Dorsey Duquesne feels, slogging away on a guitar in the shadow of his saxophone legend father. He discovers why his tunes consistently blow when his emotionally distant mother breaks a marriage-long pact on the eve of her husband’s funeral and reveals Dorsey was “acquired” as an infant. His known world yanked out from under him, Dorsey becomes obsessed with the life he was denied.

Clinging to an anonymous letter and a shoebox of his father’s old demo tapes, he chips away at the secrets surrounding his so-called adoption. Answers arrive in the form of a strudel-baking redhead claiming to be his real mother. She sweet-talks her way into Dorsey's heart, family and wallet, but her charm masks a darker agenda. With the help of a one-eyed detective and a disabled medieval warfare fanatic, Dorsey overcomes his identity crisis while his new "mom" schemes to put him in the poor house—and in the ground.

With their help, I sent out this new, improved query and have already received a request for three chaps and another for the full MS. I drink to you, my faceless brethren.

And I link to you, too--see right.

Stop the Insanity.

What is insanity? According to Albert Einstein, it's defined as repeating the same action over and over again, while expecting a different result. What are we to expect by electing John McCain, a man who, in his own words, plans to continue the policies of the least popular president of my lifetime? Something different? I invite you to explain to me how.

All my life, I've avoided politics, finding it an alternately repugnant and boring universe. But when I saw the Republicans of the Corn last night drooling over Sarah Palin, I had to say something. To quote someone else who saw us through some hard times, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." If we let fear motivate who leads the country, we're no better than the residents of places who "vote" with guns to their heads. The way I see it, there are only two reasons to rally behind McCain and put him in office: fear or ignorance. I would say "stupidity," but ignorance allows for those who are simply unaware of the bigger picture. Fear, I've already touched on: these are the people who believe that because of McCain's military experience, he will make our country safer. Bush, of course, has no military experience, but he's "credited" with protecting us from a 9/11-type disaster.

The ignorant are those who must think the country's still in great shape. Those 30% (can it be that few? It looked like a lot more on TV last night) who think Bush's policies are the way to go for another 4-8 years. They must be ignorant, because informed or aware people couldn't look the facts of our current situation in the face and claim they're anything but bleak. Gas prices, the economy in general, housing, inflation, unemployment, the national debt, the environment, our international reputation: in the toilet across the board. The war is another matter altogether. Whether you supported it, were against it, believe in "the surge" or not, how has it helped you and your family? How has it helped our country? Oil prices are at record highs, the bill for the war has crippled our military and budget and while terrorists have been driven from Iraq, they've merely taken refuge in the bordering countries, including the one that attacked us in the first place--remember Afghanistan? Do you really think Iraq can exist as an independent, democratic nation, surrounded by tribal dictatorships? Really?

Lastly, may I say that it is possible to look beyond your party for the candidate who represents the greatest potential for your future? Ignore the fact that your party "has always been" the one that's stood for religion, gun control and the right to life. That's the fear creeping up again. What I saw last night was unity, all right, but unity based in fear. Unity against the strange and unknown. Not unity towards a common goal, which shoudl be improving this country and restoring our prosperity and dignity. As recently as last month, George Bush said "America has no problems." McCain agrees. Do you?

This country was founded by brilliant, open-minded people who realized the policies of those who came before them were destructive and oppressive. Our country has gone on to be the envy of the world and our democratic system, while cribbed from a 2000-year-old model, has stood the test of time. When you think about it, we have a pretty good track record.

Let's not be the country the rest of the world thinks we are. We can do better.

What do you do with a completed novel?

Even more useless than a B.A. in English is the unread novel. Now that it's done, what should I do? Celebrate? I kind of did already. I went for a run and listened to "When I Write the Book" on my iPod, fueled by adrenaline the entire way. Once that was out of the way, I immediately dove into the second draft. I know everyone says "take some time, put it in a drawer," etc. I will, eventually, but while the thing is still fresh in my system, I wanted to go back to the very beginning--for the first time--and see if anything stood out, good or bad. It's only now that I'm beginning to get a feel for the whole scope of the thing, like the sculptor who doesn't look at his creation until he's done, and then steps back for a once-over. And, most likely, a do-over.

I've been hammering away at my query, if only to be writing something that isn't the book itself. I'm also vascillating between titles. I started out with "Mother Sucker," then tried on "Another Mother" and "World's Greatest Mom." Lately, I've been kicking around "Worst. Mom. Ever." I know it's "contemporary," but as one of my friends says, maybe not in a good way. Any opinions? Here's the hook in a nutshell:

When a successful software mogul discovers, on the eve of his father’s funeral in coastal North Carolina, that he was secretly adopted forty years ago in a backroom deal in Germany, he is forced to grow up and get some real problems. Before his emotional dust settles, two women are battling for his affection—both claiming to be his mother. Feeling betrayed, he traces the truth back to a small Bavarian town, unaware that in his shadow lurks a figure wishing he’d never been born.

I don't know that this quite captures the "Carl Hiaasen" aspect of the book or sets a reader up for something offbeat, but it's concise, and everything I read about queries says "less is more."

Writer's group tonight. They've got the final seven chapters--we'll see how it goes.

Expanding the Cult

The Church of Buffett has two new disciples. I took my sons to their first concert Saturday and it couldn't have been a more perfect indoctrination. We were one of maybe 20 families in the "family section" of the lawn (no alcohol/no smoking), which had room for at least 50 more blankets. Guess the other concertgoers were determined to drink and smoke no matter what.

This was the set list:

Homemade Music
License to Chill
Fruitcakes
Pencil Thin Mustache
Miss You So Badly
It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere
Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes
Cowboy in the Jungle
Brown-Eyed Girl
Cheeseburger in Paradise
One Particular Harbour
Come Monday
Why Don't We Get Drunk
Bama Breeze
Son of a Son of a Sailor
Schoolboy Heart
Volcano
Makin' Music for Money
Tryin' to Reason with Hurricane Season
The City
A Pirate Looks at 40
Far Side of the World
Southern Cross
Margaritaville
Fins (encore)
Rainy Day Women #12 and 35 (encore)
Coast of Carolina (encore)

Very satisfying, especially after a 4-year absence. Made for a perfect start to the summer. Hopefully, we won't have to wait as long for the next visit, and it will definitely be a family event from here on out. Although maybe next time he won't use the f-word, which disappointed my son beyond belief. I didn't say it would be entirely wholesome...

A Mix Tape for Writing

For years, I've put together mix tapes for myself and other people. I've since moved on to mix CDs, of course, but the intent is the same. Some of my most prized mixes were assembled with one purpose in mind: to keep me running. Although my iPod made my entire collection obsolete, I still have all the tapes, sitting gathering dust behind my office door at home, with inside-joke names too embarrassing to cite here. The jokes were so inside, in fact, that only I would get them. How's that for warped? I became so accustomed to the running order of these tapes that to this day, I can't hear "The Ballad of John and Yoko" without expecting to hear Men at Work's "Underground" hot on its heels.

They did the trick, these tapes. Maybe it's why I'm much more dedicated about my running than I am about my writing. 4-5 days a week, 4 miles at a time, with very few exceptions. I run as much for the mental benefits as the physical ones. I write headlines for work (I'm in advertising), I sort out domestic issues, I make plans for the weekend, I even work out problems with the novel...all in my head. Of course, there's nowhere to write it down, and by the time I finish my run, the adrenalin begins to taper off and the enthusiasm cools considerably.

If there were the equivalent of a mix tape to inspire writing, I'd make one in nothing flat. Unfortunately, if I'm truly in a writing frame of mind, I can't listen to music, or at least not music with lyrics. When I was writing my last novel, which involved several scenes set in Greece, I listened to some Greek music to gear me up before/during writing (though it had lyrics, I couldn't understand them, so they weren't terribly distracting). So...is there such a thing? Did Jackie Gleason or 101 Strings put an LP out that I'm not aware of: "Music to Write Contemporary Novels By?" Any suggestions? Did our great writers of the past listen to anything to get them going, besides their elusive muses and the siren's song of the bottle?

As you can tell, I'm writing this as a way of not writing the actual book. But I have a new deadline looming, so the real writing will commence shortly.

Not cramping up yet...

I have a friend who recently ran a half marathon and he said he was plagued by a persistent cramp under his ribcage for much of the race. But he finished--and that's about 9 more miles than I'll be running anytime soon.

The new book, however, is just about halfway done (at least according to my hastily thrown-together outline). So excuse me for not blogging, but I had me some real writin' to do! It's feeling better and better, and it's gotten a good response from my writers' group. I have another 6 or so chapters to submit to them, which will take them through the first half of the story. Hardest thing has been finding time, because I don't know about you, but I can't write for 15 minutes here and there. If I don't have at least an hour cleared, preferably two, there's pretty much no point.

No news on the first book, which is most definitely not good news. I think one editor still has a sample or possibly the whole MS, but my (former) agent told me it was a small house and therefore ultra-slow. Hoping for a more receptive response with this book. First of all, it's shorter (well, duh, it's only halfway done). I'm projecting 100K or fewer words, which is about 7K shorter than the first book ever was. Remember, it started out as 185K. Discipline, thy name is outline. Also, I've been doing more research and reading a few more "how to" books (thought I got my fill of those last time around), and I've picked up quite a few pointers on how to keep things moving and how to keep the word count down in the process.

My wife's been reading it as I go and so far, her major criticism is that I give my characters "weird" names. I guess I can live with that. I just don't feel like writing about "John," "Liz" and "Bob." I prefer names with character built-in. Is that cheating? I named the villain in my last book "Wally" because I wanted something totally non-threatening and even innocuous, to contrast with the diabolical scheme he came up with. It's not like I'm calling people "Snake" or "Codsworth" or making names up. Hopefully, that will be he worst thing she has to say about the book:)

Now all I need is 12 more chapters and a title.

Just When I Think I'm Out...

...I get a pleasantly surprising email!

This is a good thing: my agent and I parted on good terms, and technically still have a few days left in our formal agreement. But naturally, anything that was undertaken before we agreed to go our separate ways is still covered by our previous arrangement. So guess what? Someone he queried quite awhile ago has expressed interest in seeing the entire MS. Yay, me. It would be amazing if this works out after all--lord knows I'd rather be writing my new book than finding another agent.

Submitted for Your Approval.

Well, not your approval, exactly, but that of my writer's group. Last night I surrendered all that exists of my novel-in-progress, "Mother Sucker" (working title): six chapters and about 25K words. I'd been working on it since March, but when my turn came up to submit, I only had about three chapters, which was hardly worth it, so I switched slots with a friend whose novel was already completed and used the intervening time to jam out three more chapters.

Part of the problem, if not ALL of the problem, is that I'm working without an outline. I can see maybe one chapter ahead, but beyond that, I'm groping. I may just use the time while they're reading the first installment to rough something out. I was giving the "no outline" (or "blank page," as Carolyn Wheat, author of "How to Write Killer Fiction," calls it) approach after my last outline resulted in a 185K word book. Too much planning=too much writing. But now I'm hitting block after block because I can't see far enough ahead.

What's the consensus out there: outline or blank page?

No Matter What Happens...I Must Not Cry.

After much agonizing, deliberation and advice-seeking, I have decided to release my agent from further representation of "Ring of Fire." Not only that, I've decided to retitle it and give it a thorough once-over. I'm working with "Dead Ringer" for now, even though I know the publisher has the final word over titles and cover art, etc. I like the juxtaposition of a serious, ominous-sounding title with whimsical cover art. Think Carl Hiaasen or Tim Dorsey. The cover tells you it's not a hard-boiled suspense.

Of course, according to my (former) agent and the editors he's contacted, my book isn't a suspense novel, anyway. It has elements of suspense, yes, but it also has a love story (ick!) and humor (double ick!), qualifying it as "mainstream" or "commercial." I don't mind at all, but apparently, selling a mainstream/commercial book by a first-time author in today's market is a fool's errand.

So what's next? Try to stay positive, keep working on Book #2 and start searching for my next fool...er, agent. I'll keep you posted.

The End of the End?

Actually, that's a song from Paul McCartney's new CD. There was a time when a new Paul McCartney CD meant a mandatory "album release party" (beer, pizza and all attention riveted towards my stereo speakers). After his last two CDs were so disappointing that the only thing that got me through the "party" was the beer, I opted to download and preview his latest, "Memory Almost Full," in quiet anonymity, on my iPod while I ran. Glad to say it's a step up from his last, critically acclaimed CD, "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard." All it took was for Paul to stop writing catchy, disposable pop songs for the critics to finally take him seriously. Of course, catchy, disposable pop songs are what I like most about him to begin with. Quick, which Beatles song would you rather have stuck in your head: "Penny Lane" or "Wild Honey Pie?"

The improperly-placed second to last song is called "The End of the End," and it's a nice little ballad, almost on a par with his better solo ballad work, albeit with better lyrics. It's got me thinking about my first book (I can call it that now, since I've started on my second). It's finally sinking in that it may not, in fact, sell. Or at best, be the second book in a two-book deal. My agent said he was optimistic that he would run into a bunch of promising contacts at Book Expo America in New York last week, the end-all, be-all yearly publishing event for agents, publishers, authors and booksellers. But when he got back, he said it was mainly throngs of people (mainly book fans) milling around, getting books signed and looking for free stuff. He said he made one contact, but other than that, he was going to concentrate on his list of small presses and see where that gets us.

He keeps saying the market is depressed and a mainstream book by a first-time author is a particularly hard sell these days, and I believe him. Things like podcasts, downloadable content, YouTube, NetFlix and...even...blogs are competing with the almighty book for people's attention spans these days. So as I type this, I'm undermining myself. And not working on my second book, which may one day be my first book, as far as the reading public is concerned.

Better get busy.

Writing Hard, or Hardly Writing?

Am I the ultimate hypocrite or what? I start a blog to chronicle my first novel's (eventual?) path to publication, update it sporadically, whine about what a tedious process it is, hint at starting another book...and then doing everything possible to avoid it.

As his career was on the downslide, long after he had peaked with "Sports" and "Fore," Huey Lewis put out a CD called "Hard at Play." Keep in mind it had been at least four years since his last flop, "Small World." The first single from the new CD was called "Couple Days Off." From a working man's perspective, it talked about how hard he was working, how he needed to "catch his breath," etc. The first thing that struck me was, "Dude, you had four years to put out this CD, and you're asking for a vacation??" Same here.

So as of today, I'm going to (try) to buckle down and not only update this thing more frequently, but actually do some freaking writing. When my blog posts are outweighing my actual fiction, something's wrong. I don't aspire to be a professional blogger. But "novelist," that's a job description I could get used to.

To that end, I wrote one page yesterday. It's not even very good, but it's done. And it can't be revised until it's been written in the first place.

The Results Are In...

Got the critique back from my writer's group, and I was none too nervous about it. After all, it was the first time anyone truly objective (other than my agent) has read the entire MS. By and large, it was well-received and enthusiastically praised. A big "whew" there.

Several people did have significant bones to pick with it, and rarely were they the same bone, so it will be tough to pick and choose what I should address. Some parts I had always had misgivings about were confirmed--the misgivings were justified. Those will be the easy parts to fix/remove. Other parts I was totally in love with were also called into question--not so easy. I've heard people say "cut out the thing you love most" and "without fail, you will end up throwing out your first chapter." Needless to say, neither of those two pieces of advice are particularly uplifting, particularly now, as I face the first chapter of my next novel.

But I'll have to say, both of them have come to pass. I threw out a scene long ago that I loved for comedic purposes, but it did nothing to further the story. And regarding my first chapter, it's been cut by about 75%, so it basically has been "thrown out." One final sub-plot, and what I was leaning on as the protagonist's motivation throughout the book, was deemed unnecessary.

Secretly, I was wondering if I could dial back on this or take it out altogether, but feared the rest of the book collapsing in on itself. "If the hero doesn't feel A, then why on earth would he do B?" kind of stuff. My group steered me out of what looked like a dead-end street, at least in theory. Now comes the re-write.

The good news is I'll undoubtedly reduce my word count--never a bad thing. The bad news is, once again, the novel's not "done." Anything to stall jumping into the next one!

Validation

My writers' group did some revolutionary "re-writing of its by-laws" recently. (Translation: we all stood around the kitchen eating brownies and complaining how long it took to get a full novel critiqued) Now, instead of submitting a novel piecemeal, three chapters or so at a time, over the course of a year and a half or more, members with completed novels (or just a big-ass chunk) are now permitted to submit the entire MS for immediate critique. Two consecutive sessions are devoted exclusively to one novel. Then everyone brushes their hands together in satisfaction and the critiqued author goes away for another six months or so.

Lucky me, I was the first to benefit from this new process. Everyone agreed that not only is it more helpful to the author to receive a critique on the book as a whole, it's more insightful and just plain more fun to read the book all at once versus three chapters here and there. Imagine watching one episode of "Lost" every three months and trying to make sense of it.

Shockingly, this was the first time my writer's group had read "Ring of Fire" in its entirety. I had gotten their invaluable input on problematic sections in the past (notably the backstory-riddled first few chapters, when the damn thing was still 184K words), but this was to be the true test of if my book merited agent representation or not. No matter that I already had an agent--if my group trashed the book, I had some revising to do.

Last night, I got their feedback on the first half of the rest of the book. They liked it. Cue swelling violins/relief music. Sure, they pointed out a few things that stuck out, didn't flow, etc., but nothing egregious plot-wise, character-wise, or structurally.

At least not in the first half. Next session, they tackle the rest of the book, through the end. Not out of the woods yet...

Getting the Word Out

How do you market something that doesn't exist? Hell, I'm in advertising, so if you count the "benefits" of the various products I've shilled through the years, it should be second nature for me. But when my agent asked me to put together a "marketing plan" so he could submit my novel to a smaller press, I froze up. I wrote a novel, for cryin' out loud, isn't that enough? Apparently not for some smaller publishers, who actually require a marketing plan as part of a submissions package. My agent said sometimes that can be the deciding factor between two books of roughly equal caliber.

So I rolled up my advertising sleeves, sharpened my pencil and immediately emailed the only published author I know personally to ask him what he did. Springboarding off some of his brilliant/shrewd tactics (he just secured his place in the acknowledgments), I augmented and free-formed the rest of it and sent it along to my agent--just a Word doc that ticks off one by one the "ideas" I have to hype my book and get my face out there. Doesn't mean any of it will actually happen, but it shows I'm eager to participate in the process.

Ideas I left off the list:

1. Skywriting
2. Printing "Ring of Fire" on Simon's, Randy's and Paula's drink cups
3. Stalking Oprah

No response yet. But as usual, I'll keep you posted.

A Dog-Shaped Hole

Take it from me--when you bring home your 3-month-old Golden Retriever, the last thing on your mind is where you're going to scatter her ashes. Yet one day, there you are.

Not so long ago--not quite 10 years--our lives were turned upside down by the excitedly anticipated arrival of our newest family member. Kids were still a couple years off and she was the perfect addition to our new house, carpeted entirely in off-white berber.

To this day, I maintain that raising kids--twins, even--was made more bearable by weathering the chaos that comes with training a puppy. What was changing a couple of diapers at once after you've mopped up massive pools of you-know-what from your previously off-white berber? And no toddlers could wreak havoc on our landscaping like Hayley when she put her mind to it. She dug up azalea after azalea like Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel.

When the boys came home, the jealousy was apparent. But she was our first "baby," and only girl, so we were careful to keep her included whenever possible. And she returned the favor by shredding the occasional baby toy. But not once did we fear for our children. She never raised a cross paw to anyone, ever. And I've never heard a dog bark less. It's true--they do make lousy watchdogs. But that's not why we got her.

We got her to enrich our lives, and that she did, beyond all expectations. She appeared in our Christmas cards, took our family vacations with us, attended nearly every party we threw (including a one-year blowout for her) and even found her way onto the nursery wall, where I rendered her in acrylic paint above each of our boy's cribs.

She was, above all, a trooper. She could ride ten, twelve hours in the minivan to Florida or New York and never utter a peep. She'd take her bathroom break at McDonald's with the rest of us and you wouldn't hear from her the rest of the trip. Ear infections, pancreatitis, tail-pulling, being ridden horsey-style, little yappy dogs barking at her through picket fences--she took it all in stride.

Even the hip dysplasia. She was probably hurting a lot worse than we ever knew before we figured it out. But with therapy and meds, she bounced back from that as best she could.

But something finally caught up with her that she couldn't shrug off, try as she might. Every day, her breaths came harder and faster. The vet told us four to six weeks. A mere four days later, we said our goodbyes years ahead of our schedule. We weren't ready to let go, but she was.

I'm picking up her ashes from the vet today. Since she loved digging in the yard so much, it makes sense to put some of her there. The rest of her might end up at the beach, because that was truly her favorite place on earth.

The healing will come, eventually.

But until then, there you are, with a dog-shaped hole in your heart.

Show Me the Indifference!

Doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it? But after my initial euphoria of securing an agent wore off, we got down to the true business of getting published.
Which...happens...at...about...this...speed.

At least if you're not Nicholas Sparks, who, according to his website, mailed out about three meticulously researched queries, got an agent the next morning and a million dollar advance before dinner. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

I thought editors would be snapping up my book, reading a couple pages and immediately launch into a bidding war, complete with movie rights.

But that ain't how it happens--after you spend all that time querying to get an agent, what does he have to do to attract the interest of an editor? He queries! No freaking way! Yep, that's the process. But he generously sought my input in constructing the query, advising me that no, my novel was not a "contemporary suspense," but in fact a "commercial mainstream" (which actually translates into a larger audience). Fine by me, but if I had gone into with the intention of writing a commercial mainstream novel, it might have come out differently. Whatever!

So we get the query down to where we like it, and he gets some bites right away, from big time editors at Kensington, HarperCollins, Penguin, Viking, etc. Several ask to see sample chaps, several more ask to see the whole MS. I'm stoked beyond belief. This all happens within a couple weeks in early November, by the way.

Then December hit, and my agent told me the industry pretty much shuts down until January. Lotta shopping to do, apparently. I try to forget about it. January rolls around and the two editors who have been sitting on the MS for months both come back in the same week with praise-filled rejections. Hopes dashed. Beer consumed.

So we start again. Meanwhile, I'm mapping out...Book #2.

Break Out the Cheap Champagne.

And save the good stuff for publication.

Even as I edited from 184K, I continued to submit to agents, burning bridge after bridge and racking up form rejection after form rejection (over 100 in all, by my best guess).

In some query letters I spoke of my 140K word novel. A little while later, I was hawking a 135K word novel, and eventually, a 120K word novel. Somewhere in the 120-135K range, I started getting serious bites. Lots of agents asked for sample chaps. Several agents asked to see the whole MS--from big houses, too, like Writer's House, Nicholas Ellison and Curtis Brown.

One agent asked to see the whole MS based on the query alone. He requested "a fortnight's exclusive look." Although I had no way of shipping my book back to 18th century England, I sent it to him anyway. He rejected it.

One by one, they all turned me down, although very graciously and with helpful feedback. No one mentioned sheer length, though I knew it was still an issue. But in addressing the things they did mention (no one mentioned the same thing, by the way), I would end up cutting word count in the process.

Finally, I had it down to 109K. How, I still can't remember. Words are not the precious things I once considered them to be. I saved every cut in a separate, disjointed Word doc that I may drag out for readings some day--like a "deleted scenes" feature on a DVD.

Somewhere along the way, I wrote a prologue to set up the first chapter and cut the first chapter by 50-75% (all backstory). I had also rewritten my query for the third time. I had two versions I was test marketing. The only difference was the opening paragraph.

On August 11, I sent an equery to Robert Brown at Wylie-Merrick Literary Agency, the first line of which read as follows:

“People are so desperate to save a quarter on a cantaloupe, they’d give a urine sample at the checkout.”

Five days later, I had a request for sample chaps. Two days after that, a request for the whole MS.

And one month later, I had an agent. Nearly five years to the day I started outlining the novel and more than a year and a half since I thought I had "finished" it.

Ask and ye shall receive.

I'm in advertising, and we have a phrase that became painfully relevant to me after I attended my first writer's group meeting: "If it's on the rail, it's for sale."

In my day job, that means if you take a TV storyboard/print ad layout/logo, etc. into the conference room, put it up on the "rail" (a small shelf running the entire length of the wall), it's fair game to be praised, derided, bought or trashed. Every once in awhile, we'd throw in a decoy idea--one that was so laughably lame that the client couldn't help but see how superior the recommended idea was. Naturally, they'd buy the lame one, and when we protested, they said, "then why did you show it to us?"

Same principle here. I crammed my book with lots of hilarious backstory, pages of tangential anecdotes and entire scenes of throwaway comedy. My writer's group had the effrontery to point all this out to me. They'd seize on some inconsequential detail buried in the backstory and go on and on about how it didn't make sense, that the taillights on a 1966 Mustang pointed out, not in as I described, and so on. Meanwhile, I'd be thinking, "Why are you so fixated on THAT? That doesn't even matter to the story!"

But if I didn't want them to comment on it, why was it in the book? And if it didn't matter to the story, why was it in the book?

And that, my friends, is how I was able to take a 184K word novel down to 109K words. I'm not saying it wasn't painful. And I'm not saying it happened overnight.

But I am saying that until I did it, I didn't get an agent.

Speaking of Fiction...

Check out this take on getting published, courtesy of Lynn Johnston, Canadian creator of the long-running comic strip/sap opera "For Better or For Worse." FBOFW is one of the few strips that actually acknowledges the passage of time, so kids get older, men go bald, pets die, etc. You know, typical funny paper hijinks.

Also typical of comic strips is their tendency to stretch out a few days worth of action into months and months of material. How much can you cram into something that takes about ten seconds to read, after all?

Still, I was caught off guard when the novel that Michael Patterson was writing was suddenly picked up for publication. Very few references were made to him actually writing it, although there was one strip devoted to the day he finished it. (Note to Lynn Johnston--the day after you finish your first novel is not the day you start shopping it).

We've never seen anyone actually read this novel, but one day, after the only copy of the mansucript is rescued from his burning apartment, he gets a letter--a letter--with a contract, offering him a $25K advance on his genreless, titleless tome. (Of course, keep in mind that $25K Canadian is like twelve bucks.) To my knowledge, this guy never wrote a single query letter, never received one form rejection from an agent, never attended a writer's conference and never joined a writer's group.

So congratulations, Michael Patterson, on the sale of your book to Mephistopheles Press.

Those agents can be so elusive...

Armed with a copy of The Novel and Short Story Writer's Market 2005, (purchased from Half.com) Jeff Herman's Guide to Book Editors, Publishers and Literary Agents (library copy) and a bookmarked link to AgentQuery.com, I was on my way.

At first, my approach was alphabetical. Just go through the books A-Z, pick out the agents looking for my kind of book ("ungodly long" was not a genre I found listed--anywhere) and send off the ol' query letter.

Ah, the query letter. More unheeded advice, here. I probably spent an hour or two refining it, and when I was done, it was very demographically targeted. I was giving the agent more of a reason why it would sell and who it would sell to instead of a reason why he or she would want to read it in the first place.

Nonetheless, my first round of queries resulted in three requests to see some sample chaps (remember, the book is still 184K words at this point--I was not budging on this. Every word was GOLD, GOLD I TELL YOU! Wait a minute...aren't some false idols made of gold?). In hindsight, I have to seriously question the sanity of these agents (who, despite my gratitude at the time, shall go unnamed here). Naturally, all three politely declined after reading my opening chapter, which consisted entirely of backstory.

I plugged away like this for six months or so before one agent had the courtesy to point out that my length might be an issue (insert own joke here).

In the meantime, I joined a writer's group after attending a reading from a local published author David Terrenoire. Couldn't hurt, I thought. Might be nice to get some affirmation on those words 'o gold I was refusing to cut.

Yeah, right. 'Cause that's what writer's groups are for--ego-stroking.