Sunday, January 30, 2011

Robin's Reviews: Monkeying Around Pt. 1

If I gave any of you the impression the problem with my boiler is solved, I apologize sincerely. It's not solved. It's worse than ever. Indeed, since last night, I declared the patch job to officially be of no further use and was forced to shut the whole system down. So now I'm without heat or hotwater for the second time in six days and, although the techs themselves were quick and helpful, the oil companies administration is bloody useless and hasn't even given us an estimated date on when they might replace it. The boss, whose name is Eisenhower, despite 30 years in the business is apparently afraid to fill out an order form without this other guy who was out all week because his wife was in surgery. Shit, man. Unless you're also her doctor, you can spare half an hour a day to say "Yes, yes, no, yes, yes, no, no, no, no, yes." And even then I think you should probably have that much time unless you're also her lawyer, nurse, accountant, insurance company, mother, EMT, BFF and spiritual guide. to someone on the phone. Or failing that half hour, get a partner who isn't paralyzed at the first sign that he may have to do some work. Because when I call up and say "Not only is the temporary patch broken, and I did tell you it would break sooner rather than later so hurry your slow asses up, now it's dripping oil out with the hot water." the answer I expect to receive is "I'll send someone right away" and NOT "Well what do you want me to do about it?"

Because of this predicament in which I am cold and also smelly since I have no hot water to shower with, my monkies (who have nothing to hide) have shamelessly exploited my weakness and demanded I review something about monkies. Travis, my body double wanted stupid things like Congo. So I sided with Eduardo my thesis monkey and choose to review, The Journey to the West, AKA Legend of the Monkey King, one of the four great Chinese novels, and the R.K. Narayan (shortened prose version) of the Indian Epic Ramayana. Ramayana I read recently. Journey to the West was ages ago, so I forget what translation/edition it was. Not that it matters.

Journey to the West Summary: A one of a kind Stone Monky chooses to learn magic after realizing that monkies not made of stone aren't immortal (and maybe neither is he). After fighting heaven to a standstill all by himself TWICE, the yellow emperor begs Buddha for help and Buddha traps the well intentioned but reckless and mischievous monkey under a magic mountain, promising that in the future he'll be given an opportunity at redemption. Many years pass and Monkey is released and made servant to Xuenzhang, a Buddhist monk of extraordinary purity who is journeying west to receive scrolls of wisdom from Buddha himself. Monkey becomes his first and best disciple as well as one of Xuenzhang's three bodyguards (and the only competent one of the bunch).

History of the tale: Xuenzhang was a real guy. Going west means around the the mountains of Tibet and heading south into India. Supposedly he studied there for several years and became so well known as a smart guy that when he left (laden with scrolls he would use to form the Big Goose Pagoda's library back in China. That pagoda still exists in Xi'an by the way. I've been there.) he stood on a stage for three days while hundreds of other monks were invited to debate him on any topic of their choosing, but they were all so afraid of being out-debated no one dared ask anything. This is one of the most famous legends throughout Asia and although Journey to the West (which is a novel written around 1600 in China) is the definitive version, it has been around far longer as the subject of traveling performers as well as writers of serials. So for instance, it was in the Japanese versions that the second two disciples and bodyguards (Pig and Friar Sand, both minor officials in Heaven who were tossed out for minor offenses) were given personalities. Pig was made stupid and lazy and never really changes, which makes Monkey (Sun Wukong) look better while Friar Sand is polite and learned from the beggining although he isn't strong. The combination provides a measuring stick for how well Monkey learns about Buddhism as he becomes wise in addition to clever etc. Also notably in the Japanese tellings of the story, Friar Sand is a "kappa" a half fish half man along the lines of the creature from the black lagoon. There's no equivalent in Chinese mythology, so he's never described in any great detail in the text. Ain't that amusing?

Short review: It's a classic and it's a lot of fun. But here's everything yo need to know if you plan to read it. Read the first 12 or 13 chapters about Monkey's origins and rebellion against heaven, as well as Xuenzhang's story. Then read any five chapters in the middle and the last couple of chapters. See, the book is long. Really long. Version I read was in four volumes. It's a hundred chapters. For reasons of buddhist symbolism I believe Monkey has to overcome eighty eight trials (Probably something to do with the Noble Eight Fold Path). Needless to say, many of the adventures in the middle run together. In essence, an given chapter will look like this. The heroes are walking down the road. An old man/little girl/random wanderer etc. will beg something of Xuenzhang or invite him to their home. Monkey will say "Don't do it. They're a monster. They just want to eat you because the good karma you've built up over many lifetimes will give them immortality." Xuenzhang, being an idiot tells monkey off for being suspicious and rude and projecting is own wickedness onto innocent people (ocassionally becoming so angry he actually dismisses him and sends him back to the Island of Fruits and Flowers where he is, quite literally, the king of the monkies). Of course, Monkey is right everytime and must then rescue Xuenzhang and usually Pig and Friar Sand while he's at it. This usually means

A) Transforming into a bug to sneak into their castle and then into the villain's body before announcing his presence and threatening to tear them apart from the inside or B) The more interesting enemies usually have some crazy kind of powers but some exploitable weakness. One manages to keep escaping in open combat so Monkey recruits the only god who was actually challenging back when he and heaven were at war and some of that god's friends to cut the enemy off. Another one was some kind of worm or snake or a butterfly or something random like that who couldn't beat Monkey but would teleport him miles underground, forcing him to dig his way back out. So he recruited a chicken-god because its crowing actually scared this thing to death.

To be fair, on ocassion the villains would be something else entirely. I seem to recall trials involving making it rain during a drought and curing ill kings. There was one set of enemies that wasn't the least bit malicious. It was actually pretty funny. It was this group of sentient trees who kidnapped him because, being living trees, they were immobile and sort of starved for company. They just wanted him to stick around for a few decades (or centuries, if you've got the time) to shoot the breeze. All in all though, if I were teaching a class on folklore, mythology and epics, I'd do MAYBE twenty chapters because the stuff in the middle gets ultra repetetive. If you, like me, are an amateur folklorist it's worth reading at least that much and it is actually really enjoyable that way. But that's all you need. Even my Chinese Lit professor gave me this weird look when I told him I read the thing cover to cover. Said he didn't think he'd ever had a student who'd gone that far. And if you're not a folklorist, forget it. Much as I enjoy the stuff, what precisely would you do with this info? And if you're looking for gut wrenching emotional power or you want to think deep thoughts...this is an epic. It's not exactly written in a style that makes for fantastic modern reading because it's all based on oral traditions. If anything, epic poems like Beowulf and Gilgamesh (both of which are quite short) have more to say about the human condition.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Robin’s Rapid Reviews- Scott Pilgrim Vs. Criticism

Before I start- I won't be at SCBWI NYC today, but I will be at the "kid lit" party. So if any of you are nearby and want to meet me for some reason, that'd be the time.

So here’s the premise in a nutshell: twenty something loser Scott Pilgrim was devastated a year ago when he was brutally dumped by his girlfriend Natalie (“Envy”) when she signed on to become a big rock star. He’s finally pulling himself together thanks to the help of his dangerously underage (17) girlfriend Knives Chau when the girl of his dreams shows up. Literally the girl of his dreams. She travels through his brain as a shortcut in her job delivering packages for Amazon.ca like something out of Dresden Codak . Despite being a huge loser, Scott manages to attract Ramona, the mysterious American dream traveler, but finds she comes saddled with an unusual bit of baggage. A league of 7 evil exes Scott will have to defeat in order to secure a relationship. Oh, and just so’s you know, it’s the sort of story where things are ostensibly realistic 99.9% of the time but when completely insane batshit stuff (like dream shortcuts, pulling hammers from nowhere and other cartoon and video game kind of stuff) happens no one blinks an eye. It’s also full of pop culture references and the entire thing is sort of a parody of the classic video game River City Ransom. For instance, defeated exes unrealistically burst into piles of coins rather than say, bleeding to death slowly in an alley. Also, Scott’s in a band. The band’s rival? Crash and the Boys, which notably was the title of a spinoff from the River City Ransom games.

Reviews the comic: Okay, let me start with what doesn’t work because it’s easier to identify. For one thing, when I read comics which isn’t that often, I’m used to top notch art, be it traditional super hero stuff, well constructed webcomics like the aforementioned Dresden Codak or maybe Girl Genius, or “Manga-type-stuff.” By comparison, Pilgrim’s is a little cartoony. It also doesn’t transition scenes well at all and drags a lot of things out more than it needs to. Evil ex #3 for instance gets three separate showdowns, one being the initial challenge, a second occurring in some crowded Canadian Wal-mart type store. I dunno. It didn’t make much sense and it didn’t really go anywhere. And only after wasting time on that did that part of the story get resolved in a third showdown (and the guy basically beats himself in the comic. His psychic powers come from being a vegan “It just makes me better than you.” But he cheats on the diet by eating gelato. At least in the movie Scott tricks him into losing his powers) That said, I read the first three volumes back to back and didn’t realize until after the second one that I’d been pacing around for hours in a friend’s basement and it was like, five in the morning and I could, you know. Sit down. So that my tromping wouldn’t wake anyone. So I guess it was actually fairly engrossing.

Reviews the Movie: My original review was too much comp/contrast with the comics, which I’ll do separately so I’ll keep this simple. It’s a very amusing movie. But it’s ludicrously over the top. Frequently too much. It’s always skirting the line between entertainingly bad and just bad. Also, I feel like the best two characters got shafted in the movie. Namely, Wallace the “cool gay roommate” who was a drunk, sarcastic bitch, and Ramona. I mean, she’s the leading lady. The hell? Still, I had a lot of fun with it but I doubt I’ll re-watch it soon. Would I recommend it? Maybe. But considering the people likely to read this, I’d have to say most of you probably wouldn’t be interested. Unless you’re a big Michael Cera fan, and he’s pretty good, but Cera is Cera is Cera. Go watch Juno or Arrested Development. But not Year One. We do not mention Year One. Ever. Is that understood?

Adaptation: Early on it sticks super close, lifting entire scenes. When they do start paring things down I think it’s often for the better. They cut evil ex #3 to just one big scene for instance. And many of the early changes they make are good ones. In one part, Knives comes looking for Scott after they break up. In the comics he had gone out but just the page before he’d been at the apartment and we didn’t know the scene had changed. In the movie they poke fun at it by having Scott hastily jump out the window. As the movie moves on, it speeds up. A lot. And they start changing things. I only read the comics through issue 3 (of six or seven…I’d think seven given the number of exes however my friend had but six on his shelves). But I think they completely changed ex #4. For starters, that scene was clearly Ramona’s duel against Envy, the girl who broke Scott’s heart somewhere in the backstory. Also up until that point each evil ex had gotten a brief backstory told by a voiceover and pictures from the comic. Then with 4 they just stop doing it. Whoops! Where’d that go? I enjoyed those. Dropped the ball on that one, movie.

On a final note, while I want to stress again that I enjoyed both movie and comics, not everything will get as glowing a review from me as Things-Which-Have-To-Do-With-Genghis-Khan. I deem the franchise enjoyable but forgettable, and even then, it’s more for the male 14-40 market. The chances of you getting the myriad references to video games that came out in 1989 otherwise are pretty slim. Hell, I barely remember ‘em.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Robin's Rapid Reviews: Mongol Mania

So, something you may not know about me. I studied in China for four months. It was the best time of my life. And for some strange reason I became really interested in Mongolia, possibly because it got so little attention in my classes. Certainly it wasn't because of my trip to the Heavenly Lake (which is as close to see "real" Mongolia as I got). To review, it was rainy that day. I didn't sleep at all in that stupid yurt. Almost fell of a mountain and died TWICE. Also slipped in the mud and rolled down a hill when I went to take a leak. It was probably the most miserable I was the whole time I was there. So don't ask me why I'm so interested. I'm not sure I know what to say other than "They've got beautiful scenery" and "morbid curiosity" but I am. So we come to the "Conqueror" books by Conn Iggulden, probably one of the best gifts my father ever gave me. Specifically, I'm talking here about the first book, "Birth of an Empire." I have two more, Lords of the Bow and Bones of the Hill. Apparently there's another one out with a plan for two more. But the first three are about Ghenghis, the next set is about his descendants.

'twas a long time ago- longer now than it seems. In a place that perhaps you've seen in your dreams. For the story that you are about to be told took place on the Mongolian plains of old. Now, you're probably wondering where Ghenghis Khan came from. If you haven't, I'd say it's time you begun. Because rampant slaughter is the result of much fuss and hard work for the Mongol hordes that create them for us. And you see, quite simply they're very good at what they do. Making special tortures and death especially for you. But once, a calamity ever so great occured when two empires met by mistake.

And if you identified that as a modification of the soundtrack version of the intro to Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, you know I can't pay much higher compliment to Iggulden. And I don't want to make it sound like it's all blood and guts because it isn't. It's very much a drama. His father is killed. His tribe is usurped and he and his brothers are left to die. There's the fighting between him and his older brother. His slow transformation from just a clever kid to a ruthless warrior and tactician. The very strange but deep romance between himself and his wife. Do you have any interest in Asia? History? Books? Things which are good? If you like ANY of those, give him a whirl. There's really only one downside- not only is it a series, each book is sizable on its own. Somewhere in the vicinity of 500 pages. And maybe Bones of the Hills isn't out in Mass Market yet. Or maybe my father just couldn't find it. Because I've got the trade Paperback of that and that thing is enormous. Taller and wider even than Fungus of the Heart in addition to being a very thick book. It's a tie for second biggest paperback on the shelves with the Necronomicon. I know 6X9 isn't an unusual dimension but my beloved Tim O'Brien, as well as *most* of my trade paperbacks are actually 5X8. And half as many pages. So. Um. Something to consider.

Anyway, one of the review quotes on the back of Bones of the Hills says something like "Read the book before Hollywood makes the movie." This scares me. Offends me even. God, I can just picture how they'd ruin the drama. The heartache. The revenge. The love and the loyalty that make the whole story work. Of course, it also makes me giggle. If anyone's going to write the terrible Hollywood version of Ghenghis' story it should be me. I'll call it "Khan Man" starring Johny Depp as Temudgin (Gheghis' given name) and Catherine Zeta Jones as his fiery wife Borte. Why CZJ?
1- She's gorgeous.
2- She has a lot of experience kicking people in the face in very bad movies including The Phantom (1996) and The Legend of Zorro (2005).
3- It's my imaginary movie and I'll cast who I want. Hell, I'll cast the mid-90's version of her just because it's my imagination and I can do what I want. And no, this has nothing to do with the enormous amounts of totally unecessary nudty I'll be writing into it. Shutup.

But seriously, we don't have to worry about Hollywood making a really bad version of the tale. Because someone already made a really good one. Specifically, it was Sergei Bodrov and his aptly titled movie "Mongol." And although I don't like the trailers because they portray it as an action movie when it isn't, it's still sort of fun.

(Look at me. I've moved on from linking to embedding. HTML, you are now officially my bitch.)

In any event, don't be fooled. It really is a drama. It's just the kind of drama where people ocassionally get their heads cut off. So, a really good one. In all seriousness you have no idea how many people I've forced to watch that movie, no one thought they'd like it. They all did. My father who hates Ghenghis. My mother who hates subtitles. One friend who hates history. Another with ADHD (despite it being a very long and slow-visual film). Hell, just a few days ago I showed it to a friend and his wife and the romantic parts of the story really got them going. I felt like a third wheel but it was my house. So all I could really say was "Mongolia is for lovers?"

I dunno about you, but the next step for me is to find a copy of the Secret History of the Mongols, the oldest extant biography of Ghenghis. Both the books and the film (the film is actually older by the way) were based primarily on that source. And sometimes they're in lock-step. Other times they diverge. The books offer more detail and without it, some of the aspects of the film, such as that brief shot of a wolf at the beggining don't mean as much as they should (suffice to say Gheghis' childhood clan was the "blue wolves"). So which version, if you had to choose would be better? That's dangerous thinking. I suggest you avoid that dilemma by reading the books AND watching the movies.

Oh, and just a quick note because I just realized when I went to get the code for that trailer, but on the complete opposite end of the spectrum from serious, touching, well researched drama, there's a new season of Archer starting. If you can picture a combination of The Man Who Knew Too Little and Drawn Together...that's Archer. So no, nothing to do with Mongolia, but I've got some friends who are probably celebrating the show's return right about now. Perhaps I'll join the festivities. Lighten it up with my fermented Mare Milk and show the guys how to sharpen their swords and pick a good bride (flat face, narrow eyes, strong legs). As Khan I have to do these things you know.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Robin's Rapid Reviews: His Day

Okay, so I don't normally like to do this, but I've decided there must be a pity party and ain't no one gonna organize it for me but me. Last week I hurt my leg pretty badly. I have a big limp, you see. Left leg is more than an inch shorter than my right leg. Don't ask why it was the left that decided it was being overworked and went on strike. It was just starting to feel better yesterday. And it was a good morning. I worked a little on this game I'm developing for a friend as a gag gift. Wrote a litte of a project I'm working on. Did a bunch of queries and decided it was time for lunch. I had just put the bread and whatnot in the toaster over to make myself a home made meatball sub when I hear this noise. It's a noise I'm familiar with. A noise I've been dreading. It's water. On the floor of my basement. You don't even want to know how many times it's flooded. And not because of broken pipes. It's always the boiler itself. Needless to say, I abandon my sandwhich (the bread winds up overcooked AND cold by the time I eat it) in order to spend the next hour and change desperately trying to find what to shut off, calling the plumbers, Westmore, and splashing around in scalding hot water (and I've got blisters on my feet to prove it) wet-vaccing the place because yes. This happens so often that we have our own goddamn wet-vac. Long story short we have to replace the entire boiler. You know the last time we had to do that was? January 2010. This is becoming an anual thing and I am not a happy man. Meanwhile, the insurance company wants to blame Westmore for installing a faulty low point cut-off switch. Who knows what the Westmore supervisor, who goes by the unlikely name of Dwight D. Eisenhower, will say. What I'll say is that yesterday afternoon was a huge bust and cost me roughly ninety jillion dollars. Which is why I'm in no mood to review anything.

Not to mention that I'd been planning on reviews and maybe a brief comp/contrast of all the Scott Pilgrim stuff. But the movie has been delayed in arriving to me from Netflix for reasons including, but not limited to-
1. Snow
2. Me keeping Kentucky Fried Movie too long
3. More snow.

There are plenty of things I could review, but now I'm pissed. So I won't. But you read this far and it'd be proof positive that I'm the world's biggest asshole if I didn't offer you something of value outside of the humorously pathetic sound of my kvetching.

So, here's sort of how one wants to react to jerky queries as portrayed by an ironically titled webcomic. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, have a self help column written by she-who-has-only-a-title-but-no-name in an article I'd have titled "is your agent cheating on you?"

Assuming my house doesn't implode, I've got more reviews I'd planned then days left in this week, but oh wells. They can always be done later. Join me next time for "Robin's Rapid Reviews: Mongol Mania"

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Robin's Rapid Reviews: Redrum Delight

So, a couple of reviews for you today.

The first is the Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon. Here's how I might've written the jacket copy.

In each generation there is born a Tzaddik Ha-Dor, one with the potential to become the Messiah if the world is ready. Mendel Shpilman is just such a person. As a child, he was celebrated for his intelligence and charisma. As a man, he is mourned after being found with heroin in his blood and a bullet in his brain. Obviously, the world isn't ready yet. The Jews of Sitka, Alaska have been living in a temporary refugee territory for sixty years since the end of World War II and with the area reverting to Alaskan control, all their futures are uncertain. All but Meyer Landsman. Landsman knows he doesn't have one. He used to be a star detective. He used to have a beautiful wife and child. When the child dies, so does the marriage. Adding insult to injury, his ex is now interim chief and foists on him the impossible task of "effective resolution"- solving every open case on the books in just a few months before American authorities take over. With nothing left to live for but a job he'll likely lose at the end of the year, Landsman throws himself into the Shpilman case ready to take on the most powerful people in his society, including Shpilman's own father, a cross between Rabbi and Mafioso Godfather, and who might be the least threatening of his opposition. When these forces conspire to have Landsman suspended from the force, he continues his investigation anyway with his only authority coming from a tattered membership card to the Yiddish Policemen's Union.

My thoughts: Basically speaking I picked this up because I enjoy the sound of yiddish. Book's even got a glossary of the terms it uses in the back although it never comes across quite as natural and flowing as the slang in a Clockwork orange, but hey. The story itself is very much an old school Bogartesque hard-boiled routine. Like most mysteries it often tells a little too much and doesn't show enough. The plot is also heavily fueled by convenient coincidence. And the world is impossibly small. Landsman's partner "on the beat" is his cousin, the only relative he has left after his sister died a year ago and SPOILER: she was murdered and it matters to the central plot. There are also things that just don't really add up. Like why, if everyone loved Mendel Shpilman so much, why do people not only not help in the investigation but routinely stonewall Landsman? And why did it take so long to identify him if just ten years earlir he was on the front page of every newspaper because he may have been performing miracles? But all of these are pretty much complaints with how mysteries are. They all suffer like that. This one at least has the unusual and exotic setting of some kind of alternate universe Alaska focusing on the sprawling City of Jews. Is that enough of a gimmick to be worthwhile if you don't normally read a lot of mysteries? Well, I read it. I don't regret it. My most obvious point of comparison would be Tony Hillerman's books. I think I probably enjoyed them more back in the day because they were lighter reads. Yiddish Policemen's Union has a style that it takes a long time to get into. Once you're in, it gets quite good but between the places, people, fictional city and yiddish terminology etc. it takes a while to pick up on everything. And while most books beat you over the head with the info they want you to know, this one leaves you to figure it out yourself. Which is better by the end, but so many times along the way I said "Blackhats? Verbover? Smikha? What?" And unlike so many mysteries, it isn't a series. You can't walk in with previous knowledge or expect to carry over your hard won understanding of this place or these people to a sequel. So, if you like literary work, could use a mystery but don't want to read many of them, here's a book for you. It was good for me, certainly. Otherwise, I dunno. I mean, I did put this book on hold twice to read other things because, as much as I enjoyed it, it had to be digested very slowly.

Well, that wasn't very rapid at all. So here's a quick one: Fungus of the Heart by Jeremy C Shipp. I can't give you a plot breakdown because it's a short story collection. And for that matter, the stories are so damn weird I don't know how I'd explain them to you anyway. It's a very controlled sort of chaos mashing together multiple genres and coming out with this very fast moving, sort of absurdist pieces. The first story for instance is sort of an Orwellian piece. Almost. Here's the short version: he owns a servant (presumably more like sex slave) who he likes. She gets murdered. He investigates, briefly flies through issues of morality and duty and the social structure and ends with revenge for the slave, but with the cunning plan in mind for the main that for his revenge he'll basically be brainwashed into complacency again and he won't have to think about how most powerful people abuse their slaves anymore.It's less than twenty pages. Most of dialogue. It flies. You're just starting to get a grip when it ends. And that's the whole book is. And that opening story ("The Sun Never Rises in the Big City") is about the most straightforward of them all. That said, I tore through this book in a few hours and two sittings. So obviously I enjoyed it. It's definitely a love it or hate it proposition. If you like commercial fiction- say mysteries and thrillers where everything is spelled out and clear and it's details up the butt as if they're being paid by the word, stay away. This is slim, quick, wispy. It moves like lightning and it counts on you to fill in the blanks as needed. And you know, I sort of take that as a compliment, Mr. Shipp. My only problem is the trim size on the fucker. It's both tall and wide for a trade paperback and it's totally not necessary because it's a thin book, and with several blank pages at the end (for printing reasons I won't discuss here). Meanwhile, on his twitter account, Schipp seems to frequently offer people who buy his books as kindle editions a gift if they "DM" (Dungeon master?) him. So do that. Hell, you could get 3, maybe four of them for the price of one of the print editions that way. If I had a Kindle, I'd have done it. Now I've got this awesome book that doesn't fit on one bookcase where I keep my paperbacks and gets lost and cruched between ginormous books on another.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

2nd: The First Ever Serialized Adventures of You 1.7

Although it would have set you up for years to come if you had won such a lawsuit. You imagine the studio you could have had and nearly shed a tear for the future that will never be, dashed by a last minute display of decency from the dicey douchebag before you.
The man leads you into his office and tells you to sit. You suppress a smile when you see the golden nameplate on his desk. Apparently his name is Richard Head.
“Now, what makes you think you’re qualified to be my assistant?” he asks, clearly uninterested in the answer.
“Well, I graduated Cum Laude from a tier 1 university, I’ve got an MBA in business administration and I’m fluent in two languages. I’ve spent two years interning at similar clerical positions while obtaining that MBA, so I’ve got experience, and I’m used to heavy workloads.”
You wait. He says nothing.
“Some reason you don’t think I’m qualified?” You’re aware that being confrontational is generally a bad move, but since he’s determined to be an ass, you’ve decided to respond in kind. It might be the only way to keep his attention.
After a pause he says “We were looking for someone with five years or more experience.”
“For a $33,000 dollar a year job?” He looks at you blankly. The phone rings and he lazily looks towards it. “Alright, fine. You know what? If you’re that intent on ruling me out before you even know who I am, screw it. And good luck finding anyone willing to work for peanuts.”
********

And that's all I wrote. I supose I should finish it, but there's a reason I called it the first ever serialized adventures of you. When I started, even though I convinced myself it was "a short story" my plan was for it to be a sort of perpetual voice exercise. Oh well, either way, that's the story as it stands now. Having now read roughly seven pages of me dicking around aimlessly, what do all's y'all think? Want to see more? Want the hurting to stop?

Oh well. In other news, one of my readers recently acquired an internship at an agency and now she too goes through queries all day. Please offer Alyson your condolences. Or congratulations if you're one of them optimistic types. On twitter she admits to not having a "mean bone" in her body for queries. Wow. That's a serious condition, but I can help with that if need be. Meanwhile, one of our agency's authors has written an article that gurantees me reprisal-free meaness (no, not really, but she makes a good point anyway.)

And uhhh... I guess that's all I've got today. Toodles.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

2nd: The First Ever Serialized Adventures of You 1.6

The guards give you a little lip and eye your messenger bag skeptically, but they let you in. Well, into the elevators anyway. Once you get off you find that there’s no way to let yourself into the office so you end up standing in the hall like a doofus. You had cleverly added the company numbers you’d been given to your cell phone, so you call it, but no one answers. The HR coordinator was on vacation and forgot to give a number for their backup. The executive director of Shiny Widget Developments or whoever it was you’re supposed to meet wasn’t answering his phone either, though no explanation was given.
You think to yourself, hands jammed in your pockets, that you don’t need this bullshit. You came to New York to practice your art. You’re smart and well traveled. At least you think you are. You also think you’re hardworking and ruggedly handsome. This is not true. Regardless, the job you’re applying for is just to pay the bills and keep medical coverage until you make the big time. Nobody makes money being creative until they make a ton and a half.
You’re sure everybody knows this. And everybody appreciates theater and sculpture and music and TV and books and all. The things an artist does. Why then, you wonder, do they make it so damn hard for artists such as yourself to work their trade? Or any trade for that matter. Your buddy Phil the poet is always talking about how interviewers just don’t understand, man.
Suddenly the door bursts open and a heavy set middle aged gentleman crashes into the hall, looking around desperately. In his forehead you see permanently etched lines, as if he walked around with his eyebrows raised all day, every day. The man looks you up and down, eyeing your suit and messenger bag.
Well, he’s your only ticket into the office so you figure you better say something. “Hi, who are you?”
He glowers at you. Most people, you think, would cringe. You merely imagine punching his teeth in as you smile back.
“Depends.” He says. “What’s in the bag?”
“A book. And a notepad.”
Is this part of the interview? You vaguely recall seeing a Monty Python sketch long ago where John Cleese interviewed a terrified Graham Chapman by ringing a bell and chanting “goodnight” and then gauging his reactions.
“Who are you?” He asks more decisively this time. Without hesitation you tell him your name. He blinks.
“I thought you’d be a little more feminine.” He says. “If I’d have known,” he pauses momentarily “but since you’re here, might as well go ahead and do the interview anyway.” Suddenly you think that perhaps he’d been expecting that you were delivering a subpoena for a discrimination lawsuit. So you’re a guy looking for an executive assistant job. Okay. And sure, you’ve got kind of a girly name. Alright, whatever. It’s bullshit to turn people away for that.

Friday, January 21, 2011

2nd: The First Ever Serialized Adventures of You 1.5

You try to maneuver back towards the escalators into the Metlife building to orient yourself, but a crowd of people pushes you away from the escalator you want and nearly sends you careening into a stocky repairman who looks wider than tall.
“Hey asshole, can’t youse read the sign?” he hollers at you, pointing to a small yellow piece of plastic nearby explaining that one of the escalators is closed. You look up and notice a half a dozen people climbing the escalator anyway.
“Why, yes I can,” you smile politely “I was merely wondering why, despite your efforts, people are climbing this defunct apparatus?”
The man is not happy. That’s fine by you. “They were the last ones.” He says it so vehemently, you feel the slight spray of spittle on your face.
“I see, I see. So what you’re saying is that you fucked up and you’re trying to throw around what little authority you have in the hopes of salvaging some self respect from this encounter. However, a word to the wise- authority is a limited resource. Each time you use it, especially when you are in such a weak position, you lose some of it. And if you’re hoping to intimidate me with your foul language and foul breath alone, alas, I am too well prepared for such trivial irritations. Since you seem to have a slightly glazed look in your eyes, I’ll get to the bottom line. Don’t start what youse can’t finish, asshole.” Just to spite him, you press past him and climb the escalator, smiling about turning his pitiful taunts back at him.
You stop smiling when someone keeps screaming for you to wait.
It’s your damned cousin again, tripping over people on the functioning up-going escalator.
You decide to play it cool, walking through the revolving doors and stopping just out of sight. As your cousin rounds the corner you wordlessly smack him with your messenger bag and trod on silently. Unfortunately, he has words. Many words. Words such as “wow”, “ouch”, and “youse.” He seems intent on sharing every word he knows but you ignore all of them hoping that eventually he’ll run out of steam. It’s just more jibber-jabber about how strange the city is. You’re pretty sure it’s your cousin who is strange and not the city. You choose not to articulate this sentiment.
And he just keeps jabbering all the way up to sixth about your harrowing adventures against the Maintenance man. Very Billy Goat Gruff, he says. You pass a McDonalds with a line that goes around the corner. The vile oil smell only serves to remind you that can hardly afford even the lowliest of meals- a couple pieces off the dollar menu. It reminds your cousin that he’d almost run out of things to say about your epic heroics and the glittery sheen of the city that never sleeps, so he starts in on happy meal toys and starts asking if the line has anything to do with the latest movie tie ins. You say nothing, secretly hoping that he’d be so distracted by the poor shmucks handing out fliers that you’d be able to lose him by quickly changing directions, but you hesitate a moment too long and he chases after you, nearly getting himself flattened by a Fed Ex truck.
Eventually, you arrive at a ritzy building and instruct your cousin to stay put, and play nice with the homeless guy on the corner. He’s full of questions about why, but you’re too worried that your growling stomach will ruin the interview for you and so you deign not to indulge his curiosity any further. You simply repeat the order and march inside.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

2nd: The First Ever Serialized Adventures of You 1.4

Couple housekeeping items before I start. It seems that I've been officially declared coffee. And what does that mean? A little sick? I'll just have to try harder. Secondly, I see someone had the courage to identify their political affiliations. And heaven help us, for we are both men of La Mancha. Or they could be a woman. Or a hideous space mutant. I'm guessing woman, actually, but whatever. La Mancha. That's the important thing. And now, we return to our regularly scheduled bullshit.
****
You approach him and slap a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, man, pay attention to where you are.” He looks up at you, smiles, then spins around trying to understand what you mean. He spies an older woman struggling up the stairs from the lower level and starts off to help her.
“Where the hell are you going?” you ask him.
“To help that old woman,” he says “isn’t that what you were saying?” He is stopped almost directly in front of her now, but facing away from her. She brushes past him without a second thought.
“No. I was telling you that you’re in the way.”
“Oh.” He frowns slightly, but then beams. “Well I’m glad you came! What’re we going to do first?” You grunt.
“We are not going to do anything because I have no money.” Your stupid cousin, an only child and spoiled like you can hardly believe cocks his head like a dog.
“Why don’t you have any money?”
You sigh and think of the musician. “I was robbed.” You tell him. He gasps.
“My goodness! I thought Dad was exaggerating about the crime rate.”
You grin wickedly. “Not at all. This is a terrible place. That old lady probably would have maced you if you tried to help her. You should probably just turn around and go home. These people would just as soon kill you as look at you.” Your cousin pales and for a brief moment, you have hopes that he’ll do just that. Your spirits rise when a very large, glowering man of indeterminable ethnic identity approaches you both and begins speaking in a thick accent. Your cousin is petrified. This is perfect. All you need to do is convince him that the man is secretly a terrorist or something. The man asks you a question.
“Huh?” You look over at the board. “Sure, track 27, looks like it’ll head out in about ten minutes. You’ve still got time to get a seat.” Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. You answered his question and lost your opportunity to scare your cousin into silence.
“Wow!” Your cousin exclaims. “That was sort of scary.” He looks at you with big dewy Bambi eyes. “You’re really something. Would I be like that if I moved here?”
“One can only hope.”
****

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

2nd: The First Ever Serialized Adventures of You! 1.3

As you walk away, you roll your tongue in your mouth. The musician left you with a sour taste, and your stomach is rumbling. Now that you know you can’t afford to eat, it’s decided to make an issue out of it. You enter the main concourse and look around for your cousin. You think you see him on the steps on the opposite side of the building and you try and make your way over to him. Unfortunately, there are several distinct groups of tourists in your way. There’s a pair of middle aged couples, and some punk looking foreign kids and so on. Most of them have large luggage, almost all of them are taking pictures of the ceiling, and all of them are wearing ugly clothes.
You try and slip through, but one of the middle aged men elbows you as he focuses his stupidly expensive camera at some particular aspect of the mural above you.
The man begins to apologize without understanding that what he should be apologizing for is not clocking you in the face, but his entire mentality.
“Christ, it’s just a ceiling.” You’re hoping that this revelation will show him the error of his ways, but you don’t have very high hopes. If you could afford a smart phone, you’d do an image search and show him how many hundreds of identical pictures already exist, but you can’t afford one, so you don’t show him any such search.
You find yourself thinking that under ordinary circumstances you might not be quite as much of an ass. However, you’re entirely too cognizant of how soon you will be leading your own blind, bumbling, backwards visitor about and you find yourself becoming increasingly bitter. Why do tourists feel the need to stand in the street and take pictures of buildings in the distance? Don’t they have buildings in Bumblefuck, Nowhere or wherever it is that they come from? They must, you think, be reasonable human beings on the whole, so what is it about tourism that makes them so goddamned retarded?
Of course, as you say this, you see your cousin, with his cell phone pointed at the ceiling. Excitedly, he drops his arm and begins hammering away on the keys. Oh god, you think. He’s sending it to his idiot friends. “Look, look. I discovered a ceiling!” Yes, you think. Whose a clever boy? That’s right. You are. A very clever boy. Very clever indeed.
Idiot.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

2nd: The First Ever Serialized Adventures of You! 1.2

“Oh. Oh. Well. I’ll see you around.” You’re amazed at the speed with which she disappears through the thick crowd. You sigh and return your attention to the only other interesting thing on the car. You slowly make your way down the car and to its opposite side, hand jammed in your pocket and a death grip on your wallet.
“Has anyone ever asked you to give Mandy Patinkin his face back?”
The man looks at you with the same vague, impersonal distaste with which he regards empty space. “No.” He tells you. “Most people just ask me if I am Mandy Patinkin.”
“Would it be better if I asked that?” You just don’t know when to quit, do you?
“No.” he says with slight impatience.
“No it wouldn’t be better or no you aren’t Mandy Patinkin?”
“Either.” He grumbles at you. “Both. Look, just leave me alone, okay?”
The car arrives in Grand Central and you get out, the sudden rise in temperature attacking your lungs. You’re a busy man. You have places to go and things to do, but here you are taking a detour to pick up your hyperactive hillbilly cousin. He’s always whining that he never gets to go anywhere or do anything, that his parents keep him on too tight a leash. You’ve tried to explain to him that they do this because he’s an idiot and if they didn’t do it, he’d run off behind their backs and probably end up in a ditch somewhere.
Sure enough, they took a vacation for their 20th anniversary and the stupid shit decided to wreck your day by calling to tell you he’s at the station and wants you to show him around town. As if you have all the time in the world, or as if you’re a goddamned tour guide.
As you lever your way through the crowds using your beat up messenger bag, an odd sound floats to your ears. It sounds like a high tempo blues piece and you find yourself slowing as you approach the musician who sits just outside the main concourse playing his acoustic-electric hybrid with more enthusiasm than skill. He’s no great player, but you find yourself increasingly interested in what he’s doing. The song ends and he launches into a psychedelic rock version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow from the Wizard of Oz movie. You decide to make your cousin sweat a little.
You sway slowly to the music until it ends. The guitarist opens his eyes and looks at you expectantly.
“What do people usually give you for a performance?” You’re thinking you might need to resort to busking yourself soon, and your stupid cousin certainly isn’t helping the chances of getting the job you’re supposed to be interviewing for this afternoon.
The guitarist looks at you for a moment and shrugs. “Whatever they feel the performance was worth, I guess.”
“So if I thought it was worth two fifty-,”
“Just toss it in, man.” The guitarist seems pretty cheerful as he gestures to the open case in front of him. You realize that he thinks you’re discussing paying him specifically rather than discussing matters of protocol. Well shit.
“I think I’ve only got a five.” You say, but you don’t walk away fast enough.
“Fives are fine with me.” He tells you. You turn and say the first thing that comes to your mind.
“Do you have change?” The man looks at you in confusion, then sighs. He reaches into his wallet and pulls two singles, then scoops out two quarters from his guitar case and holds them out. The bastard called your bluff. Grunting, you snatch the money from his hand and slap a five in its place. So much for lunch.

Monday, January 17, 2011

2nd: The First Ever Serialized Adventures of You 1.1

So before I start off today burdening you with the awfulness of my writing, remember how the other day after I finished my list of top query no-nos I mused about maybe doing a list of things you should do some day? Well, with the true entrepeneurial spirit, one Crazy Writer Girl convinced me to take a stab in a guest blog for her. So check it out. For the rest of this week every day I'll post about a page of a short story I was working on a few months ago and had to abandon due to workload. Feel free to tear it apart. Indeed, in the spirit of vicious editing, and since it is mid-month, the 3rd and 7th comments on this post have an opportunity for a Let's Make a Deal editing. (Note: A single user posting multiple times in a row does not count as multiple posts towards this goal. The same poster cannot win twice per...deal?)Why 3 and 7? I just like those numbers. And stick around because next week I have a backlog of stuff I'ma review for you including (finally!) Jeremy C. Shipp's Fungus of the Heart. Finally- happy MLK day everyone. Enjoy the day off. Try not to spend the whole thing brooding, but be sure to brood a little over our history, race relations, martydom, heroics, morality, social obligations and so on.
***************
It’s a surprisingly hot day in early autumn. The air outside is stagnant and humid and you can’t help but think that New York City at this time of year should be cooler. Back home, you think, it rarely even snowed and from the horror stories you’d heard, you thought you’d be buried in it already. But it isn’t like that at all outside. Millions of people, trash piling up on the streets, the harbor and the Hudson and the heat come together in the least pleasant way possible. The phrase “urban jungle” comes to your mind and you almost laugh. But you don’t. You’re on the subway. Nothing is funny on the subway.
If it’s hot outside it’s always twice as bad in the station. To make up for it, the MTA blasts its air conditioners all the time. The people around you are always hacking on some phlegm because of it. You look around at all these miserable people hoping to find some bit of wonder or joy left in this city. Your eyes light on a few worthwhile images. An agreeable young woman smiles brightly at you. Her face is plain, but her legs go all the way up.
“Hi, new to the city?” she asks. She must have noticed you looking around.
“Not that new.” You try to sound cool.
“You looked like you were trying to get your bearings. Anything I can help you with?” She asks.
Yes, your brain says. I’m still so overwhelmed. I could really use a friend in this big terrifying city. If you show me around, whatever we do will be my treat. What’s your cell number?
“Nah, I just don’t want to stare.” Your mouth hates you.
“Stare?” You see that the young woman is confused. “Stare at what?”
“Whatever is interesting. For example, that sour Mandy Patinkin looking accountant over there.” Don’t say it you tell your brain. Don’t you dare say it. “Or your breasts, for instance. Perfect heft, remarkable curvature. If I try not to stare, I’ll end up staring more. So I take lots of quick looks.” Damnit, you think. God fucking damnit. Couldn’t the world let you have just one? Did every opportunity have to just be bait? Why must the cosmic forces always pull the damned football away at the last second? Your ability to distinguish between what you do and what is done to you has decreased dramatically since your ill-fated move to the city which never sleeps.
*******************************

Friday, January 14, 2011

Picture Books-> Chinese Picture Books-> China

So let me start off by saying very quickly that Laban Carrack Hill, repped by the agency I'm at got a Caldecott honor for his work on Dave the Potter. Normally I don't place much stock in awards myself, but looking over the contenders, this was actually the only Caldecott nominee I was even remotely interested in. So congratulations are in order. Now there's only one thing to do. Write a sequel.

So, onward to Chinese picture books. This is a weird, although simple story I thought you all might get a kick out of. Several years ago I studied for a semester in China. The program finds you tutors in Chinese from amongst the students at the host university, but I've never been one to study. Never had to. Wish I knew how. I got an A and now I remember all of like, eight words in Chinese. Le sigh. Anyway, my tutor and I mostly talked history and politics and whatnot. After I left, she sent me her thesis to edit. I did. Several times in great detail. She won a scholarship to continue studing English Language and Lit at the graduate level. Not because of me, honestly. She had some of the best English I saw there and she worked very hard. Never the less, even though for the last couple of years we hadn't talked much I got an e-mail from her out of the blue on Christmas morning. Turns out that she now works at some sort of Chinese publisher. She had contacts at another one called the FLTRP which is the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press or something like that. Sometimes I think the Chinese don't quite grasp how acronyms work. Then again, maybe it sounded hella cool in Chinese. Meantime, it sounds like someone blowing a raspberry. Anyway, on her reccomendation, they wanted me to shorten and simplify Disney picture books for use as language teaching tools in classrooms etc. On the one hand, it'd be easy work and I heartily approve of the idea. It's one of the few things I really regret about my own life that I'm not proficient in any other languages. On the other hand, I know China and I'm not at all convinced that their deal with Disney is legit. I think you all can imagine what might happen if I strolled into Hyperion one day and they loved me and sent me home with smiles from the interview only to run a background check and see that there are unlicensed Disney products with my name on them. I mean, sure. I think Random House does Disney picture books, not Hyperion, but would it stop them from blacklisting me?

Also on Christmas day, His Holiness Pope Idiot the XVII made a speech about how China is evil. I didn't mention it at the time because I'd presolved to not scoff at heavy handed religous morality. But I am now free to seethe as I see fit. Rather than ramble crazy anew, here's the transcript of an e-mail I sent my brother.

************
So, I saw an article today. "Pope to Catholics in China: Be Brave." Basically, the pope went out and gave a speech that boils down to "China is as bad as Iraq. They're bad, evil people." Now, I could talk for hours about how this is obnoxious, ignorant and ill-advised. I could point out that it's not even remotely like a fair comparison, that the Chinese government couldn't care less if you believe in God as long as the religion isn't undermining their authority (which it wasn't until he opened his big mouth, the dumb fuck) or how this is a desperate and hypocritical attempt by a bloated, violent, self righteous group to use the same methods of threat, cajoling and manipulation that their newly identified enemy uses, hoping to legitimize themselves at the expense of over a billion people (because China, not the CCP is the villain here) because of their paranoid but probably correct fear that they are becoming quickly obsolete as a social, cultural, even as a religious authority. What a nice group of people those catholics are. You know. The largest centrally organized religion in the world. With millenia of history converting heathens by the blade. Crying wolf to get attention. Led by a Nazi. And then avoiding any kind of responsibility because as a religious institution THEY ARE NOT EVEN REMOTELY BEHOLDEN TO THEIR FOLLOWERS WHILE SECULAR ORGANIZATIONS INCLUDING THE CCP ARE BEHOLDEN, EVEN IF ONLY MINIMALLY, TO BOTH THEIR CIVILLIANS AND THE APPROVAL OF THE "INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY." I could say all these things, but somehow I feel like you probably understand all that and understand that a self serving snowball artist just picked a fight of epic proprtions and then tagged out and left secular governments to fight it in their place as millions of blindly loyal catholics rise up and say "Yeah, fuck them Chinese and their slanty eyes!"

I mean. Merry Christmas? Try not to let the McNamara's see this on your blackberry screen. You never know. The next inquisition could be just around the corner. But to be fair, that priest did tell you that you were halfway there and that he could save you. So if you get put on the rack, you have no one but yourself to blame for not brainlessly capitulating.
*********

If that offends anyone, I apologize. But hypocrisy really pisses me off. Picking fights pisses me off. And pretending to be something you're not (Examples related to the above include: weak, downtrodden, persecuted, innocent, peacable and kind) pisses me off.

Phew. Glad to finally get that venom out of my system. I mean, here I've been brewing all sorts of great NEW venom and had nowhere to put it. Join me next time when I'll either review some stuff or post some fiction of my own on
"Robin's Rapid Retro-Reviews" OR "2nd The First Ever Serialized Adventures of You!"

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Damn Your Eyes Finale: Seeing Double on America's Funniest Homespun Queries

So we're finally at the end of my list of recently seen query mis-steps. At this juncture I just wanted to add a note. Someone who reads this blog asked the other day if I'd look over their query form letter, and as I took a quick read, it reminded me of something. Writing a GOOD query letter is really, really hard even if you know what NOT to do. I've been focusing a lot on those what-not-to-do scenarios for a lot of reasons. My personality. The ability to cover more ground. The ease of writing about it. The humor involved. So I thought I'd take a brief step back and remind all of you that if you're having trouble writing your own queries, there's nothing to be surprised about or ashamed of. It's not an easy thing to do, and it's not my intention to try and scare you by telling you these "war stories." I'm jes' learnin' ye some caution. One day, maybe I'll go more into detail, but for now, think of your query letter like a job interview (for a low paying job with no benefits to speak of). It needs to be neat, presentable, say as much as possible with as little talking as possible, and balancing confidence so that you're not some shy, akward weirdo (myself) or some overbearing asshole (unsurprisingly some of the best queries I see come from marketers, but they're usually huge jerks with uninteresting books). Meantime, keep your chins up.
****************8

11. One author sent two wholly different query letters for the same exact book, on the same exact day, to the same exact e-mail address, but with one written to myself and one addressed to the bossman. This just takes up space. Really. We’re only going to read one version or the other. Even if it’s good enough to warrant asking for a second opinion, we’re going to forward each other ONE copy. And it’ll be whichever one we pick up first. So what the heck?

12. When an agent signs an author, they’re not looking to represent one book. They’re looking to represent you for your career. So for shit’s sake, stop sending two or three different manuscripts back to back to back. Send your best one. If, and only if we say “the writing’s good but the story just isn’t us.” Then go ahead and ask if we’d be more interested in another manuscript- or better yet, just submit it separately in a few months. You think we’ll remember the other one if you don’t bring it up? It’s your chance at a fresh slate. Or pretty close anyway. Sorta like an etch a sketch with a few faded but permanent lines stuck in there.

13. One author ignored the submissions guidelines on our website. I choked down my disgust and sent a simple message telling him to resubmit properly. Which he did. Twice. Of course. With slightly different subject lines. But the kicker is, the 20 pages he sent in each query? Totally different. Hell, I don’t even know if it was the same book, much less the same pages. And we did say first twenty. There’s a reason for that. If you’ve got alternate versions…pick one.

14. Speaking of alts, sometimes an author will send us a query. Then, three weeks later and before we’ve even responded yet, they’ll send another version bearing little resemblance along with a note along the lines of “Gee, I know I already sent this, but I can only imagine that because you didn’t fly out to my home bearing frankincense and myrrh that you weren’t interested, so I thought I’d send you this version which is EVEN BETTER. I’ll be expecting my biblical gifts soon.” Please stop doing this. For starters, frequently the original version is WAY better because it’s the one they’ve been working off of the whole time. Secondly, it’s just adding more work. Because now we have to reject you twice. And what’s the upshot? Did you think we could sign you twice? Because, you know. We can’t. Although if you want us to take double the commission...
********************
So there you have it. Fourteen of the top worst things you can do when sending me a query. Hope that helps iron out your forms, everyone.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Damn Your Eyes II: More of America's Funniest Home-Spun Queries

Before I get started, I wanted to say 2 things. First, given the poll results, at some point I'll do a trial run for my fiction on this blog and we'll see if people are still amused. Secondly, and I had to restrrain from posting over the weekend to rant and rave, allow me to just say that SHOOTING YOUR CONGRESSWOMAN IN THE FACE DISPLAYS A GROSS MISUNDERSTANDING OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A DEMOCRACY. Jesus. I mean, if this is what the American poopulation is becoming, I'm not sure I even want you to VOTE FOR ME anymore. My health is bad enough without incoherent right-wing extremists exercising their "god given rights" to legally obtain automatic fire arms even though the affect of firing them into a crowd is now obvious even to the dullest members of our society.
*******
5. Stop asking for my damn permission. Man, when did authors get to be so wishy-washy? I know the classic thing to do was to send a query and only send a manuscript if the agent was interested, but please, please read our guidelines. We specifically asked for you to send twenty pages. No more. No less. No matter what. Unless it’s a picture book. Or if you’re an illustrator. Or…well whatever. You know what I mean. And then there’s the “I queried you a year ago and you said no then, but I’ve revised it and may I send it again?” Gotta be honest, until I see the manuscript in front of me, odds are I won’t even remember what you’re talking about (and besides, I’ve only been there eight months.) Either way, what am I going to say? “You sucked then, so you must suck now"? "Go away kid, ya bother me”? Just send it- provided of course you really have revised and it really has been a decent length of time since before. Can’t tell you how much it upsets me when people we reject put a couple of quick spit-shine changes and resubmit a week later. Why wasn’t it that good in the first place? And also, you sucked then, and you suck now. So go away. You bother me.
6. If your query letter is more than a page, you’re in trouble. If your summary is close to two, you’re gone. I saw a query the other day that had three pages of information about how a couple met, courted, married and mated just to have several more about the kids, so that we could have several more about who they turn out to be before we actually get around to another paragraph about the STORY. I neither need nor want this sort of play-by-play of your entire freaking book. I’ve said it before and I will surely say it again- write your synopsis like marketing copy. Not sure what that means? Well, read the BACK COVER of a book and it’ll give you a decent idea.
7. If I see one more book about a Guardian Angel coming to earth to protect a teenage witch with whom he falls in love but must compete against the devil sent to assassinate her (who also loves her), well, I can’t be held responsible for my actions.Shame that sort of book sells. I guess I'll just have to grin and bear it, but you'd do us all a favor if you, y'know, at least tried to make it good or different.
8. Do not, I repeat do not ever send me a manuscript of more than 250,000 words. In fact, I’d highly recommend never exceeding 150,000, and even that should be carefully considered as there are many fine, full sized adult books between 75,000-125,000. 250,000 is two books put together. This is hard to read, hard to edit, hard to print. Every step of the way it takes longer, costs more money, and risks losing attention. If your thing is that big, find a way to break it up or cut it down.
9. Lawyers, please. I’ve told you before. If you’re going to drop your crap on me,forget the picture books and the middle grade. Make ‘em mysteries or legal thrillers. Stuff you know. Lord knows the cops aren’t very good at it.
10. Listen close, green living folks. Could you, just once, write a proposal that isn’t obnoxious, self important and condescending? Could you give a little thought to putting environmental issues into a story without making it overtly a propaganda piece? And, now hear me on this because I’m serious, could you please stop pretending that your sales will be in the millions despite the pitiful quality of your manuscript because you’re “saying something that’s like, totally important”? Actually, Merriam Webster’s recently posted a “user submitted new word” for just such people: ecotistical. Gotta love it.

Friday, January 7, 2011

Damn Your Eyes: America's Funniest Home-Spun Queries

Okay folks, clean out your ears, wipe off your glasses, and turn your hearing aid way, way up. I still harbor some hope that everyone who queries an agent will be reading, if not my blog, than that of one of the roughly ninety jillion agents, publishers or authors, established, new or aspiring many of whom also offer vital advice, much as I do. And you’d be amazed how much of it is the same advice. Maybe that’s because it works. So here’s a few of the most infuriating things you can do when you query that I’ve been seeing A LOT lately.

1. “Dear Submissions,” Yes. It’s true. My mother is a dominatrix and consequently my given name is Submissions. No, I don’t mind at all if you’d rather use that than the “nick name” posted on the agency’s website. Idiot.
2. REALLY CRAZY HUGE GINORMOUS TEXT. What the hell? This gets attention but in the wrong way. Although I pride myself on finding reasons either creative or fundamentally substantial on which to hate your stinking guts, I know a lot of people aren’t as nice as I am and when they see that only two words fit length wise across the screen, you go straight in the reject box.
3. “I am a sixty three year old grandfather of five, which is why I’ve written a fun five book series of early readers called ‘Fun with Grandpa’ designed to teach important moral lessons.” Okay, stop right there. First of all, unless you’re a celebrity or a known expert on a subject, I’d counsel against putting your bio first, and let’s be honest “I’m a boring old man.” Is not a particularly enthralling opening line for your query. Secondly, Easy Readers are for little kids to read to themselves. You think they want to read a book about grandpa lecturing them about how kids in his day were respectful enough to not only cut a switch but beat themselves with it? Let’s be totally clear. No big children’s author made their mark by harping on morals like some Victorian school handbook. Quite the reverse, big successes for virtually every age child, like every book produced by Stratomeyer (a la Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys) or the works of Judy Blume and others are if anything completely the reverse. They cover issues kids find fun, look to substantial “real issues” like bullying, racism and puberty, rarely address morality itself, and when they do, don’t beat you over the head with absolutes. Hate to crush your dreams old timer, but no one wants what you’re selling except other old men who wish their grandkids thought hanging around them was fun.
4. Every now and then, there comes an author that tries out a razzle dazzle vocabulary style. Got one recently from an author who loves Poe and Shelley (Percy or Mary?) talking about his Catch-22 like bildungsroman and describing it with phrases such as Promethean irreverence (not sure what’s irreverent about being chained to a mountain and pecked apart by Eagles for being nice to people) and Joycean Nightmares. If I met him on the street, that author and I would probably be two peas in the haughty asshole pod. But we’re not on the street. This is a query. So here’s one more phrase that comes to mind when I think of that author- obfuscatory verbiage.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Rage: On

One of the most frequent and obvious distinctions between promising writers and bad ones is how they handle criticism. The other day, something barely comprehensible, scarcely imaginable, and wholly terrifying happened. An author responded to a query complaining that several hours was insufficient time to have truly considered his proposal. You’d think his response would be “thank you for not making me wait days, weeks, even months for an answer.” But instead, thinly veiled by polite words such as “you’d be doing me a tremendous service” was the very clear bait for an argument. I even drafted a response to him explaining why he’d been rejected so quickly. See, there’s a catch-22 involved in this. If I told him the truth, he’d think I’m an asshole because his problems as an author run very, very deep. Or, I could not tell him and he’d think I’m an asshole who just rejects everything after only a cursory glance (which is not true in the least. If I must- very well, I apologize for being a fast reader and on top of my job). This isn’t the real problem. I don’t mind if he thinks I’m an asshole. I AM AN ASSHOLE. But I need to consider the agencies’ reputation and even more significantly it burns me up that no matter what I say that author will walk out of the situation taking entirely the wrong lesson to heart. For the rest of you, and who knows, maybe him too, here’s the skinny.

1. The query letter was a mess. Only two short paragraphs or so, with convoluted text about “good guys” and “bad guys” which said nothing about character or plot, or even about the author.
2. A humdrum opening line.
3. A serious telling-rather-than-showing problem.
4. A complete lack of focus- not only was everything told instead of shown, the sheer amount of details thrown at us from page one without even context to hang it on was astonishing.
5. The manuscript itself was no less a jumbled mess than the letter. This is hard to explain so that you’ll truly appreciate it, so I may go a little overboard here in which case I apologize for the violent and remorseless beating of dead horses. Let’s start with simple stuff. What is a sentence? This is a sentence. “Mary scored the winning goal” is a sentence. “Bobby prepared meatballs” is a sentence. What is not a grammatically correct nor stylistically tolerable sentence? Something like “Jeff rubbed his swollen red eyes which resulted from the hangover he had because he was thinking about his ex-wife’s birthday as a result of going past the Hallmark store where they met and where he had once broken a Christmas ornament and slipped out the backdoor quickly while his best friend Hal distracted the pimply 17 year old clerk who probably wouldn’t have cared anyway because he was a weasely little shit and besides neither Jeff nor Hal had ever seen him work there again; he probably quit because kids today are such fucking slackers and oh god did Jeff’s head hurt like a mother fucker and the ideas forming within coalesced and burst out painfully one after another like kidney stones which, incidentally, Jeff had had twice in the last three years and he wasn’t terribly happy about that at all- no sir.” That’s about on par with how that guy writes. It’s also about twice as interesting, which is much less a testament to my skill as a writer than his lack thereof.

In short, the author was rejected quickly because his manuscript was essentially unreadable. Let’s be clear. I’ve edited college theses for students who never set foot in an English speaking country in their lives. I’ve tutored kids with ADD, Dyslexia, NVLD or who were just straight up dumb or lazy. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such incoherent and culturally bankrupt ramblings in my life. Well sir, you wanted to know why you were rejected. There’s the truth of it . If you place garbage on the corner, you’d best be prepared for the eventuality that the garbage man will cart it away. For those of you with the sense to listen rather than tout paranoia as a defense, I’ve decided to dust off (and add a few things) to a list of my top query no-nos. Join me for the next week or so for a section I like to call “Damn Your Eyes: America’s Funniest Home-Spun Queries.” Maybe after that I can finally get around to the stuff about (picture books in) China I’ve been wanting to post since Christmas.

Monday, January 3, 2011

She's a Cold Blooded Flake Critique

This one's a Paranormal kind of thing which so far follows two people; a sociopathic mermaid murdering her way to Hollywood and a young widower who has to sell his dream to pay for his daughter's college.
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Grimness occurred on the ample thighs of luxury.What? Even the most dismal depths of sky and water held warmth. It was the Gulf of Mexico in July. A hint of breeze tickled the surface of the water and slid across the contours of a well-lit cruise ship. On a secluded lower deck, two naked women were fondled by the wicked little wind. Ha! The wind is a pervert. Unfortunately, one woman was too dead, quite literally, to care. The other was too busy attempting to wipe her hands clean from the kill. Too direct. First, I’d play up the discrepancy between the luxury of the surrounding more, then I’d merely say that one was busy wiping the blood from her hands. Trust me. Readers’ll get it and it’ll be stronger that way.
Frankly Cut the frankly. Sounds too 1st person., the bloodstains on the dress worried her more than disposing of the body. Coping with that sort of gory mess put her in a sharky What? mood. Onda pouted to herself. No pain, no gain, right? I’d do this in narration rather than italics. It creates a 3rd omni vs. 1st conflict for the reader. If she could make her way to the corpse’s former stateroom without attracting anyone’s suspicion, she figured a long soak in cold water would do the trick for the garment. She still had far more to handle here than she’d really expected. Qualifiers (really) are for first and 3rd limited. I think it sounds better without.
Grunting with exertion, Onda shoved the inert form over the edge of the deck and watched it splash into the waves below. She rose and leaned against the railing, wiggling her fingers in farewell as triangular fins torpedoed towards the scent of fresh meat.
“Thanks for the Chanel!” she called softly as she giggled. The dress, after all, had been her true target. Show don’t tell. Have her obsess over the blood stains. After admiring the reflected moonlight on her knife’s finely honed blade, she gave it a toss into the waves as well. When she surveyed the deck she discovered the mess wasn’t as gruesome as she’d initially assumed. Most of the blood had splattered over the gown. Screwing her pretty face into a nasty scowl, Onda determined a brainstorming session on murder options was definitely in order later. Phrasing. I’d keep it simple. Onda determined to plan out these housekeeping issues better for the next time. Housekeeping had not You really can’t tell readers where the stress is. You need to imply it. Note: This was italicized for stress in the manuscript been in her plan. Now she was stuck with a bloody mess, aboard a yacht of people packed tight as a can of dead sardines, and had a questionable amount of time for swabbing down the deck. Phrasing. You mean she didn’t know how much time she had?
She yanked on the dead girl’s lingerie in case she encountered anyone, and scampered around the corner in search of one of the many private jacuzzi Jacuzzi is a brand. It either needs to be capitalized or replaced with “hot tub” or whatever. alcoves. A big stack of fluffy towels provided a solution to her mess. Cramming as many as she could fit beneath each arm, she rushed back To the deck . Onda polished and blotted away evidence of her naughty deed. {Naughty is} too cute for the situation.
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So that's about the first page worth of text. It's got some ups and downs. It overuses ellipses and italics, but it's also got some really weird lines I like a lot (like the wind thing). It also moves really fast, but I thought the main characters were...well, not likable really. Don't think they're supposed to be. But they are interesting.

Anyway, hope that helps the not only the author, but all's y'all as well.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Monster Pageant critique

So this is (roughly a page) of the first critique I did for the Let's Make a Deal post. Children's picture books aren't really my thing, but I gave it a whirl. Next time, I'll post the fiction one. Normally I use Word's comment feature, but here I've ust reinserted those comments in italics. I apologize if it makes it confusing. For the most part I stuck to thematic or structural issues. I'd shoot myself if I were a copy editor, so yeah. Hopefully, reading through the comments I make will help you all self-edit. Really, that's the best thing anyone in the editorial process can do in the long run. Is help the author refine their own abilities. Anyway...
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Lilly was a Pageant Queen.
She had won so many pageants, that there were no more pageants left to win.
Until Lilly discovered……. Cut the ellipse. The words and eventually images need to make the flowA Monster Pageant.
Lilly wasn’t a monster, but she didn’t care. “I always win,” she said with her nose in the air. So are we rhyming or not?Lilly never cared for her competitors.
She only cared to beat them. Show, don’t tell. With kids you have more room, but these lines are weak and risk making the whole thing into a moral tale, which most kids don’t like. Nose in the air works. Let the artist take it from there. Swoosh! The curtains opened and the Monster Pageant swung into full swing. Repetitive and awkwardStinky Sam took the stage first. “My hobbies include toad kissing and swamp bathing.”
“P-ew! She sure is rotten!” the announcer said.
The audience applauded loudly. I feel like the audience response should be more interesting than mere clapping, and reference each creature’s uniqueness. “croaked in delight” maybe?The other monsters slapped Sam a high five. This doesn’t seem necessary and she’s the only monster who gets two lines of adulations.
“Hmmph!” Lilly said burying her hands in her pockets. What’s she wearing? You don’t need to tell us, but this limits the artist.Next came One-Eyed Susan. She’s just a girl with one eye? The others have alliterative names. “My hobby is collecting fashion eye-wear.” She winked at the judges.
“Oh, she’s a real charmer!” the announcer said.
The other monsters clapped fiercely.
“Pshaw.” Lilly said, covering her ears. “Eye’d” make her responses more tied to the situation.

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So, not much, but I hope it helps. I think the most important part was one not covered in that span. At one point, all the contestants help Lilly become monstrous, bt their identities get mixed up. One Eyed Susan provides "Gunky Grime" (why caps?) for Lilly's teeth. But that still sounds like something that Stinky Sam would come up with. Further in, the other contestants lose their identitys evn more in the talent portion when the acts are described but the performers aren't named. My response: "Seriously. Apply the creatures unique characteristics. If you can’t see (pun intended) how being one eyed could be used to help Lilly, pick something else." Children's books are all about repetition, simplicity, predictability. Once a formula is set or even started, you have to see it through. Hence my paroxysms over having two of three names be alliterative. Or specially identifying the characters oddities and then never making them relevant again.

Once again, I hope that provides some insight. I'll be doing a Paranormalish kind of thing next time, and I'll probably offer more critques in a few weeks if anyone's still interested.