Random Crap Week Part VI

So every now and then, someone chooses to follow me on twitter, which is odd because I really don’t say anything. And while I will occasionally stop lurking for a moment to comment on a blog… I do no such thing with Twitter. Still, I said “I should at least see who it is. It seems to me the polite thing to do is to follow your followers right back.” So I looked her up. If her face image is to be believed, she’s quite cute. Also, her most recent tweet at the time read something like “Watching Firefly on Netflix and eyeing WIP apologetically.” Well, good enough for me. What say you and I get hitched, mysterious twitter lady*? What’s that you say? You’re already happily married and have children? Worry not, darling. True love conquers all.

Just kidding! I put marriage, or even romance on roughly the same level as professional wrestling. I acknowledge it only briefly and intermittently, and even then only for the sake of snickering at those foolish enough to indulge in it.

“The best part about going to war is not having to fight in it.” General Jacob Gallbladder and the Art of War Book II: On Being an Officer.

Returning to what is ostensibly the core of this blog- working in the publishing industry, I’d like to vent about wankers/give advice for all you authors, especially those as yet unrepresented ones. When I e-mail you politely asking you to RESUBMIT FOLLOWING OUR SUBMISSION GUIDELINES this does not mean that we’re requesting the full and it doesn’t give you the right to act as if we’re a breath away from drawing up a contract. I’m just giving you the chance to do things properly. I could just as easily have deleted you, or rejected you for your inability to read our website BUT I’m such a kind and compassionate fellow (shutup, I am) that I’d like to give you the benefit of the doubt and I don’t want to miss out on a good book, especially when I know how confusing and mind numbing it can be when you’re sending things to a hundred places. It’s a lot like looking for a job and in the middle of an interview trying to remember if this is the company with the data center is Des Moines, Delhi or the dark side of the moon, and fearing that you’ll get it wrong, freezing up and using your stock speech. It happens. I don’t want to penalize you for it. But stop abusing it. Also stop assuming it moves you instantly to the top of the pile. Because all these other people are also waiting for a response and they actually sent their bloody manuscript sample.

Also, for shits and giggles, I think you should all pretend that I speak very fast (which I do) but in a British accent (which I don’t). British accents make the perfect villain voices, and I do say bloody a lot so I can only imagine that right now you’re picturing me twirling my handlebar moustache and tying your beloved manuscript to the railroad tracks.

On a final note, do any of you watch Castle? It’s a crime drama/sitcom about a writer who shadows police (and all the requisite job tension and romantic wackiness he has with a gorgeous lead detective) starring the same guy who was Captain of the Spacecowboys in Firefly, the show Mysterious Twitter Lady is watching. Anyway, the show always makes me feel slightly uncomfortable. Mostly because the main character’s daughter is also gorgeous and I’m not even sure she’s legal, so I always get this dirty feeling for acknowledging how cute she is. I am not okay with this. I demand TV shows be populated with ugly people to assuage my conscience.

*I wrote this a week ago and have since discovered that she’s been officially signed at our agency. Congratulations to Shelley Watters.