REJECTED!

Today, the hammer dropped. But instead of feeling flattened I feel buoyant and ready to query away. But this time I'm taking Ollie's advice--rather than throwing all my hopes and dreams to one agent, I'll be tossing my story out to twenty at a time. That way my author skin can toughen up and rejection letters will seem as ubiquitous as toothless movie renters in Portland.

Exhausted Excuses...

Today I received the most pitiful call from an employee. I'm sure he was doing his absolute best to sound authentically sick, but let me tell ya, I don't care if you have the world's worst case of food poisoning--I don't care if you're puking up midget albinos or bleeding out your ass and ears--no one sounds that bad. It was all I could do to keep from busting my gut.

And the Oscar goes to Mr. Moan-a-lot.

It never ceases to amaze me how many employees fall prey to food poisoning. I suppose it's the perfect excuse: You only have to pretend you're sick for one day. You can show up for work the next day chipper as hell, now that you've purged the tainted food from your system (more likely it was alcohol poisoning--but they'd never admit that).

The silliest case of food poisoning so far this year came from a girl who claimed she and her friends had eaten berries on the side of the road. Yeah, okay, sure I'm going to believe that one! I mean, c'mon, what idiot alive hasn't been cautioned against the deadly red berry bush!

Other excuses I've heard--some real, others total fabrications:

1) Killing off the grandparents seems to be a popular one.

"Wait...didn't you say Grandma Myrtle died last week?"

"Oh...uh...that was my other grandma Myrtle...um...yeah...."

2) The always popular broken down car.

"It just won't start! I don't know why!"

"Did you try turning the key?"

"..."

"Take a bus."

3) Ms. innocent.

"I didn't know I worked today?"

"You knew last night before you went to that party."

4) Last minute schedule conflicts.

"I told you I have Yoga on Saturdays; I can't work them anymore."

"Fine. Meditate on these words: You're fired!"

Vacation...

In the post below I mentioned my plan to focus on "other things." The most exciting of which is an upcoming trip to London and Paris. Yes, I know, I can't get enough of Europe. But I also have some great friends there. In a large way, I'm returning to my second home in Paris.

I'm only going to be there for a week (yeah, I actually have a job now) and I know after having spent the summer there two years ago that ONE week is going to fly by like Britney Spears with a baby on her lap.

The dates, for those who care, are September 13th - 22nd. If you want a postcard shoot me your address.

Can you spot the blemish in the photo?

Jitters...

The agent whom I queried wrote in her blog today that she finished reading all the partials she received in the last couple of weeks. What does that mean, you ask? It means that in a matter of days I should be receiving either a rejection or a request for a full manuscript. But I'm not feeling too confident.

After I sent off the query letter that subsequently earned a request for a partial my hopes were pretty darn high. Looking back, I think it was due to the fact that it really was a good query. It was written exactly to the agent's liking (lots of agent research helped in that department) and was given the stamp of approval from Ed Schubert--a friend and editor of Orson Scott Card's speculative fiction magazine.

But when I read over the first thirty pages of my novel--the pages that are probably now collecting coffee stains on the agent's desk--my gag reflex shot into hyper drive. I don't know what it is exactly, but I have a real problem liking my stuff once the ink has dried. I think many writers face this dilemma. And it's not false modesty either--I really do believe it sucks.

So my hopes aren't high. Especially considering the 1 in 200 shot that a full manuscript will be requested. The shadow of the hammer is creeping closer. And I'm trying my hardest to focus on other things so I can move on with little injury.

Sometimes I push the limits...

One of the most annoying aspects of my job is having to push candy down people's throats. Unfortunately the company I work for tracks candy sales per store. Therefore a large part of my day is spent pushing candy and inspiring my employees to do the same. Candy pushing is a major focus for this company.

But sometimes (in fact, most the time) it doesn't go over so well. For one, most the people who live in the neighborhood aren't the biggest fans of candy. These are the kind of people who show up with a cat on a leash, an Ipod velcroed to their naked bicep, donning their best running shoes. These are the kind of people who would rather devour a fistful of almonds than to plop a Raisinette on their tongue.

So often when I ask if they would like some candy I'm met with silence and an I-can't-believe-you're-actually-asking-me-to-poison-my-body expression. If looks could kill I'd be a crate of Oscar Meyer wieners.

But though it's a hard sell, I press on. Why? Because it's my job, and I sort of need the money. But occasionally I'll get the other variety of customer. The one who freaks out in a positive way over my Raisinette offer and buys enough for the six kids tearing up my video game aisle.

Then there are the playful weirdos. Like this freak who, when after I offered him candy, opened his mouth to expose two pitiful nicotine-stained stumps surrounded by vacant gums. "I ain't got not teeth," he said needlessly.

Stunned, yet still looking for a sale, I fired back: "We sell lollipops!"

You can imagine the several transformations his face experienced: Shock to slightly offended to oh shit that was kind of funny.

I can still hear his toothless guffaw echoing in my head.

Alzheimer's Test...

Count every "F" in the following text:

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE
SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTI
FIC STUDY COMBINED WITH
THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS...




(SEE BELOW)





HOW MANY ? WRONG, THERE ARE 6 -- no joke.

READ IT AGAIN ! Really, go Back and Try to find the 6 F's. The reasoning is the brain cannot process "OF".

This will sound strange and too surreal to believe.

But...

About a year before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon I was having a lot of spooky dreams about New York. I've never been to New York, though in these dreams I felt pretty familiar with the city.

Every dream started off peaceful. I was ferrying to Liberty Island in one, walking through the downtown crush in another. And then something bad happens. There's a lot of fire and I'm running through buildings, desperately trying to get away from...something.

I told everyone about these dreams. And everyone told me to stay away from New York. But no one was serious. They were only dreams. I even told my district manager at the time, Heather. And she said I was strange, and I agreed.

When September 11 happened, I didn't recall my dreams immediately. Because, well, the scenes were so horrible that my mind was simply numb from shock. But by the end of that tragic day, I remembered.

Heather was the first to call and tell me that she, too, recalled the dreams I'd had. Now she really thought I was weird. Other friends--and of course my family--all contributed their own two cents to the eerie coincidence.

Because it had to be a coincidence, right? The dreams served no purpose. They weren't clear enough, or specific enough, to allow me to warn anyone. And how silly would that be? But the dreams did end. I no longer had dreams of a burning New York.

Except for last night. But it wasn't New York. It was everywhere...

In the dream I'm outside and see smoke on the horizon. I'm in Portland. At least that's what I believe in this dream. I move to get a better view of the fire and see three giant blazes. In my head, I know it's an oil pipeline.

I am suddenly transported in front of a television. And on every channel there is news of a different catastrophe. In my head I know it's terrorism. The scene that's the most clear is of a plane crashing into a KFC. And for some reason I think it's in China.

Other scenes flash before my eyes and I realize that on this day there are multiple attacks, and not just on American soil, but in major cities around the world. And in my head I'm shocked that the terrorists were able to pull off such stunning attacks, all on the same day.

I don't know what it means, if dreams really mean anything. But it was eerie, and real. And I keep seeing flashes of large logs rolling in a swift river, a plane crashing into a KFC, and three giant infernos on the horizon.

But it was just a dream, right?

Off to Fresno! (And an unplanned tangent)

Wow, with an exclamation point even.

So I'm taking a few days off work to visit with my familia in good ole California! It's hard to believe I've been living in Portland for four months. Doesn't it seem like just yesterday that I flew the coup?

It'll be nice seeing my old stomping grounds again. What won't be nice is the 100 degree weather waiting for me. Today's high in Portland was 70 with a nice breeze. Too bad I was in doors most the day. But at least Snot Man didn't show up.

Oh, didn't I tell you?

Yeah, well, Snot Man is this rather large African American gentleman with a thick beard and an awful stutter. Directly below his nostrils is a shiny moustache. When he first stepped to my till I couldn't tear my eyes away from his unusually shiny stache. It looked like he'd had a bowl of Vaseline for breakfast.

And then it happened.

Split pea soup with a vengeance. The frothy sap poured from his nostrils as if some infected boil had just burst in his nose cavity. He was very conscious of his predicament; he kept wiping the snot away with his hand. Meanwhile he continued to ask me to look up movie after movie. I finally told him that I would look up only one more--the rest he'd have to go and find on the floor himself.

I thought about trailing him with a few "Caution, Wet Floor" signs--just in case someone slipped on his slimy deposits. Luckily he left after realizing he couldn't rent movies without a credit card. Unluckily, the next day I found one of the movies he'd inquired about missing a disk.

Snot Man strikes again. Where's Kleenex Man when you need him.

Great News!

I announced a few posts ago how I mustered up the courage to send a query letter to an agent requesting representation for my novel. And today the agent e-mailed me asking for the first thirty pages of my manuscript.

Woohoo!

So something in my query letter sparked this agent's interest. She usually requests partials for 1 out of 30 queries. But now comes the real test: Will she like the story? Or will she toss it in the round file beneath her desk?

Time will tell. And it will be a long wait since partials take two months for a response. Meanwhile I'm hard at work on the second novel. And I'm trying really hard not to get my feeble little hopes up.

Sometimes I do the stupidest things.

So I was just sitting at my kitchen table enjoying my normal routine, reading e-mails, blogs, news, etc. I had a steaming cup of coffee to my right and my cell phone on my left.

I'd been that way for about twenty minutes: reading, sipping, reading sipping. And then halfway through an article I decided to see how much coffee I had left in my mug. So I picked it up and tilted it directly over my laptop, spilling coffee onto my keyboard.

STUPID.

If someone had been watching from a distance it would have looked like I purposefully dumped coffee on my laptop. What a dumbass. And now my Enter button and my Backspace button stick. There's an annoying crunching sound whenever I type.

DAMN.

Grant's Store and Boop...

I love days off. Ever day should be a day off. I love lying in bed, knowing I have nowhere I have to be and nothing I have to do. Just lying there wishing I could stop time.

Those are great thinking times. When the morning has just begun and the world outside is still quiet and serene. Before the neighbors wake and open their mouths and slam their doors and destroy everything that's peaceful.

Anyway, this morning I was thinking back to when I was nine years old and hanging out with my friends who lived up and down Tarpey Drive. It seemed like every other house had a nine year old in it.

My friends and I often played this make-believe game called Boop. There was a magical spot in my friend's front yard--in the flowerbed beside the sprinkler controls. All one had to do was stand in this spot and say the word Boop and they'd be whisked away to the land of Boop.

Of course Boop was all in our heads. But when you're nine years old the imagination can be truly magical and so a brick mailbox wasn't a brick mailbox but an argumentative robot named Chowder. And the car in the driveway was really a giant bubble one could hide in to escape from the evil fly swatter people.

When I wasn't playing Boop I was running "Grant's Store." Which basically consisted of a piece of plywood resting across two brick blocks on which was strewn various trinkets for sale.

Grant's Store was located on the edge of the driveway and people could buy all sorts of cool things: paper clips that popped back up when you let them fall, hand-drawn coloring books, frogs and pollywogs, marbles, bouncy balls, ink pens, magnets, plastic baggies filled with iron filings, and raffle tickets--winner gets a dollar.

That's what I was thinking about this morning while lying in bed. The things I did when I was nine. And it dawned on me that twenty-five years later I'm basically doing the same things. I'm still running a store, and after work I visit Boop in my writing.

Okay, it's not the same Boop, but the effect is the same. My head is in a magical place where just about anything can happen. And I tell you what, it's a hell of a lot more peaceful there.

I'm at it again!

I'm excited! For me, writing is living. And now that I've completed (hopefully) the last edit of my novel I'm ready to start the sequel. It feels like Christmas time!

Some of you may remember when I was writing the aforementioned novel last year. I started it on June 1st and finished it on August 3rd. Well, by shear coincidence, I started the sequel yesterday--June 1st.

The major difference between last year and this year is that I wasn't working forty hours a week. I had the whole summer to write. And I would get up early, have coffee, drive to my university library, and write for eight hours straight. I treated writing like a job--a FUN one though.

At the end of each week, I posted my progress. I hope to do that this time too, but I fear it's going to move much slower. Oh, how wonderful it would be to have another summer off for writing.

By the way, my query letter has been out for one week. The agent's response time is 3-4 weeks. I'm holding my breath. Every time I check my e-mail my heart beats faster and I have to turn away from my laptop for fear of vomiting all over the keyboard.

Publishing 101

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the publishing process, here's a short outline:

1) Write novel.

2) Send query to agents to seek representation.

3) Bite fingernails, chew Tums, pluck nose hairs (This is where I'm at).

4) Once an agent is acquired, it's his/her job to find a publisher for the novel. This is accomplished over lunch with various editors. Lots of schmoozing. Lots of Gin.

5) Editor likes novel and decides to buy the rights to publish it. Contract time. Negotiation over rights and how much $$$ author gets. This is called an advance. Stephen King got $400,000 for "Carrie." J.K. Rowling got $100,000 for the first "Harry Potter." Extremely rare. Most new authors get around 2-5 grand.

6) Novel gets placed in a publishing queue. Could take up to a year before author sees it in the bookstores. During this time there are editorial changes, the cover is designed, early promotional stuff. Meanwhile, writer is busy at work writing the next novel.