What am I reading now?

I'm thinking of starting to do book reviews every now and then but first I think I'll talk about what I'm currently reading. So here is the list.

1. Road Kill - Rob Thurman - This one is taking me awhile to get through. It's mildly interesting but doesn't really grab me and I don't quite understand the world. I know this isn't the first of the series but a lot of what I've read doesn't actually make sense. Main Character is supposed to be a half human, half monster badass but he's scared of his brother that is a full human... doesn't quite synch up in my opinion.
2.  Driven to Distraction - Jeremy Clarckson - This one is pretty great. I'm not a car guy but I love the British Top Gear guys. This is a collection of article's he's written for a newspaper. Slightly out of date but damn it's hilarious.  

I'll probably be starting a Terry Pratchett book soon. I recently discovered his Discworld series and damn they are hilarious. They also made me start wondering why British writers are allowed to be completely absurd but American writers can't. The only conclusion I can come up with is that American writers take themselves too seriously.  I find this conclusion unsatisfactory and slightly depressing. I think I'm going to attempt writing absurd stories or books in the near future just for fun.

Also... I might be participating in a podcast soon. More details will follow.  

Oddly Optimistic

I'm not sure why but I'm feeling oddly optimistic right now. Sure I'm still waiting for any agent to request a partial, sure I believe I'm running out of agents to query, and sure I have no hard indication that I might get my novel accepted any time soon. 

That being said, I feel like something will happen soon and I keep watching my email for that to happen. Also watching my twitter feeds. I follow quite a few of the agents that I have queried and I keep hoping to see something about it there. It could happen... Right?

Not Much

Wow almost a whole week has gone by and I haven't posted anything. Sorry about that. Truth is there hasn't really been much going on. I live in Kansas and we weathered a nice winter storm, loads of snow. I've submitted to more agents bringing my total up to over 40, and I've sent an unagented submission in to a publisher just hoping for the best. That's basically it. I have become more active on twitter to a degree. 

So how have I been passing the dreaded waiting time? I had a friend help rearrange my living room, purchased a new television, and cleaned out a storage area in my house. All projects that make my wife happy, the television makes me happy, and they all rather effectively passed a few days. Not enough, but a few. Now to go back to dealing with the cold weather. At this point I almost want to be a great writer just so I can move south. 

Things to do while waiting.

Have you noticed that most of my posts talk about waiting? I keep reading that publishing is a marathon and not a sprint, I have to tell you, it is a marathon. A walking on legos barefoot marathon. 

So you've written your manuscript and you are ready to get published. Well take your shoes and socks off and take your first step on the burning hot pavement covered in legos. Hurts doesn't it? That's the feeling of finding out that maybe your manuscript isn't as good as you thought it was. 

Take your second step, no hopping on one foot here, still hurts doesn't it? The pain is a bit worse. That's the feeling of not having agents breaking down your door.

Do you get the point? So anyway, during this painful marathon (that you will remember fondly one day because lets face it, you're human and we easily gloss over the pain of reaching our goals) you have to find ways to keep yourself busy. How do you do that?

I've been filling my days with thinking about my next book and getting ready to start it. I've also taken on some home improvement projects that mostly involve throwing stuff away. You can take up another hobby, slowly bang your head against a wall, or take up drinking.

The reality is, I don't actually know. You'll spend a lot of time waiting and wondering if your work is good enough to get published, and you'll read other books and think that they aren't nearly as good as yours so why is it so hard to find a publisher? I assure you this is normal and all part of the long barefoot lego marathon of getting published. In the end though, it's worth it. You get to share your work with the world, feel the pride of seeing your book on shelves and maybe even meeting fans. So stick with and keep stepping on those legos, eventually your feet will go numb.     

New Query Letter

 This is my newest query letter after using the suggestions from Mr. Sambuchino. I think this is much better than the last one and hopefully will get an agent or publisher interested in my manuscript.

Dear <Name>:

RAGGED EDGE: CRY OF THE PHOENIX is an 85,000-word manuscript that falls within the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre. A supernatural thriller it’s similar to The Dresden Files meets Indiana Jones.

In 360 B.C. Plato described a rich and powerful land called Atlantis. 3,600 years ago the volcano at the center of Atlantis experienced a cataclysmic eruption. The island and civilization of Atlantis were believed destroyed and passed into myth, but what about the inhabitants of Atlantis?

Alongside our reality exists another, separate reality. A reality in which the things that go bump in the night can, and will, happily rip your face off. Where vampires, werewolves, mythical Gods, and other creatures are common place. The majority of the human race remains blissfully unaware of the evil continually threatening their existence. They are protected by the Atlanteans, armed with the ability to change forms and manipulate the elements, who walk the ragged edges where the supernatural and the natural collide. Throughout the centuries they have lived among us, guarding and guiding the human race.

RAGGED EDGE is the story of Sean Gryphon. A 700-year-old Atlantean, Sean finds his job as a Junior Guardian, protecting humans from mid-level supernatural threats, to be tedious and unnecessary. His mentor, Darius, comes to him with a mission and the threat of death if the mission fails. The mission is to protect an Archeologist, Dr. Ilsy Hillerman, a human with a supernatural secret of her own, and the mysterious stone tablet she uncovered on her most recent dig. Sean is pissed and determined to do the bare minimum to succeed.

Viewing the mission as a simple babysitting job, Sean finds himself unprepared for the harsh reality that quickly smacks him in the face. He is immediately attacked by some of the worst creatures ever encountered in his seven hundred years, discovers unfortunate family secrets and catches the eye of the ancient Celtic Goddess Danu. In his quest to protect Ilsy, and translate the ancient tablet, he reconnects with his estranged grandfather, runs afoul of his insane mother, and unconvers a secret Darius strove to keep hidden for centuries. In the end, Sean realizes that sometimes, there are some things more important than his life.

CRY OF THE PHOENIX is the first of the RAGGED EDGE CHRONICLES. I’m an avid reader of mythology, horror, and mystery novels and have spent the past ten years as a paranormal investigator. I’m also a father, a husband, and a bit of a weirdo. I’m not a “licking peanut butter off the windows” weirdo, just a “make funny faces at myself in the mirror for a laugh” type weirdo.

Thank you for your time and consideration, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

Dustyn McCormick

Query Critique

So I got my query critique back today. For those that don't know I actually paid a gentleman, Chuck Sambuchino, to critique and help edit my query letter. It was quite an eye opening experience. I saw that my letter does a very poor job of describing my book and this also brings up another writing tip. When you are writing your query letter make sure you read it as though you are someone that has never read your book. 

See that's the problem. I reread my letter, but I know what happens in my book. So the letter made perfect sense to me and I knew what I meant. Someone with no familiarity with the book can easily get the wrong ideas. 

What does all this mean? It means I get to rewrite my letter. Bleh. But at least it's not a rewrite of the book. Now to figure out how to describe it better and figure out other books or movies or something to compare it with. Wish me luck. 

For want of a cheeseburger.

Ok. So for those of you that don't know, which would be most of you, I have this odd condition. It's not that I'm unbelievably good looking, though that's true, and it's not that I'm horribly modest, which could be true but I'm not sure. It's that I have this thing called Alpha-Gal. You can visit the link to learn more about but basically it breaks down to this. Because of a tick bite I am somewhat allergic to red meat. Right now for me it's relatively minor and seems to be focused on processed meat. So fast food burgers, store bough ground beef, could kill me.

This presents me with a problem. I am dying for a cheeseburger. I love cheeseburgers. Cheeseburgers are the nectar of the gods... and I can't have them. I mean I can but it involves buying some form of unprocessed beef, steak, roast, stuff like that, then running it through the meat grinder forming patties and finally cooking them. I would love to just go to the closest greasy spoon and get the best heart attack inducing cheeseburger around. I can't do that.

It's really making me rather depressed. It also has me ranting about wanting a cheeseburger on a blog about writing. Well, I guess shit happens. I still want a burger though.