Opened up my email this morning to be greeted by my first two rejections. One a form letter from a big New York agency, the other a rather more polite personal rejection from a slightly smaller New York agency.
It's funny, but no matter how many times I was told by large numbers of people that rejection is part and parcel of being a writer, there was always that glimmer of hope that I'd be snapped up by my very first query (strictly speaking that's still possible: the rejections came from my 3rd and 6th queries respectively). Let's put a positive slant on it though: at least it proves my queries reached their destination (lol) and were considered, even if only briefly.
This is but the start of the process. Time to bang out some more query letters...
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Win a what?
"Win a Smeg fridge!" screamed the headline in today's Metro.
Personally, I prefer to wash the stuff away, not keep it in cold storage.
Personally, I prefer to wash the stuff away, not keep it in cold storage.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Bless the Press
I had to travel to Reading today to meet with a supplier, so over breakfast for a laugh I picked up a copy of the Daily Mail and read their article on the switch-on of the LHC. This event, as the whole world must have noticed, received blanket media coverage even though nothing much beyond calibration of the instrument will be happening for the next few weeks.
Tales of the end of the world abounded in the more reactionary papers and even the sober ones were asking questions that even GCSE physics students could have answered without pausing for breath. All very silly and diversionary, and all guaranteed to elicit sighs of exasperation from the particle physicists at CERN who must have been heartily sick of telling people that there was only an infinitesimally small chance of creating a black hole at all, and even if one were to be created it would evaporate again a split-second later. Oh, and far more powerful atom-smashing is going on right above our heads at the edges of atmosphere, and has been doing for millions of years, with no ill effects. That's assuming there would be any atom-smashing happening at CERN anyway, which as I said isn't scheduled until next month at the earliest.
So I wasn't expecting great things from the dear old Daily Mail, but even I wasn't prepared for the depths of incompetence their article plumbed. The writer couldn't even be bothered to research the name of the main particle being hunted for by the LHC experiment, referring to it as the "Higgs bosun." Presumably this mythical sea-faring particle was expected to pop out of the collider and declare "Har-har-harrrrr! Where's me grog you scurvy swine?"
It's a bosON you bozos.
What made this pre-school error even funnier was that they'd padded the article with a five-minute multiple choice quiz in which one of the questions - "What's the correct name of the God particle being sought by the LHC?" (or something like that) had "Higgs bosun" as one of its incorrect answers, along with boson, bosom and another. Pity the poor simple-minded reader who had scanned the main article for the answer!
Part of the article, and a good percentage of the letters page, was devoted to the usual fatuous rantings of people who just don't understand science, but see the cost of the project and set off into a red-faced orbit of indignation. "What's it for?" "What will we be able to do with it?" "Shouldn't we be making sure we can feed everyone before wasting money on this rubbish?"
Good grief. It's for science. Who knows what we'll be able to do with it? When quantum theory was proposed and investigated, it didn't have any known application, but it led directly to the development of the transistor. Where would we be without them, eh? What do you think powers the computer you type your ignorant articles on, moron? Open your eyes and look around you. Every single aspect of your life is the way it is today because of science. You should be thanking the pioneers of chemistry and physics for your mobile phone, your central heating timer, your television, sat-nav, low temperature washing powder, combi-boiler, and on and on and on.
When you're sitting on the wrong side, temporally speaking, of a great discovery, any predictions about what it might lead to sound inevitably like science fiction. Wind the clock forward and everyday life will have come to rely on whatever it is the LHC teams will unearth about the way the universe works. It might be anti-gravity, limitless free energy, instantaneous communications, the ability to transform matter, or more likely it will be something that we cannot even conceive now in our wildest imaginings. But the drive to discover it is the epitome of the human condition. If you're not interested, you might as well still be a monkey.
Tales of the end of the world abounded in the more reactionary papers and even the sober ones were asking questions that even GCSE physics students could have answered without pausing for breath. All very silly and diversionary, and all guaranteed to elicit sighs of exasperation from the particle physicists at CERN who must have been heartily sick of telling people that there was only an infinitesimally small chance of creating a black hole at all, and even if one were to be created it would evaporate again a split-second later. Oh, and far more powerful atom-smashing is going on right above our heads at the edges of atmosphere, and has been doing for millions of years, with no ill effects. That's assuming there would be any atom-smashing happening at CERN anyway, which as I said isn't scheduled until next month at the earliest.
So I wasn't expecting great things from the dear old Daily Mail, but even I wasn't prepared for the depths of incompetence their article plumbed. The writer couldn't even be bothered to research the name of the main particle being hunted for by the LHC experiment, referring to it as the "Higgs bosun." Presumably this mythical sea-faring particle was expected to pop out of the collider and declare "Har-har-harrrrr! Where's me grog you scurvy swine?"
It's a bosON you bozos.
What made this pre-school error even funnier was that they'd padded the article with a five-minute multiple choice quiz in which one of the questions - "What's the correct name of the God particle being sought by the LHC?" (or something like that) had "Higgs bosun" as one of its incorrect answers, along with boson, bosom and another. Pity the poor simple-minded reader who had scanned the main article for the answer!
Part of the article, and a good percentage of the letters page, was devoted to the usual fatuous rantings of people who just don't understand science, but see the cost of the project and set off into a red-faced orbit of indignation. "What's it for?" "What will we be able to do with it?" "Shouldn't we be making sure we can feed everyone before wasting money on this rubbish?"
Good grief. It's for science. Who knows what we'll be able to do with it? When quantum theory was proposed and investigated, it didn't have any known application, but it led directly to the development of the transistor. Where would we be without them, eh? What do you think powers the computer you type your ignorant articles on, moron? Open your eyes and look around you. Every single aspect of your life is the way it is today because of science. You should be thanking the pioneers of chemistry and physics for your mobile phone, your central heating timer, your television, sat-nav, low temperature washing powder, combi-boiler, and on and on and on.
When you're sitting on the wrong side, temporally speaking, of a great discovery, any predictions about what it might lead to sound inevitably like science fiction. Wind the clock forward and everyday life will have come to rely on whatever it is the LHC teams will unearth about the way the universe works. It might be anti-gravity, limitless free energy, instantaneous communications, the ability to transform matter, or more likely it will be something that we cannot even conceive now in our wildest imaginings. But the drive to discover it is the epitome of the human condition. If you're not interested, you might as well still be a monkey.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Manuscript Madness
I suppose there just might be one or two peeps out there waiting on news of progress with my search for an agent. And to you I say: "no news is good news." :-\
Actually I did have one reply. The day after Labor (sic) Day. My BS radar detected right away that it was a bit on the quick side to be a "real" reply, and sure enough it was a polite but firm proforma reply just basically saying "thanks, we got your submission, and if we're interested we'll get back to you in 8-12 weeks."
At least it wasn't a 'no' eh?
A quick calculation told me that we'd be into the next millennium if I waited serially for each agent to reply, so this automated response did have a positive effect. It decided me to continue sending queries out. In small batches. It also gave me a small problem. The next agent on my list was happy to accept the whole of the first chapter, as an attachment. Which meant I had to make sure the formatting was right. At that, dear reader, is easier said than done.
Check out online advice sites for manuscript formatting. You'll find a bewildering array of advice, much of it contradictory. OK, some things they do agree on. Most start off by saying that if agents have guidelines of their own, it's important to follow them. To the letter. No problem with this sensible suggestion. Trouble is, the majority don't have any formatting guidelines, so I have to fall back on the guidelines on other sites. Again, there's a lot of agreement on the simple stuff. Double line spacing is de rigueur - a hang over from the days when people actually made hand-written notes on physical bits of paper. Oh. They still do? Yes, much of the publishing industry has yet to catch on with the idea that modern word processors have commenting capability. So get those lines double spaced young man!
I knew that from the off anyway, so no problem. Big margins are also a common feature. How big? Ah, now we start getting into choppier waters. An inch all round, says one site. An inch top and bottom, but one-and-a-half inches left and right, says another. Anywhere between 1 and 1.5 inches all round is good, says Wikipedia. Half an inch at the top and 1.25" on the other three sides, says my Novel Writing text book. Does it matter? As long as there's space for notes in the margins, right? Wrong. Some guidance suggests that the margins have to be set to ensure 25 lines per page and an average of 10 words per line. This supports the word counting estimation theory of 250 words per page, for those sites that counsel against using your word processor's word counting feature.
Most also agree that emphasis should be shown using underlining, which is always visible. It's changed later by the typesetter. And that a mono-spaced font such as Courier New must be used, preferably at the relatively large size of 12pt. One site got totally confused by the meaning of "Courier 12" and another stated emphatically that font is irrelevant as long as your m/s is readable. And that last statement was, supposedly, based on a straw poll of 500 agents where 98% expressed no preference for font. I guess this is another area where history still holds sway in many places, but is gradually being replaced by pragmatism. Still, in a world where you feel you must do NOTHING to spike your chances of success, it's Courier New 12pt for me. Which looks weird when you first start to use it, but quickly becomes natural. Indeed, since it's a font I use for nothing else, it's a visible reminder that I'm writing for myself instead of "working" for someone else.
Section breaks are an area of great confusion. Where the point of view changes, and/or the scene. In printed work it's common for these to be indicated with white space, but most guidance absolutely forbids this. Section breaks should be indicated with a single, centred hash character (#). However many advice sites don't mention section breaks at all, and one states categorically that you may show a break with two (double) line spaces! Argh!
But the greatest confusion is saved for the cover page, and the page header. On the cover page should the author's address be at top left, or centred halfway down? Where does the word count go? Should the genre be stated? Each set of guidelines has its own mix, and the individual page headers are even worse. You should have surname/novel title/page number at the top left of every page, just like that with slashes between. No, they should be centred. No, they should be on the right. No, your surname and page number should be on the right, with the title of the work on the left (optionally followed by chapter number). No! The left-hand side is for surname and title, the right for your page number.
God.
In the end though, they all mention the same information, so it stays the way I've done it (is my view) unless a particular agent wants it a different way. And it's only a page header anyway. Reformatting takes all of 10 seconds.
Actually I did have one reply. The day after Labor (sic) Day. My BS radar detected right away that it was a bit on the quick side to be a "real" reply, and sure enough it was a polite but firm proforma reply just basically saying "thanks, we got your submission, and if we're interested we'll get back to you in 8-12 weeks."
At least it wasn't a 'no' eh?
A quick calculation told me that we'd be into the next millennium if I waited serially for each agent to reply, so this automated response did have a positive effect. It decided me to continue sending queries out. In small batches. It also gave me a small problem. The next agent on my list was happy to accept the whole of the first chapter, as an attachment. Which meant I had to make sure the formatting was right. At that, dear reader, is easier said than done.
Check out online advice sites for manuscript formatting. You'll find a bewildering array of advice, much of it contradictory. OK, some things they do agree on. Most start off by saying that if agents have guidelines of their own, it's important to follow them. To the letter. No problem with this sensible suggestion. Trouble is, the majority don't have any formatting guidelines, so I have to fall back on the guidelines on other sites. Again, there's a lot of agreement on the simple stuff. Double line spacing is de rigueur - a hang over from the days when people actually made hand-written notes on physical bits of paper. Oh. They still do? Yes, much of the publishing industry has yet to catch on with the idea that modern word processors have commenting capability. So get those lines double spaced young man!
I knew that from the off anyway, so no problem. Big margins are also a common feature. How big? Ah, now we start getting into choppier waters. An inch all round, says one site. An inch top and bottom, but one-and-a-half inches left and right, says another. Anywhere between 1 and 1.5 inches all round is good, says Wikipedia. Half an inch at the top and 1.25" on the other three sides, says my Novel Writing text book. Does it matter? As long as there's space for notes in the margins, right? Wrong. Some guidance suggests that the margins have to be set to ensure 25 lines per page and an average of 10 words per line. This supports the word counting estimation theory of 250 words per page, for those sites that counsel against using your word processor's word counting feature.
Most also agree that emphasis should be shown using underlining, which is always visible. It's changed later by the typesetter. And that a mono-spaced font such as Courier New must be used, preferably at the relatively large size of 12pt. One site got totally confused by the meaning of "Courier 12" and another stated emphatically that font is irrelevant as long as your m/s is readable. And that last statement was, supposedly, based on a straw poll of 500 agents where 98% expressed no preference for font. I guess this is another area where history still holds sway in many places, but is gradually being replaced by pragmatism. Still, in a world where you feel you must do NOTHING to spike your chances of success, it's Courier New 12pt for me. Which looks weird when you first start to use it, but quickly becomes natural. Indeed, since it's a font I use for nothing else, it's a visible reminder that I'm writing for myself instead of "working" for someone else.
Section breaks are an area of great confusion. Where the point of view changes, and/or the scene. In printed work it's common for these to be indicated with white space, but most guidance absolutely forbids this. Section breaks should be indicated with a single, centred hash character (#). However many advice sites don't mention section breaks at all, and one states categorically that you may show a break with two (double) line spaces! Argh!
But the greatest confusion is saved for the cover page, and the page header. On the cover page should the author's address be at top left, or centred halfway down? Where does the word count go? Should the genre be stated? Each set of guidelines has its own mix, and the individual page headers are even worse. You should have surname/novel title/page number at the top left of every page, just like that with slashes between. No, they should be centred. No, they should be on the right. No, your surname and page number should be on the right, with the title of the work on the left (optionally followed by chapter number). No! The left-hand side is for surname and title, the right for your page number.
God.
In the end though, they all mention the same information, so it stays the way I've done it (is my view) unless a particular agent wants it a different way. And it's only a page header anyway. Reformatting takes all of 10 seconds.
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Found Things
Next month we'll have been here two years. Where has the time gone? Anyhoo, for one reason or another, today was a sorting out day.
Ever noticed how, after moving house, things in boxes tend to stay in boxes? Especially things you rarely use. Or even never use. And if you never use them, why do you have them? The answer, as every hoarder knows, is "because you might need them."
So the space in the kitchen where the old boiler used to sit has been occupied, since the old boiler moved out in December 2006, by six plastic tubs; their contents largely indeterminate, except that I was vaguely aware one contained power tools and another heavy tools (chisels, lump hammers and the like). The others had "stuff" in them.
Having completed the lounge (the last job - putting the door back on - was accomplished this morning before I moved on to "sorting out") I needed somewhere to store all the decorating tools. Previously they'd lived under a sheet in one corner of the dining room, but the "new" dining room is destined to be a bit posher than the old, so that is no longer an option. They needed to share space in the kitchen and this was the driver for the sort out.
Well. How many times have I needed a 7mm drill bit since we moved in? And how many times have I shrugged, made do with the next closest in my toolbag (6.5mm) and gingerly hammered the wall plugs into the too-small hole? I lost count. Guess what I found at the bottom of one of the tubs? Correct. Doesn't look like it's even been used, but I suppose I must have used it once, at least. It's in my drill box now. Probably won't need it again :-\
Found a load of other junk too. My Sennheiser headphones - the ones I bought when I was 17 for use with my original portable stereo. I've dragged these from house to house for 35 years, my emotional connection to the memories of their use too strong to allow me to let them go. When did I last use them? I have no idea, but I certainly haven't plugged them into anything since I left the Village, and I don't remember using them even there, so my best guess is they haven't transmitted music since before 1988. About a hundred and fifty times heavier than anything on the market today, and a hundred and fifty times worse sound quality too, I shouldn't wonder. Not to mention I could probably pick up a replacement set of cans on eBay for not much more than a tenner. All of this logic still conflicted with my emotional attachment to these sad, dusty relics of my youth. But I couldn't deny that their time had come. I put them in the pile to go to the tip.
Wasn't easy though.
Amazingly the sort-out left us with three empty plastic tubs, two full of stuff for the loft and one containing current, usable tools that will remain in the kitchen until I build a tool cupboard, alongside the decorating box. End result: seven boxes (including the decorating one) condensed to two. Job done.
Ever noticed how, after moving house, things in boxes tend to stay in boxes? Especially things you rarely use. Or even never use. And if you never use them, why do you have them? The answer, as every hoarder knows, is "because you might need them."
So the space in the kitchen where the old boiler used to sit has been occupied, since the old boiler moved out in December 2006, by six plastic tubs; their contents largely indeterminate, except that I was vaguely aware one contained power tools and another heavy tools (chisels, lump hammers and the like). The others had "stuff" in them.
Having completed the lounge (the last job - putting the door back on - was accomplished this morning before I moved on to "sorting out") I needed somewhere to store all the decorating tools. Previously they'd lived under a sheet in one corner of the dining room, but the "new" dining room is destined to be a bit posher than the old, so that is no longer an option. They needed to share space in the kitchen and this was the driver for the sort out.
Well. How many times have I needed a 7mm drill bit since we moved in? And how many times have I shrugged, made do with the next closest in my toolbag (6.5mm) and gingerly hammered the wall plugs into the too-small hole? I lost count. Guess what I found at the bottom of one of the tubs? Correct. Doesn't look like it's even been used, but I suppose I must have used it once, at least. It's in my drill box now. Probably won't need it again :-\
Found a load of other junk too. My Sennheiser headphones - the ones I bought when I was 17 for use with my original portable stereo. I've dragged these from house to house for 35 years, my emotional connection to the memories of their use too strong to allow me to let them go. When did I last use them? I have no idea, but I certainly haven't plugged them into anything since I left the Village, and I don't remember using them even there, so my best guess is they haven't transmitted music since before 1988. About a hundred and fifty times heavier than anything on the market today, and a hundred and fifty times worse sound quality too, I shouldn't wonder. Not to mention I could probably pick up a replacement set of cans on eBay for not much more than a tenner. All of this logic still conflicted with my emotional attachment to these sad, dusty relics of my youth. But I couldn't deny that their time had come. I put them in the pile to go to the tip.
Wasn't easy though.
Amazingly the sort-out left us with three empty plastic tubs, two full of stuff for the loft and one containing current, usable tools that will remain in the kitchen until I build a tool cupboard, alongside the decorating box. End result: seven boxes (including the decorating one) condensed to two. Job done.
Monday, September 01, 2008
I Submit!
Here we go then. Having spent a good part of the weekend knocking my synopsis into shape - the final (final) (no, really) stage of preparing my novel for submission - I composed my first email query letter and, after checking it about 50 times for spelling, grammar, panache, zizz, fizz and whizz, I closed my eyes and pressed Send.
There will come a time, and it's probably not too long in the future, when this process will become... well... just a process. But the first time? Equal measures scary and exciting. A bit like the first time you make love without contraception.
Then Nikki pointed out it's Labour Day in the States (my first submission is to a New York agency) so it probably won't be read until tomorrow. Now I really do feel like a pricked balloon. Or, to continue the lovemaking metaphor, a burst condom.
There will come a time, and it's probably not too long in the future, when this process will become... well... just a process. But the first time? Equal measures scary and exciting. A bit like the first time you make love without contraception.
Then Nikki pointed out it's Labour Day in the States (my first submission is to a New York agency) so it probably won't be read until tomorrow. Now I really do feel like a pricked balloon. Or, to continue the lovemaking metaphor, a burst condom.
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