I’ve blogged a lot about Editor person in the last few weeks, and I want to take a moment to thank them for all their efforts. I lack the eye and stomach for surgical grammar attacks. But without some focus on grammar, I’ll be blogging to myself for the rest of my life. And the wife won’t like that very much since she wants mini-sam’s running around the house.

Editor person: You know every time I read one of your crappy sentences, an alarm bell goes off in my head?
sam: That’s why you’re a good editor.
Editor person: I have a headache now, from all the ringing.
sam: Do you want an aspirin?
Editor person: I want you to stop writing while you are asleep.
sam: Right. I’ll up the coffee intake in the morning.
Editor person: What are you going to do 30 books from now when I’m dead?

I panicked. Could there be an end to Editor person?

sam: No problem. I’ll have you cloned.

The wife is off work this weekend, so we’re going to do the marriage thing for a few days. I haven’t seen much of the wife lately. I haven’t’ seen much of anyone lately come to think of it.

I had a panic attack early in the week about the second book, Velocity. Regardless of what’s going on with the search for representation, I had some trouble gaining traction with the writing schedule. The tone of the book was pretty rough to take even for me, which is saying something. One of the things I’ve long been guilty of is projecting scenarios out to the 19th degree. Sure, it’s neat to visualize something to an extreme, but dealing with the volume turned up that high makes for difficult reading. That’s when my writing and editor person butt heads.

We had a few discussions about it, one of them that gave us both a nasty headache. But, with editor person’s last round of suggestions, the novel is now framed right. Now I can build outwards based on a more solid foundation. For anyone keeping score, I’ve got nearly 70 pages.

Now we’re up 2 rejections for the Ridge Runner in two days. I’ve been quite surprised at how fast the turnaround has been. In the days of brute force submissions, it might take several months between answers. Thanks to the digital age, the response time is short. There’s a plus I guess.

Rogue Lackey put this all in perspective last night for me. He told me the story of Harlan Sanders, yes, the KFC Colonel guy. Around his 62nd birthday the state built a new highway that diverted all the traffic from his restaurants. He sold the place and was left with nothing more than 162 bucks a month from Social Security. So the Colonel decided to hawk his secret chicken recipe. His idea was, sell other restaurants a license to his formula.

He jumped into his car and drove across the south making pitch after pitch for his 11 herbs and spices. 1065 restaurants later, he got his first yes. Shortly afterwards he met Dave Thomas (yep the Wendy’s guy - this was before Wendy’s), and they launched the first food franchise.

Now, I just gotta do better than that before getting my yes. After all, there’s barely more than 1065 literary agents in business.

So I got my first rejection letter for the Ridge Runner and I’m kinda happy, because it meant someone read my pitch! Huzzah! Also it’s about the nicest rejection letter I’ve ever seen. Well, it’s the first rejection letter I’ve ever seen with my name on it. But if it was any nicer, I’d think they wanted to represent me. To the agent who rejected my pitch - I mean that in a nice way. You give good rejection is all I’m saying.

As cool as the rejection was, a yes would be cooler. Well, that’s life in the fast lane. And after all, a rejection is a rejection is a rejection.

Anyway, I gotta go send out another query letter and update my spreadsheet of agents to contact.

UPDATE: I sent an email back to the prospective agent who rejected my query, thanking them for their time. At samhilliard.com we are nothing if not gracious.

Remember that guy in school who insisted he had a girlfriend from Canada that he met at summer camp last year? None of his friends had ever seen her, but he had a picture, although not of both of them together, that he used as a prop to brag to everyone in the locker room. Let’s call that guy Jamie. The Canadian girlfriend was Kandi (not her real name). Jamie was the same kid who claimed he was late for soccer practice because his entire street blew up, except for his house. Also his dad, who was really a secret agent, could take corners in the family station wagon on two wheels.

Anyway, while the rest of us dreamed of getting the nerve to ask a girl out, Jamie had been there and done that. Many times he claimed, and he even had a picture of Kandi to prove it. Well we’re older now, most of the crew are married, but last night someone alerted me to a curious offering on eBay. If you search for a phrase like “pretend girlfriend” it returns auctions of girls who, for a fee, will provide a picture of herself, some letters and a phone call.

Imagine how much more effective Jamie’s tale of love and woe with Kandi could have been with the help of eBay? Besides the picture, he could have arranged a time for all of us to be around when Kandi called and broke up with him. Long distance relationships claim many a young loves. We’d have believed he was a player. Maybe the rumors might’ve led to a real girlfriend.

A lot of people claim writer’s block is a real thing, but I disagree. Writer’s block is shorthand for being lazy. because writing itself is a non job. If it was a job there would be a boss, and an office with a bunch of people running side businesses out of their cubicles.

Here’s an outline for a typical writing day:
1) Wake up, eat breakfast, make big pot of coffee
2) Drink coffee and pretend to write for 1-2 hours, update blog.
3) First panic attack, then lunch and second panic attack.
4) Write for 5-6 hours.
5) Third panic attack.
6) Think about picking up another six pack of beer, panic about having to leave house to do so.
7) Dinner, then revise the day’s pages.
Panic about day’s pages.

I punch through the panic attacks. That’s my edge, you see.

UPDATE 3/1/2004: A reader in Mississippi pointed out that number 6 is avoidable.
I quote : “Always keep sufficient quantities of beer in the home/workplace to preclude the aforementioned quandries. The purchase of extra refrigerator is authorized and encouraged. Delivery of said beverage is highly recommended.”

Lately I’ve taken to cursing Monday. Mostly because Monday feels like a hangover without the beer the night before. Sure, there was a time when I could drink through Monday, but that was back in college. That kind of extra effort was required in the syllabus. At my current incredibly advanced age (31), such attempts to recreate prior glories are foolhardy.

Mondays are better than Sundays, for the simple reason that on Sundays I’m hung over. But Monday’s are not better by much. What is Monday about anyway? To me it’s the wicked reminder that the weekend is over and you owe homage to The Man for the next five days or you’re going to lose that home that you can’t afford ( or barely afford depending on how good your credit is ).

Mondays lack the abandon of Saturday or excitement of Friday. Tuesday would be better, but it’s still awfully close to the black hole we’re stuck in right now. So that leaves Wednesday and Thursday to save the week. Wednesday has that cool nickname “hump day”. But it’s no fun for me because the wife works really late that night. This leaves Thursday. Well bring it on, say I! And leave the bottle of Advil open, just in case.