Month: April 2004

Gimme a quarter

Writer guy

En route to the post office the other day I had a run in with a vagranty type individual. I could be wrong on that, but between the vapor trails oozing of his body and the garbage hanging off his clothes were a good clue that this guy was a professional bum. At the very least he was a master understudy to the part.

Perhaps you do not live near a large metropolitan area and have never experienced the wonders of bums and bum interactions. My first bum run in was in Southern California. Over the years, a host of bum moments followed in places like Washington DC, NYC, New Orleans and Geneva, Switzerland. After moving to New Jersey, I discovered that outside of NYC, New Jersey has the most belligerent bums I’ve come across yet. Switzerland has the best behaved, in fact their one bum is very gracious.

But New Jersey bums? Fuggeaboutit. Even the women bums are vicious.

So I’m trying not to breathe and the bum says hi.

bum: Gimme a quarter!
sam: No.
bum ( explodes into a long string of obscenities and threats )
sam: That’s not a very convincing sales strategy.
bum ( more expletives )

Afterwards I mentioned this exchange to my father in law. He used to commute to NYC and he mentioned that he had the perfect thing to say to them. Here was his suggestion…

bum: Gimme a quarter!
father-in-law: Not today my friend.

I’ve tried his tactic now twice, and it’s worked like a charm. So if you’re in NYC or NJ and a bum wants money, remember – “not today my friend”. It’s the same as no, only better.

TGIF

Writer guy

The wife is on level 3 support this weekend. In short that means that at any time the bat phone might ring to deliver us a crisis. Yummy.

I’ve got a bunch of revisions to do on the Ridge Runner thanks to Editor Person. Then there’s a whole bunch of pages to review for Velocity.

I’ve set a goal for finishing a rough draft of Velocity by the first week of May. It’s going to be tight but I’m giving everything I’ve got. Why early May? Two reasons, the first is the most pure reason of all, which is money. I’ve got some work lined up for a brand new client in May, so I’ll need to focus on that.

Whenever I get a new client I invest a lot of time learning how to do things the way they like and need them done, and that takes a lot of focus. No matter what any software vendors claim every company is different and ultimately unique. The second reason is that it seems like a realistic deadline.

I outlined Velocity in late December and started writing it in January. Four months and some change seems like sufficient time to complete a rough draft. There’s going to be problems with it, but a lot less problems than there were with the Ridge Runner the first time around. I’ll get it more right later, but odds are very high the second book will be done before I get an agent to represent the first book. And really in the end, is that a problem? At least I’ll have a decent second novel ready to go.

Editor person says what?

Writer guy

After more than a month hiatus and many pages into book number two, Editor person and I met. This was a proactive session, in the event that the prospective agent asks ( let’s hope ) to see the rest of The Ridge Runner. I wanted to polish to chapter 4-22 one last time. Imagine Editor person on one side of the desk, yours truly on the opposite. As they flipped through the pages, the discussion went something like this….

Editor person: Grammar, grammar, spelling,…OK…that works…oh this is back again. This upstream downstream problem.
sam: There is no back. It’s always been messed up.
Editor person: You know it’s messed up, yet you left it to me to find.
sam: Indeed. I’ve been waiting for you to notice that.
Editor person: Oh I noticed it. It’s very jarring.
sam: But you missed it the last 2 drafts.
Editor person: In the midst of the carnage you call writing, it was all I could do to stop the bleeding.
sam: But you actually missed something.
Editor person: I saw it.
sam: I’ve got 2 other drafts that say you missed it.
Editor person: Can I tell you what you’re going to miss if you continue this discussion?