Tribute To Hunter

NOTE: Every so often I try to write like another author. Here’s my shot at emulating Hunter S. Thompson.

The air feels like the sole of boot left to bake on the only highway leading out of the desert. All around, the sound of an impending riot beckons. An irate neighbor is yelling at his wife on the porch. Something about a burnt potato and a broken air conditioner. The chances for survival unlikely, our mission compromised.

Children race after the ice cream man, for this extreme clime is just too much for the Good Humor man to bear. You poor hapless bastard. Nobody told him the plight of the last man standing in the concrete jungle.

Perhaps a full scale riot is unlikely, however impending doom is certain. I can feel the bastards at the gates, circling, waiting for the next victim to fall so they can pick the carcass clean.

My head feels like a pineapple stuck in a vise, swollen from the heat. I could go at any time now. Need food. Need water. Need cold water for shower. How long Lord, how long must I suffer in this inferno trapped with these swine? And how did I get here?

Query rebirth

Now that the 6th draft is in a decent place, it’s time to reignite the query process for The Ridge Runner. I dusted off the version of the query letter that got the most positive responses, updating it to reflect the changes in the project ( i.e. no more 1st person – book is longer too ). Then I researched which agents best fit the project based on what they are looking for these days.

Couple of things I’ve learned:
1) The literary representation business resembles musical chairs; agents jump from agency to agency. Some agents I queried just a short time ago are at different agencies now, or have disappeared from the radar screen. Which may explain the 43 percent of the queries sent out that still await a response.
2) What agents look for seems to change along with the marketplace and their web sites and on line industry profiles reflect that. A year ago one agent might be after nonfiction, now they may be all about literary fiction and mommy lit. Perhaps in a few more months some will target art history professors in search of the next Da Vinci Code.

How do you spell this?

I try and lift weights and jump rope regularly. Think jumping rope is for sissies, huh? Give it a whirl for 5 minutes and get back to me.

The goal is to get the heart pumping a bit because writing involves next to no physical effort. In fact, as I’ve come to understand it writing is mostly about sitting in a chair for long time and without blowing the day surfing the web, talking on the phone, cleaning the house and otherwise not writing.

Lately the fatigue has been so acute that the targeted body parts shake uncontrollably halfway through the workout. But I found a cure.

Eating a baked potato 30 minutes before the workout holds the tremors back. Who would have thought? And they say carbs are all bad.

Remember the files!

Look out! Editor person is back on the case. This time they made in line edits to the Ridge Runner.

Having suffered through the hard copy edit era, in line edits directly in the electronic document are the only way to go. It’s easier to read red or blue comments in context than it is to look down at a piece of paper and then back at the screen. A lot gets lost in those seconds looking up, down and then up, because I forgot what the comments are half the time. Also Editor person likes to draw nifty circles and arrows which make perfect sense to everyone but me.

So if you’re out there looking for your own Editor person make sure “will do in line edits” is on their resume. Insist on it.

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