Reviewed my 2007 writing resolutions again tonight and marked progress, particularly regarding the second item: pitch The Last Track to 40 agents. Without dropping exact numbers, and including the second round fired off today, hitting that number–if necessary–will not be a problem. At this point, it makes sense to allow time for replies, ease off the queries, and increase the writing output.

Did some background work for the guerrilla marketing campaign, or item three. Since the plan involves a number of people besides myself, I’m in a holding pattern at the moment. Rest assured, the ball is rolling in a sound direction.

No progress on the first item–entering 20 writing contests with cash prizes–other than identifying the contests. Of the four tasks, here I made the least strides. Initially I set the goal aside temporarily with the proviso of readying The Confession for entry in the First Chapters competition, but after a few more weeks into the project, I dropped that idea. In its present form The Confession is too personal for consumption; I may like the notion well enough, but the ideas are too raw, a steep percolation is necessary. Hopefully with some more effort it can be more accessible. And when I say accessible, I’m not talking about selling the piece, I mean being comfortable taking it out of a trunk and showing someone.

While forsaking First Chapters, I am honoring step four: finish a draft of The Confession before tackling another large manuscript. While this course may suggest self-indulgence, I must finish anyway, because allowing the process to happen as it wants will lead me to another place. That point I take on faith. But there’s another reason to continue, even if the manuscript never sees print.

I believe some stories need to be written, want for a writer to step through the associated emotions, feel them and capture their effects on a page, yet not share the actual product.

Projects with such a charter–and I truly hope I have very few of these in me–are not made for a reader; they exist solely for the writer.

Per Stephen King’s advice in On Writing, I’ve been reading a lot lately, tearing through a half dozen books in the last fortnight. One biography really speaks to me above the rest, The Man Who Heard Voices.

Director M. Night Shyamalan extends writer Michael Bamberger unprecedented access to his life and career, with great emphasis on the story behind the Lady in the Water. The point that resonates like a clarion call is the sheer belief buoying M. Night’s risk taking; M. Night hears voices and listens.

For a lot of writers–screenwriters or otherwise–he’s a hero, and if he isn’t, here’s why he could be: M. Night literally wrote his way out of a suffocating production deal. When it became clear he could not make films he believed in because Miramax management took issue with his vision, he wrote The Sixth Sense and left for Disney. He did this because the voices told him to. Later the same voices told him to leave Disney for Warner.

This level of conviction is relatively rare, even among hyper-creative individuals. Whether the final product connects with audiences or not, M. Night is a believer who seeks out like minded individuals to foment his vision. In M. Night’s view, there are no coincidences, and the older I get, the more I concur with his position. Seemingly unrelated events and people are often connected, but not everyone sees–or wants to recognize–the threads binding them.

Michael Bamberger paints a picture of an eclectic writer and auteur, one that can fumble, and also one that can–when the forces align, and the voices say the right things–deliver a true movie experience.

Sent off query packets yesterday, in keeping with my New Year’s writing resolutions, though the stack was one lighter than planned. There’s a reason for my negligence.

On Friday night, a friend mentioned his roommate lost her job recently, because the company shelved the entire division without warning. Which hurts. She worked for a publisher based in NYC. Forwarding her resume on to someone I knew was looking for her skill set, I noticed she not only once worked at the literary agency I planned to query on Monday, but directly with my first choice agent.

To my delight, my friend’s roommate agreed to take a look at a 15 page excerpt of The Last Track. Maybe I’ll gain some insight on the selection processes at that agency, or receive a bit of feedback about how the pages read cold. Either could be helpful.

Which reinforces my belief that there are very few coincidences in life.

Readied envelopes today with excerpts of The Last Track inside them. When dealing with unsolicited queries, literary agencies maintain their own requirements for tackling submissions. For now my focus involves contacting those that consider excerpts along with queries. The main caveat: among those that consider the first 5-30 pages cold, virtually all require a synopsis of the book, including the ending.

In the past, my hangups made the synopsis stipulation a sticking point. The notion of revealing the ending at the outset is anathema to my nature; however, I realized the obstacle is self-constructed and inhibiting. I don’t worry about being ripped off, because the odds are infinitesimal. Yeah, good luck reconstructing 400 pages working from a 10 page sample in any kind of timely fashion. No, I mourn losing a chance to earn a reader’s trust over the course of the story, then ripping the rug out from beneath them at the last minute. Never can the book deliver the same impact for someone who knows ending in advance. Ack.

But then, literary agents do not strike me as a lot who enjoy surprises. When picking clients, I rather imagine they hate surprises, in fact.

Thus, I enclosed the 2.5 page synopsis.

Now all I need are stamps.