They stole the precious

Writer guy

I’m taking a crack at being funny again.

While the pain of taxes still burns like a hot fire poker jabbed repeatedly through my soul, I’m trying to move past that minor annoyance. Forgive and forget. Why would any of us need more of the money we earn anyway? Besides, I’m happy to surrender a substantial portion of my earnings so that I may enjoy many of government benefits available to me, like streetlights and stop signs.

But before getting to the humor, here’s an update on the second novel. I’m close to hitting critical mass and moving into a heads down writing phase. Output has increased in the last few days, I’m now pushing 45 pages on book number next. Tomorrow, I’ll reveal the title of the second book, which I’ve promised to do for…hmm…how old is this blog? Ah, but Wednesday is the day.

By my calculations, my query letter is now in the hands of an agent, or perhaps their assistant, or perhaps their mail screener. Then again maybe it’s still rotting in my local post office. The clerk did give me an evil look when I dropped the letter in the box.

Oh, man. I said I was going to be funny, and here I blew the whole blog being serious. Well, tomorrow it’s sam the funny writer guy again.

You’ve got a friend of a friend who knows Madonna

Writer guy

Yesterday I blogged my thoughts on how chapter 1 and chapter last are the most important parts of the book. Today I thought I’d give an example of a great chapter 1.

If you’ve read my other blogs, you can probably see this coming, but my favorite Chapter 1 is Silence of the Lambs. Actually it’s my favorite first 3 chapters.

Here’s why:
1) In less than 30 pages we meet all the major characters.
2) All the major conflicts – including the key one between the hero and villain are in play.
3) It’s very dialog driven. I’m way into dialog, especially talking like a particular villain.
4)There’s a ton of subtleties that Harris exploits without overstating that make the villain even creepier.

So, that’s what I strive to do with my first 3 chapters.

Sorry this isn’t very funny. I’m doing taxes this weekend and crying too much to laugh….

Can I play with madness?

Writer guy

Just breached the 35 page mark on novel number two. It’s in much better shape than last week. The search for heads down momentum continues. I’m not sure if it’s the distraction of trying to get the query letter done or if it’s something else.

There’s an old saying that the most important part of any book is the ending. There’s even a movie coming soon starring Johnny Depp based around the notion of a perfect ending, Secret Window. I disagree with that sentiment. The most important part of any book is chapter 1 and chapter last and they’re of equal value.

If chapter 1 bites, it’s hard to read any further. If chapter last sucks, less people will want to read the next book.

Thus I strive for a strong opening and strong finish. Right now the opening of the second book has potential, but I have no idea how this is going to end. Do I know what I want to happen? Yep. Will it turn out like that at all? Probably not.

Take one down pass it around

Writer guy

OK, so this was as a big a week as anything can be in the absence of something concrete happening, since all the movement was on my part.

1) At long last I have a query letter. It reads well and makes a strong case for my novel.
2) I sent out said query letter, thus increasing the audience of samhilliard.com by at least 1. Maybe even 2 or 3 if they ask other people in their office to check out the site.
3) I managed to talk myself down from a panic attack without scaring my cats.
4) I learned a lot of interesting things about a number of agents thanks to google and some other resources.
5) I saw the last real mangement type boss I had back before starting on my contractor phase. His hair is all gray now. When we parted ways, his hair was jet black with a touch of gray. It’s good to see the voodoo is working.