Copped off one of Jay Lake's blogging friends:

For Richard and a conversation that was far more entertaining than Sunday School.

http://www.shunn.net/format/story.html

The top bullet: "Ellsworth/Revenge of the Poop/13" is the most important part for those of us with one-year-olds who like to steal pages.

Labels: manuscript format

I like to listen to music when I write. It took a really long time to get used to it, but I had to, given how difficult it is to come by peace and quiet in college. I just had to choose my noise. Now I find I can't write without a little background noise and familiar music to focus me.

So here's the latest suspects:

Saturday, for the gory battle scene, I did "Son Et Lumiere" and "Intertiatic ESP" by the Mars Volta, "Bodysnatchers" by Radiohead, and "Thursday" by Morphine.

Today, just for ambience, I did Elliot Smith's Figure 8, From a Basement on a Hill, and XO albums. Right now, Fiona Apple's cover of Elvis Costello's "I Want You," which is the most glorious epic, soulful thing in the world.

Who are the musics in your neighborhood?

Something from the agenting point of view, rather than the writer's.

MANUSCRIPT FORMAT! Put your name on every page. I'm sorting through a pile of submissions with "yes" or "no" written on them. Some of them don't have emails on them.

Look, people, if you don't use manuscript format there is no reason for us to even look at your work. Some of us do it out of kindness. Some of us (me) are losing our kindness fast.

That's right, I can no longer die as a drug-abusing rock star and join the 27 club.

The Bloody God
Words today: None today, but yesterday I wrote 3500 and cracked 80k as a birthday present to myself.
Words total: 80-freaking-K!
Reason for stopping: It was late and I made my goal and I was 28 and feeling my age.
Favorite:

Something struck him, drove the breath out of him and knocked him on his ass. Khalid looked down at his side and saw a stick—not like an arrow at all, he thought—and realized he could see it coming out both sides of him. Crossbow bolt. Cowards.

Battle wounds! Yeah!

Abusing my power: Crossbow fights. I love crossbow fights. The bad guys get one shot to win, and the shot will probably kill you through your chain mail, but if they lose, they're screwed.
It's aliiive!: I didn't even intend to make my character get this torn up. But he's such a determined survivor, I thought it would be fun to stick some sharp pointy things in him.
Embarrassment: I seem to really be enjoying the blood and gore, and though the dialogue is rolling off my fingers, I still have a hard time figuring out what both characters are thinking. Ah well. More blood and guts and sex will make it better.

This is a response I got from a recent rejection letter, which reads: "Thanks, but this isn't quite what we're looking for." Those of you who follow my blog know that I've detailed many times why we reject certain things.

This person wrote:

Thank you for the typically oblique, bordering on rude reply.

Don't ever do that if you want anyone in the industry to listen to you.

My folks are in town. Last night my mom and I stayed up till midnight playing chess with my Star Wars toys. Not that we're big chess fans, but we got really confused trying to figure out the rules of Super Munchkin. Anyone who knows the game want to come play? We seriously need help with Munchkin. We're rpg-tarded.

I'm managing my thousand words a day while my folks are here by losing sleep. And Adia's crazy (see below).

The Bloody God
Words today: So far, 1000
Words total: 75k? It's not in one document. I'll check later.
Reason for stopping: Adia POURED HOT TEA ON HERSELF! I didn't even think it was within reaching distance. She looks okay now and has burn creme on. But seriously. Parenting.
Favorite:

There was a heavy purple blotch on his calf, black and crusted like coals. A thin white line of liquid trailed down, drying on his skin.

I love describing gross things.

Abusing my power: I get to describe a medieval Islamic hospital and put some of my research to good use. Hopefully it won't get too long-winded.
It's aliiive!: Subliminal suggestion in the main character's head regarding him possibly killing another character in the future. Amen.
Embarrassment: I just tried to write something funny. That explains it all.

I'm stealing almost everything I do today from San. The title and the format. Since everyone loves my book, and since this is the first official post I'm putting in my livejournal and blogger accounts, here's the semi-self-explanatory rundown of how the writing's going:

Noble Quest...
Words today: More or less 1000
Words total: More or less 73k
Reason for stopping: Reached my goal and was hungry.
Favorite: "You're obsessive-compulsive," Shay said.
"So's the Count on Sesame Street," Sarah answered. "I'm in good company."
Abusing my power: One of my characters is a frustrated writer. I know, I know.
It's aliiive!: Every time I get these two characters in conversation, even when I end up deleting it all, it really flows. I think it's the ability to think in modern pop culture references rather than fantasy-mind-mode.
Embarrassment: Looking at San's blog numbers. Am I the only person in my writing group who takes two hours to write one thousand words and thinks that's good?

I'm taking a side in a genuine Internet controversy: this letter and the fallout thereof.

If you are an editor for a major publication and you make blatantly racist comments (and his argument that he is just talking about terrorists does not hold up from the use of 'sheet-heads') then you deserve what you get. Writers have the right to report bad behavior of this magnitude.

In case you were stunned and deflowered by my title, (I hope you weren't deflowered, but in case you were) be it known that I am reading and preparing a study guide for William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!

Usually, despite my limited attention span and recently increased love for comics, I can whiz through a book pretty easily. The biggest threat to my reading span is other books, which look more interesting than whatever I'm reading at the moment. It goes back to when my sister told me her ice cream tasted better than mine. I've never been satisfied since.

But this book... okay, I can't even read one sentence before I start spacing out. I can't get through paragraphs. I reach the end of the page and realize I have no idea what's happened. I might be able to go through the whole book forcing myself to look at each page for a few minutes, but I doubt I'll be able to ever say that I actually read it. I mean, you have to at least comprehend the words on the page to read something. Like, you have to be able to follow a sentence with your eyes.

This study guide should be interesting.

Which is something no sane person should wish.

See, when I was twelve, I had zero social skills and no wish to do anything but sit around and read. I read Redwall on top of an electrical box. I read Robert Jordan the night of Christmas all night and the next day. I read Watership Down on a car trip and I read "hardcore" Lord of the Rings, which means I started with the Silmarillion, went to the Hobbit, and finished with the trilogy.

My life right now would sound like a dream to my twelve-year-old self. I have a stack of books to read for work, a stack to read for school, and one from BEA I'm still trying to finish for pleasure.

But I'm kind of burnt out on reading. I need my old skillz back. If my twelve-year-old self were here, he would say: Yo yo yo, watch me read. I can read like a baker can knead. Read with greed and read with speed.

This would have something to do with the fact that my twelve-year-old self liked Public Enemy. I'm still trying to figure that one out.

I never saw this. It's funny.

There's got to be correlation between madness and actively not wanting to sleep.

It's not that I don't get tired. I get tired around the same time every night, but lately I've gotten this constant, irrepressible urge to stay up even when assaulted by said tiredness. Tonight I gave in and it's like one-ish and I'm scouring the internet for live Radiohead bootlegs. Okay, well I would have been doing that during the day, but it feels particularly empty at night. I'm going to see them live in August and I'm not sure if it will be an apotheosis or just business as usual.

But I did write one page of a story, a reworking of an old one that I've shopped around everywhere and since gained strong opinions on what it should have been. Four words: less swords, more muskets. I plan to throw this one at Writers of the Future and see if it sticks.

Speaking of which, I saw the video of Green Day playing at Woodstock 94 today where they were pelted by mud that completely destroyed the stage and the equipment. It's kind of fun to watch Billy Joe Armstrong moon the crowd. Also to see the way he keeps playing after a glob of mud smacks his playing hand and splatters all over his pickups.

I've been avoiding some reading I have to do for English comprehensive exams in the fall. The reason why I've been avoiding it was at first because it was David Copperfield. I love Dickens, but I don't love being under a deadline to read him. Plus, I've got this shiny ARC of Ken Scholes' novel and I want to finish it cuz it's good, and significantly shorter than David Copperfield. But now I'm supposed to read Living By Fiction by Annie Dillard. I should have bewared when I knew this was a book on fiction that English theory professors liked.

More ranting to follow, when I'm not so bloody tired.

I rode the bus to Mt. Vernon, WA today for an interview with my old job to see if I could go with them for the summer. It went well, and I will probably pick up some work during the summer, and to top it all off, I thought I was being brilliant by taking the shuttlebus and writing on it.

Turns out the shuttlebus doesn't leave for another two hours after the interview is done. I feel silly.

I'm 50k into my Crusades fantistorical novel, but there's two characters that I'm having a really hard time getting the hang of. This is a pretty big novel with lots of viewpoints, and out of six viewpoints that switch back and forth, these are the only two women. Well, there's a male character who becomes a woman, but he's not one yet. So I feel rather sexist at not being able to write the women.

On the other hand, my experience has been that the characters one struggles the most with usually turn out the best, because one sweats so much over getting them right.

Also, I'm kind of worried at how R-rated this novel is becoming. Not that I'm really offended by R-rated books--my love for George R.R. Martin and Jacqueline Carey should prove that. But now that I've been an agent, I'm quite aware of marketing issues, and PG-13 books are much easier to market. It's the same principle as movies. Other than the Godfather films, most of the biggest moneymakers are (I believe; too lazy to look it up) all PG or PG-13; Jurassic Park, E.T., Star Wars, Spider-Man, etc. Robert Jordan's books hold steady at PG-13, as do Harry Potter's later books.

Meh. I suppose I'll just write what I want and cry later.

I've never been very good with money. Chrissy is always nervous to ask me if she can buy things because she was raised by frugal people. She hasn't quite gotten used to my typical reaction, which is "Sure! Buy it!"

I was raised in a house where our living situation went from well-off to dirt poor to well-off again, so I seem to have this attitude that I should spend it while I have it. A credit card is a horrible trap especially since all my old musical equipment seems to be wearing out at once. Therefore I am very proud to say that I sold my old amp and hunted like a madman for a cheap but good new one. I found a new one, the exact one I wanted, used, and sold the old one for the exact amount the new one cost with tax, and therefore I got a new amp without going over budget AT ALL.

Now if I could just learn to walk past a bookstore without buying something, or seeing a Starbucks and saying, "Mmm, five-dollar Frappuccino!"

I just got back from the fabulous Boise Murder in the Grove Mystery Writer's Conference. It was a good day with fabulous food, and I got a chance to hook up again with a friend from my legendary Utah writer's group. I had a nice chat with Sorche Fairbank, an agent I haven't met before, and a lovely breakfast with T.L. Cooper, who organized the shebang and is a writer in her own write. We swapped recipes.

I'm worried that some of the people I asked for partials from at BEA and Murder in the Grove are put off by my auto-reply. Let me say again: if I asked you for something, send it to me. I'm just closed to blind submissions in order to catch up on the backup from the school year.

Hey all,

Hopefully those of you who are thinking of submitting to me are following this blog and agentquery.com. This update should be on agentquery shortly.

I must say sadly that I am closing to submissions for the foreseeable future. Because I do this part-time, in addition to graduate school, being a dad, and my own writing, I have been backed up lately with great projects. I have four or five people whose manuscripts are very important to me but who get shunted aside by other things. In order to get to them, I have to stop the slush from piling up.

If you have sent me a partial or a full manuscript, then know that you are in my priorities, but the next two weeks of finals will push everything aside. After that I've got a very good client whose novel is awaiting a critique, then several other prospective clients who are awaiting critique, and another client whose work needs to go out to editors. After that I can work on partials and slush.

If you are still dying to talk to me, you can go to Boise's Murder in the Grove conference this weekend, and I may still make it to the Surrey International Writer's Conference in October, and of course you can hunt me down at Worldcon, attempting to steal kisses from George R.R. Martin. But I am not taking any submissions, or new clients, for the foreseeable future.

Thanks for understanding.

With the Obama/Hillary showdown proving a lot more interesting than the Obama/McCain showdown will probably be (I predict every debate will include the words, "When I was your age, young Barack...") I thought it was time for me to share the political opinions that nobody cares about.

1) Why I Oppose (and always did) the War in Iraq. Or: That's Right, I Hated the War Before it was Cool.

Does anyone remember Afghanistan? It's the other war. By the way, it's also the country where the guy who masterminded a major terrorist attack was last located. He's the one we never caught and executed.

Afghanistan seems to get as much press as Korea does in relation to Vietnam, so I thought it would be nice to talk about this little war for a while. Start with this. So the Taliban offered to hand over Bin Laden to another country at one point. Although it doesn't sound like the best idea--who would they have chosen, Pakistan?--it might have isolated the source of the 9/11 terrorist threat from the beginning. And maybe settled things down a bit before a major military commitment. Of course, I'm not sure that anyone in the US wanted such a bloodless victory.

The Taliban fell, though it reformed. There are UN troops in Afghanistan and Canada is currently very worried about its role there in trying to rebuild the country. Afghanistan is the major producer of heroin in the world, and like Somalia, is mostly controlled by warlords. It is no more stable now than Iraq, and the President knew when he invaded Iraq that Afghanistan would be hard to handle and Al-Qaeda, within Afghanistan, was nowhere near neutralized. So that's the commitment we made before Iraq. And the US is still committed to it, though they've left it mostly in the hands of the UN forces.

Some people want you to believe that Obama is a fool for calling for negotiations with people like Hezbollah and Hamas. Those people seem to forget that negotiations with a terrorist group, with whom Scott Card lumps the Palestinians, have worked in the past. Most recently, they worked in Belfast in 2005.

"Terrorist groups" is a terrible simplification for people like Hamas, who basically own Palestine. They build hospitals, provide medical and health care, build and maintain mosques, run TV stations, and, not surprisingly, are a force in politics. And, like with any organization, there are different forces at work within it. Scott has joined with a force that prefers to see events in black and white so that they can shift responsibility. "The Palestinians did not do what we asked them to do, therefore we have NO blame for the situation there." Of course. Just like England had no blame for the motivation of the IRA.

Finally, for all the furor about Obama's position, the truth is, no once can tell what a President will do until they're in office.

The only thing Obama has proven in his stance on the war is that he's not an idiot. He opposed the war when military resources were strained and an oil-friendly administration was trying to tighten its grip on an oil-rich country. But once US soldiers and Iraqi lives were invested and US responsibility was taken, he was a little more hesitant about incurring a bloodbath by pulling out. Now that it has become clear that there are only hard choices regarding the war, he wants to withdraw troops but step up humanitarian effort. Will it have disastrous consequences for the region? Most likely. What will happen if we keep US troops in Iraq? US troops will keep dying, and Afghanistan will get worse, and our aid won't go to places like Sudan and Liberia. Sounds like disastrous consequences.

So he's looking at the past precedent of people like Carter and Clinton who, though their truces fell apart, managed to suspend the bloodletting. Maybe, he thinks, I can suspend the bloodletting enough to have a Northern Ireland eventually, where old grudges simmer but are put aside in the name of economic prosperity.

What is our other option? More fighting? Optimism may be a risky projection, but when we see what pessimism has led to, and the hard choices on either side where lives will be lost one way or another, we need to dare to dream of change.

If you know anything about Transformers, you owe it to yourself to listen to More Than Meets The Ear: Selections From Transformers The Musical.

My favorite is "The Acousticons."

Chrissy and I were talking with some friends once about a nature special we had seen on dolphins. It seems that dolphins are randy creatures, and quite willing to... you know... do it... with anything. Including the shells of nearby turtles.

One of the friends got a turtle-y look on his face and said, "I'm going as fast as I can!"

I know he was trying to represent the turtle. I'm not sure what the turtle was doing, and whether it was willing or not in his representation.

But in that spirit, I have midterms to grade this week and I thought I'd take a minute to talk about the pace at which I deal with agenting work.

I go slow.

Very slow.

If you're the type of person who wants immediate replies and constant attention, I am not the agent for you. I am a grad student and I teach and I've got a family. I do the best I can, but I thought I'd add this since I'm getting tons of queries and most people don't seem to realize that I am not an ideal agent for someone on the move.

Hi again.

This is Agent Spencer talking.

I'm the new agent, and I'm invigorated by some of the amazing books I've rescued from the slushpile. But there's a lot of things I'd like to see that I'm not. Some specifics:

Mormon historical novels. This is a rich and deep vein that hasn't been explored. I'd love to see a well-written book about Zina Huntington, a secret wife to Joseph Smith and faith healer, in the vein of Orson Scott Card's Saints.

Crusades historical or fantistorical novels in the vein of George R.R. Martin, Jacqueline Carey or Bernard Cornwell. Give me blood-drenched battles, intricate politics, good old steamy sex and bring the religious frontiers of the medieval Mediterranean into it.

Victorian, Edwardian, or Regency fantasy. Given the massive success of this genre lately, I'm surprised at how little we see it in the slushpile. If you have the next Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell, send me an email.

These are all genres where I'd accept the breaking of the traditional "word ceiling" for new authors, usually set around 100-120,000 words. Historical and fantasy novels need to be long and absorbing, and some new authors can pull it off. For shorter works, I'm always in the mood for a good memoir, particularly if it can deal with painful events through a good sense of humor. I also love Chuck Palahniuk and Dave Eggers, so if you can do literary satire, drop a note.

My inbox has been really cluttered lately at the agency with "You've won a billion dollars from the Bank of Africa" emails.

So if you send me a novel query, be sure to title it "Query:" and then the title of your book so I know you're not trying to get my urgent assistance in transacting the Very Large Sum of 9,600,000 dolars to the United States as it was the late Prince's dear wish.

I'm listening to General Conference and blogging at the same time, so you'll have to forgive me if some Mormon-isms make their way into this blog... even my blog on this internet in these latter days.

I've had a really exciting and whirlwind first week of school. I've always wanted to teach but I've been discouraged since starting graduate school at the fact that, rather than landing a full-blown TA-ship, I was given the pithy research assistant job. Actually, being a research assistant is a lot more fun than being a TA--the TAs don't get paid to read this book, and I did--but it's also a lot less financially secure. The TAs get their tuition and insurance paid, and get paid for a set number of hours a week, whether they work them, overwork them, or don't. The RAs (this is me) have to meet hours in order to pay our own insurance and usually borrow money to pay our tuition.

Last quarter I was assigned to my favorite teacher to be an RA since the original didn't have enough work for me. She immediately enlisted my help in writing study questions and reviewing materials for a class. In short, I've ended up as the TA and I get to stand before a classroom a little bit and help out.

It's a class in American Ethnic Identity and Coming of Age. I told that to a friend and she rolled her eyes. "Let's be multicultural, right. I feel like that's been shoved down my throat so much that I hate it." This is not exactly a backwoods hick. This girl lives in Seattle, works for Boeing, and last time I checked, her last three boyfriends were all of a different ethnicity.

So if this were just a class in PCisms, it would suck. Lucky for me it's a class in identity and in the history of those identities. We're reading the greatest greatest book ever, James Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me, as a way of absorbing the history behind current notions of race. We're also reading some funny and touching stories in a collection that isn't nearly as PC as it sounds, Growing Up Ethnic in America.

My teacher has made the point several times that there is no way to rank ethnicity. She compares it to the AA principle that all pain is equally valid. If one person comes into an AA meeting weeping over having not gotten a job they wanted, and another person comes in weeping because their son died, the meeting does not ignore one person's pain in the idea that the other's is more important. They try to give equal love and support to both. In the same way, this isn't a class in white guilt. This is a class in discovering identity. It's really neat and I'm glad I get a chance to be a part of it.

I came up with that title all by myself.

The answer to the above should be obvious, I guess. I got a rejection that, while it doesn't sting as much as last year's, still stings. I didn't get into the Clarion West Writing Workshop for this summer in Seattle. I still haven't heard from the Clarion San Diego workshop, but I was pulling more so for Seattle because 1) I had a good friend apply and 2) I could see Chrissy and Adia on weekends.

I've been writing a lot lately, and I don't think it'll stop because I don't go to an expensive workshop. But... fuhhhhhuuuwuaaaahaaaaahuuuuuuuhhhhhck.