I don’t mind the noise the young women make at the coffee shop

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They’re at work, they’re dealing with people all day, making them food and drinks and socializing a little bit. And it’s a coffee shop, not a library. People talk, they laugh, music is playing.

What I do mind is the guy sitting across from me complaining about the noise they make, calling them “ninnies.” When they talk and laugh, they’re doing it with each other–it has nothing to do with me and is easily ignored. But when a dude addresses me directly, *that* breaks my concentration.

Quick note for everyone who works in coffee shops: You are not in a library.

Randomness for 9/4/09

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1) Man builds houses for low-income citizens using mostly recycled material. My wife would love this.

2) Arkansas fire chief shot in court room after criticizing local police. Apparently, while criticizing cops who do nothing but write speeding tickets, there was a “scuffle.” The fire chief was unarmed.

It’s interesting that the town where this took place has 147 residents and seven officers. According to the article, they spend their time manning speed traps, but the county sheriff dept. is investigating where all that money went, since the police cars are about to be repossessed.

As yet, no one has been charged in the shooting.

3) The GOP released a press release listing doctors who oppose the current health care reform bills. Unfortunately, the doctors on the list didn’t know a thing about it.

4) Fire ants build a life raft from their own bodies. I understand that it’s almost certainly staged to some degree, but it’s still fascinating.

5) The Coen Brothers make a short film about a man entering an art house theater. It’s simple and wonderful. “A Human Comedy of Sorts.”

A meme I’m happy to pass on to you:

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“No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick.”

I should have done this a while ago

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Actually, maybe I have and just don’t remember.

Anyway, I thought people might be interested in seeing the query letter I wrote that caught the interest of my agent (and a couple others besides).

Here it is with the addresses stripped out:

Dear [Agent’s Name]:

Ray Lilly is just supposed to be the driver. Sure, he knows a little magic, but it’s Annalise, his boss, who has the real power. Ray doesn’t like driving her across the country so she can hunt and kill people dabbling in dangerous magic, but if he tries to quit he’ll move right to the top of her hit list.

But Annalise’s next kill goes wrong and she is critically injured. Ray must complete her assignment alone; he has to stop the man who is sacrificing children to make his community thrive, and also find the inhuman supernatural power fueling his magic.

Harvest of Fire is a completed 99,000-word contemporary fantasy in the tone and style of a crime thriller.

I have sold several short stories to the magazines Black Gate and On Spec. The latest is “Eating Venom,” due out in the next issue of Black Gate.

Thank you for your time,

While I’m proud of those short fiction sales, I’m not sure they did much to catch anyone’s interest. At least, editor and agent both convinced me to publish my novel under a different name than those shorts.

Also, the synopsis covers only the characters, setting and the big plot twist that finishes the “first act” of the novel, which falls around page 30-50. That recommendation came from “Agent Kristin” who runs the “Pub Rants” blog (pubrants on LJ) and it really works.

For the synopsis, I described the whole book, right up to the end, ‘natch.

Notice also that I used the word “magic” three times in two paragraphs–word echoes are my enemy.

Anyway, I hope that’s interesting or useful.

Added eight years later: I don’t have a lot of analysis in this old post, but then I’m not sure it needs it. It bugs me (still) that I used the word “magic” so many times, but word echoes are one of the crosses I have to bear.

Many years ago, there was an account called Evil Editor who would read queries, snark about them, then give advice. The query I wrote or Twenty Palaces, the book before this one, is here. EE didn’t ask me to change much, but they still had fun at my expense (all in good fun). Apparently, “ruthless vigilante sorcerers” became a thing on the site.

I think that query is too long, but it didn’t matter because the book wasn’t ready. It wasn’t until I had my Road to Damascus moment while revising Child of Fire that I began stringing sentences together in a reasonable way.

Role Model

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You know what freaks out my son? Giant spiders.

Last night after rough-housing with him a bit, I was feeling a bit… musty. Shower time!

Except we had a visitor in the bottom of the tub, and my kid freaked right the hell out. This is the best pic I took of our intruder (Mike C and other arachnophobes, do not click.)

Continue reading

Speaking of Randomness

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Here’s something that’s random and 100% AWESOME

via Josh Jasper on the aforementioned health care discussion on John Scalzi’s blog

Randomness

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I’m going to compile a bunch of random things into this post and publish them all at once.

1) via geniusofevil: Heat Wave: Richard Castle is a real writer!

2) I’ve been going back and forth on some common euphamisms. Yesterday, in a comment, I used the term “godsend.” Is that a word an atheist should use? I think not, obviously, since it bothers me. In the few stolen moments I had to type out the comment, I couldn’t come up with an alternative that said the same thing.

Except there’s “ghu” or “ghod” but I think of that as an SF fandom thing, and I’m not part of that community, either. Sometimes I write “Thank Pikachu” or whatever as a joke, even though at this point I’m the only member of my household who thinks Pikachu is cool.

I don’t really have a point. This is just something I’m thinking about.

3) Nicholas Kristof on the myth that government can’t do health care. And yeah, I spent way too much time yesterday arguing health care on John Scalzi’s blog.

3a) Arguing about health care on the web makes me hate the universe!

4) PW’s newly focused blog, Genreville (verdict: interesting so far) offers Lev Grossman the opportunity to knock over some straw men. He accepts.

5) Inglourious Wizerds

6) Man builds house out of Legos.

7) Work on Man Bites World continues slowly, but this is a really difficult section. Very different from what I’ve been doing before, and I’m going to have to revise it significantly once I straighten out in my mind how the protagonist would react to extremely strange events.

Book signing!

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I’ll be having a book signing on October 3rd, from 11-1, at Magnolia’s Bookstore here in Seattle!

Eeep!

Anyone reading this is invited! Please bring your friends! And your enemies! And your family! Complete strangers also welcome!

Ten seconds radio air time = 42 syllables.

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Yesterday, my wife paid for a day sponsorship at our local NPR station, to congratulate me on the release of Child of Fire. (It was supposed to be a surprise, but… oops!)

That pleases me, partly because I love our local NPR affiliate and I want to support them, and partly because it would be cool to hear my name on the radio in some other capacity than “Harry in Seattle writes to us…”

Here’s the interesting thing, though: The day sponsorship messages have to be ten seconds long, and that means 42 syllables. Interesting, huh?

Offered without comment

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School recalls band T-shirts, stating they promoted evolution.

“[Assistant Superintendent Brad] Pollitt said the district is required by law to remain neutral where religion is concerned.

…

Senior Drum Major Mike Howard said he was disappointed when he had to return the shirt.

“I liked the shirt because it was unique,” Howard said. “The theory of evolution never even crossed my mind.”