There was a pretty damn good post a few years back. It was a guest spot or link in either alanajoli or alg's journal. A woman who wrote historical romance and her frustration with how lazy people were in their education on nobility and social customs. An example she gave that has always stuck with me was the frequent error when a person introduces someone of higher rank to someone of lower rank. Introductions are always made to the person of the higher rank. "Your majesty, may I introduce to you Billy the scullion," etc.

The whole subject has a name that I unfortunately cannot remember and the woman had a link to a primer on the subject that I found invaluable. Anyone know the word for noble social strictures (which would greatly aid my Google searching) or remember the link I'm talking about?

Thanks.

The mythology does not play a direct role in the story I'm telling, but it is still pervasive in the society, so comes up frequently. The gods are forgotten (I do not explain why) and most religious invocation deals with a wide variety of saints. This happens so often I've decided to create an appendix in the back to help clarify. Here is what I have so far:

Appendix: A Guide to Your Saints

Alize: Patroness of comedy, humor, and irony
Ashima: Patroness of medicine and physicians
Cheyne: Patron of murder and assassins
Dachand: Patron of disease and corruption
Dinozio: Patron of the insane
Jilisha: Patroness of prophecy
Kishen: Patron of architecture
Kenniff: Patron of gaolers and executioners
Leroch: Patron of actors, performers, and prostitutes
Michard: Patron of vintners, brewers, mashers, and their alcohols
Murta: Patroness of hopeless causes
Shelba: Patron of farms and gardens
Sumad: Patron of peace

My progress fell off last week with the effort I put into launching the Game Locus Network. I've fallen into a yo-yo routine as this week is so swamped, I don't know if I'll have time to release any GLN content at all. Not the best start. Add to that, I just bought Dragon Age: Origins and my desires are being pulled in every direction. Lately I've been writing on both Saturday and Sunday, but not this weekend. This weekend was DAO. I wrote on Sunday, a decent amount if not my best, and then came home and played again.

Thankfully, I can neither podcast nor play Dragon Age on the train, so I am still getting my writing done. I just have to fight the urge to catch the flu so I can stay home and play video games. :)

I went to update the word count on the About page and noticed that I've written 21,000 words since last it was updated. That makes me happy. :)

With the announcement of Barnes & Noble's nook, I have finally jumped on the ereader bandwagon. I dislike the Kindle very much, more so, I dislike Amazon's DRM structure and machine limitations. Barnes & Noble has created a method that I myself was a proponent of at my former place of employment and is a middle finger to Amazon's medieval protection methods. Sure some people will be upset that they don't just send you a complete file, clinging to perceptions of ownership that are falling away in this new age, but piracy is a genuine threat that gets dismissed too flippantly. I've seen its ravaging effects on a book first hand. So good on ya, B&N.

Now, the general logic is that this is a passing trend. Single-purpose machines aren't worth their money. Multi-purpose machines are the future, which is why the iPod became the iPhone. Granted, I don't have an iPhone (and won't until it plays Flash--which will be never because Apple is stupid), but I have a Blackberry. I was so enthusiastic about nook that I downloaded B&N's ereader to my Blackberry (yes, you don't need to buy a nook, they have ereaders available for smart phones and computers that will play any of the ebooks they sell, ebooks from Google, PDFs, etc. I bought An Echo in the Bone, Diana Gabaldon's seventh book in her Outlander series. I didn't buy it in hardback because I have the mass paperbacks of the rest of the series and I don't want to break the series format (yes, I'm like that). I'd been checking it out from the library, but could only get the one-week, no renewal copy so I hadn't made a lot of progress.

So, what I've learned, is that I'm a single-function machine type of guy. I still use my 3rd generation iPod and I'll get an ereader with a larger screen than my Blackberry and I will be happy. Perhaps if my smart phone had a screen as large as an iPhone, but even then an ereader has a larger screen.

I should be focusing on the final revision for Black Magic and Barbecue Sauce. I received feedback from Peggy on the first five chapters of such worth that it has proved all the impetus I need to delay. Want: Chosen One has had a phenomenal start. I'm through chapter 9, have over 19,000 words, and am not slowing down. Every time I think I need to take a break or pause and reflect, I sit down and knock out 2500 words. I don't want to stop and lose all that momentum.

Also, and this is totally wrong of me, I wanted to work with the Nelson Agency. I know there are plenty of good authors out there, but none that do such a good job of selling themselves. I believe that NLA has the right ethos toward agenting, its relationship with authors and its relationship with publishers. Wanted: Chosen One is more mainstream, I think. It still has flawed characters, but not as abysmally depressed as Cy. Ironically, between the two, Wanted has the sadder ending, but I still think will be more widely accepted. It toys with generally accepted fantasy paradigms in a way that reminds me of some well established authors in the genre. And really, I have trouble figuring out what genre Black Magic falls into. Some agents would call it fantasy, some would call it literary fiction, others would call it commercial fiction. Wanted: Chosen One is most certainly fantasy without reservation. So, if my progress continues on such a heavy clip and I finish the manuscript by the beginning of November, perhaps I'll shop it out to NLA before returning to Black Magic.

That's a slippery slope, and one I'm keeping an eye on. Get a rejection and make excuses to work on something else. This isn't denial. I have a large list of agents at home to submit Black Magic to. This is opportunity. As long as Wanted: Chosen One continues to come so easily, I'll keep writing it.

I don't know if I'll post another excerpt after this one. This is the first seven chapters and a good start. I'm a bit wiped. I've written 14,000 words in just a few days. Every time I wondered if I should just slow down and read some more, I just kept cranking it out. The story was coming too easily to stop. Now, however, I'm going to go home and sleep. I was podcasting until 2:30 last night and I'm totally wiped. I'm shocked that I managed so a high word count for today at all. So, here are chapters 4-7. I hope you enjoy.

( Wanted: C.O. chapters 4-7 )

I moved away from posting excerpts on BLACK MAGIC... for a couple of reasons. First, the first drafts sucked. Second, I was writing at such a pace that I had too much content to post (and didn't want it all online anyway). I am very enthusiastic about the progress I've made with WANTED... so I decided to post the first three chapters. I try not to post repeatedly in the same day unless it's really worth it, but I have a feeling this will go over LJ's allowed character limit, so I may post each chapter individually. We'll see how it goes. I hope you enjoy.

( W:CO,NH Excerpt )

Nashau was just sacked as the Baron d'Bluefield's court prophet. Bastin is a flimflam man that's never held a job in his life. All across the Seven Kingdoms prophecies are failing, Chosen Ones are dying, and prophets are taking the blame. But Nashau has a vision and a plan how to break the curse and get his job back. All he needs is a Chosen One dashing, daring...and dumb enough to take the job.

Julie just sent me tremendous insight on Cy. Woo hoo! To quote Nathan Fillion, Bam said the lady!

This puts me in a great position. I'm writing this post mostly to remind myself to insert a bit about Matty saying how all Speakers are inherently selfish. After so many years of people saying it's all about them, they inevitably start to believe it.

This next revision is going to be top notch!

So I've started to get deedback on my draft. I'm very enthusiastic about this because it was very strong feedback. A lot of the time I'll get feedback and wonder if the person even read what I wrote. In this case, there were some very relevant questions and observations. Of the two most important suggestions, I am adding back in a chapter I origionally removed, thinking I had too many flashback chapters and that it slowed down the pacing. Turns out it's too vague what happened between Christian and Cy, so I'm reinserting the chapter where he kidnaps Matty and forces Cy to steal the couer de la reine from the tower of London. I'm adding it much earlier than I origionally planned (it's now chapter 19 rather than in the high 30s/low 40s.

The question I still want additional input on is whether any readers like Cy. It was always a concern of mine that he wasn't likeable and so far that's been affirmed. I need more input on that one.

Because of this necessary revision, I'm not submitting to any more agents until I have a finished ms. Chapter 19 isn't coming as fast as I'd like, though and will probably have to be rewritten before it stops sucking.

I do want to say that I appreciate the support I received when NLA rejected my query, but that support was unnecessarily negative toward NLA. Sure I wish my work appealed to them, but it didn't. I want an agent that will get behind me and my work. A query letter is only 2-3 paragraphs, so a rejection after two days is great. It could have been MUCH longer without any more time spent considering it. It's only a couple paragraphs after all.

So, when I get my next rejection (and I'm sure I will), keep in mind that that's part of the profession and unless they are rude in their rejection, they should be treated respectfully. Thanks.

On yet another new story note, Good Ken and I talked a lot during his visit. One topic we dwelled on was the Pathfinder Society and that conversation lead me to a new story idea, one that I find much more exciting than Sandwich Notch Drive or Jehovah's Hitlist. I have already written chapter one of WANTED: CHOSEN ONE, NOW HIRING. This first chapter is significantly better than my first chapter of JH.

Writing on my blackberry, so I'll save a description for a separate post at a later time. If the book keeps up at this quality, not only am I certain that it will be published, but it will be quite successful.

Rejected by the Nelson Agency. *sigh* Rejection feels so good but hurts so bad.

Today I submitted a query letter for Black Magic and Barbecue Sauce to the Nelson Literary Agency. It is the agency I hope represents my work, so I'm waiting the ten day grace period (their average reply time) before submitting to others. Fingers crossed.

There is an episode "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" where DL Hughley's character Simon is talking to Matt Alby (Matt Perry) about hiring a black writer for the show. Matt, an award-winning writer, is offended that Simon believes him incapable of writing "black enough" and cracks a joke then and there to prove it. Simon says that yes that was a good joke but it never would have made it on the air because his liberal guilt would have prevented him from ever actually saying such a joke in public.

It had never been articulated to me in that way but as soon as I heard it, it hit me like a hammer. He was absolutely right. There are simply certain ethnic situations that I am incapable of writing because I would feel guilty doing so. Granted, I am not a master of urban dialect (and we're not just talking ebonics, as urban drawl changes based on the urban environment, Baltimore being different than St. Louis being different than Atlanta, etc). At the same time, I get bothered when my writing is dismissed out of hand as something I should never attempt given that I'm white. Especially when writing about St. Louis. I didn't just work down by the river. I didn't just post job openings in the River Front Times. I explored that city from neighborhood to neighborhood, I listened to the people that were around me. I watched what was happening. (I should probably stop comparing the May Day celebration on North Grand and Natural Bridge to a Nelly video because anyone that wasn't there never believes me and thinks I'm being racist.) While I certainly did not live the urban black environment (I grew up poor white, not poor black), I have more exposure to that culture than some of the black girls I've dated!

Yet when I write, I feel guilty. And when I describe what I'm trying to accomplish, I'm pre-judged.

This makes writing Jehovah's Hitlist particularly difficult. The wealthy have moved to new cities built on platforms above the old, high enough that if the oceans rise again, they won't die. The rich have segregated out all the minorities they tried to marginalize of the years, so easily accomplished because of limited resources and the right connections. Now the INner-city (really the under-city) of Denver is organized into segregated neighborhoods, creating the illusion of the stereotypes that damned them to that existence in the first place. Gang life is the only way to survive and those gangs form on neighborhood lines, the blacks in one, the poor white trash in another, Jews in another, and so on. That racism is so ingrained in a young man who's grown up knowing nothing else that he uses that terminology without any consideration to what it means or that any other epithet might be more appropriate. How difficult is it for me to intentionally put racism into my work just to create the world in which he lives. Jehovah starts the story infiltrating Hadi territory where all the Mohammeds live and thankful he doesn't have to deal with the Jew Crew or the Kendall Street Queers. I have, through all my effort, avoided the N word and I honestly don't know if I'll be able to use it, a word that I abhor when not repeating Chris Rock or Bernie Mac (again, something I should stop doing, I know).

(Of course, the Jews don't call themselves the Jew Crew, but that's neither here nor there.)

I'm setting my jaw and plowing forward and while readers won't ever know how hard it was for me to write that way and how committed I am to illustrating the ingrained horror of the guy's life, they will quite promptly and matter-of-factly dismiss that effort as the pathetic attempts of a white guy trying to write a black character. If any of them are stupid enough to say as much to my face, I may have to kick them in the teeth.

I've tried to start Jehovah's Hitlist twice before. The first time it was when I wrote the original timeline that inspired the story. SCOTUS gave W the presidency and 45 years later or so, Europe is covered in ice, the AIDS-ravaged survivors of Africa are blockaded from leaving, and Denver is ocean-front property (which lead to my first incomplete reading of 1984). The story was titled "One Nation..." I don't think I got past the second paragraph.

That eventually got shortened to "The Nation" which didn't get past the second page.

The Nation was never very inspirational as titles go (the only worse title I currently have plotted is Sepsis, which is horribly lame but very appropriate for that story). I quickly abandoned that title. Luke's reference to King having a character called the Hanged Man helped me doubt whether the story was redundant. Having seen numerous uses of Hanged Men in earlier works than King (such as The Black Company), I no longer have any qualms in using the character as I originally intended.

So, that led to the advent of Jehovah's Hitlist (a name of a Bender album I've always loved). I've decided I'll try to write this one first and so far so good. The spec fic timeline is still the foundation of the setting, but I won't include it as a preface (I think I lost it when my Vaio died years ago).

I'm past two pages. Will post chapter 1 when it's finished. I was hesitant to start, but once I got started it felt good.

If the title gets nixed by the publisher, I may suggest In(di)visible Nation, though the duality of that title may be too abstract.

So the House on Sandwich Notch Road turned out to be an itch that needed scratching. Nowthat it's been scratched, all motivation to continue is gone. What do I writen next?

In the last week I've read Horizon (sharing knife 4), the first 19 chapters of An Echo in the Bone, and the first two chapters of Moss Hart's autobiography. But I haven't written anything. What do I write?

After 6 months of nothing but Black Magic and Barbecue Sauce, finding a new project is proving difficult. I have so many I can pick from, but none that scream PICK ME!

Part of me wants to write the chapter between Omar and Cy where Cy has to explain Speech and why Omar's house burned down. That doesn't fit in the novel and I don't know if it works as a short story. It's lots of exposition. And really, shouldn't I start something new rather than dwelling on something that's finished?

I don't know. Maybe I'll read some more until there's another itch to scratch.

I just chedcked out a fifty-year-old book from the library. It hasn't been checked out in 39 years! How cool is that. I love the forgotten treasures hidden in the library. :)

The lady that checked me out gave me a funny look. I can only hope it's because the book hadn't been checked out in so long and she wondered why I was getting it all of a sudden.

It's Moss Hart's ACT ONE, which I heard about on NPR and I want to see if it can give me any insight to my playwriting.

What's that? Algiers is the capital of Algeria you say? Of course it is. The words are almost identical. Wait, what's that? I list it in Morocco?

...

*waves hand with two fingers extended*

That doesn't say Algiers, that says Marrakech. It also says red city not white. And it's near the mountains not the sea. You should really pay more attention when you read.

Add the line

Not when you live forever. Great things get you noticed. Get you worshiped.

Maybe scrap that last sentence.

I rewrote my query letter for the tenth time yesterday. I've read so many different Good Query Letter blogposts that everything is starting to blur together. My pitch is solid, I think. BCC just like Karen Nelson suggests, but for some reason I remember someone saying not to mention themes, to let them see the themes in your writing, but then examples I see include themes. *shrug* I added a few thematic questions. That made me realize, perhaps I did not explore those themes as best I can.

I'll wait for feedback from folks and then take a look when I take my next pass.

I figured I'd sit down with Diana Gabaldon's new book for the week. The thing is a monster! I could use all my free time this week and still not finish it. To my surprise, I find myself wanting to write, needing to write even. So off to write I do.

What am I going to start on? Put my full attention to my play, Protocol J-25, which I finally feel able to write? Or Jehovah's Hitlist, a story I conceived of 7 years ago and still have not gotten around to (and with Runester's interest, feel I at least have an audience to write for). Perhaps I should turn back to the Third World, feeling more confident than ever to do that world justice. Or maybe Global Warming in the Garden of Eden, a title I've loved from the moment I thought of it. That title deserves a story.

So I clicked on the new story tag to review the ideas I've posted, see if I've put anything down for Jehovah's Hitlist since its last false start. I've pretty much decided to go with that one when I see the post whining about how I had a wonderful dream for a YA novel (YA being a genre I've never considered writing in). I read the post and remember, vaguely, how amazing the dream was. I want to write that dream. I hadn't thought of a title, so clearly it can't be written...

The House on Sandwich Notch Lane.

Okay, so I guess it can be written. Clearly my mind is ready to write this one. Sandwitch Notch is a road in New Hampshire's lakes region that Jen loves for its name. This caused a tumble of ideas, where the children are from, why they're staying there, etc.

I'm taking some risks, I realize having written the first few paragraphs. Both children are half-Indian (India Indian), meaning the primary two characters are ethnic. You may think it doesn't make a difference, but it does, at a subconscious level. See a lot of stories told from a non-ethnic viewpoint when BOTH characters are ethnic? No. Usually one of them will be white as some kind of unspoken signal flag saying that we won't be focusing on a culture you don't understand, reader, so don't be scared away. Secondly, I'm not easing up on my vocabulary as much as the genre dictates. That'll be a problem later, I'm sure, but the only way to keep a muscle in shape is to exercise it. When I started reading comics, they used big words and bolded them, so kids would know to look them up in the dictionary. I learned so many words that way. Somewhere, it was decided that we could make more money if we didn't make people work so hard at reading.

Good thing I'm not in this for the money. (For all that posturing, I'm not overdoing it. I'm not writing for adults, but I'm not scared of three-syllable words either.)

Okay, I need to eat and write more. See ya.

So I converted my manuscript to Word and fixed some of the formatting and changed underlines to italic, courier new to tnr. What I forgot to do was check the page breaks. Page breaks don't carry over consistently from OO to Word. Most times they do, but sometimes they don't. Even when they do, you don't get the dotted PAGE BREAK line but merely a hard character return that seems tougher than all his brothers, making the next line start on its own page.

And of course, I leave one extra hard return at the end of each chapter in OO in case I want to go back and add more to the end. It's faster to have an individual return to target rather than putting the curser at the end of a line and hitting return. Don't ask me, I just do better that way. Of course, in this situation, a number of those returns are the only thing on a page, so I have a few blank pages in the middle of the manuscript.

This is all neither here nor there if I hadn't sent the thing to readers. Minor mistakes, you may feel, but I think it's disrespectful to people taking time out of their lives to read something I wrote, not to mention shoddy in ways of a professional presentation of my work.

Errors have been fixed. Hopefully this is lesson learned enough I won't repeat the mistake in the future.