Make time for the Endless Hour

Jason Evans over at Clarity of Night is sponsoring another short-fiction contest. Be sure to check it out. Prizes. Cool stories. Good company. Great place to showcase your talents, and enjoy the fellowship of like-minded writers. Thanks again, Jason!

Query letters, junk mail, and what exactly are you going to do with that million dollars from Ed McMahon?

No matter what kind of writer you are, eventually you’ll become a part-time purveyor of the lost art of direct mail. (That’s junk mail to you and me). Because no matter what kind of writer you think you are, at some point you’re going to have to get all dolled up in fishnets and stripper heels and troll the boulevards propositioning literary agents with, “hey baby, you wanna date?” Yep, I’m talking about query letters.

The weird thing is, I do it for a living. Not pimping it on the streets. I work in advertising. (Some would argue it’s a less dignified form of prostitution). I basically write stuff that sells stuff. Be it a commercial, print campaign, or a piece of mail that pops up saying “you might have already won.” It ain’t always purty, but hey, it’s what I do.

So when it comes to query letters, I guess I’m kind of a trained professional.

Or maybe I just have good timing. A few weeks ago I sent out two query packets with partials and three email queries—I contacted a measly five agents. And yesterday I heard back from three of them. Two of the email queries netted requests for partials, and one of my partials got a request for the whole enchilada—the whole manuscript.

I’m realizing that even if The Panama Hotel gets rejected by every agent out there (yeah, I know that’s using passive voice, I’m a laid back guy, it happens), I might still have a lucrative career as a query letter ghostwriter.

At least until Ed McMahon shows up at my door.

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”

Meet my new literary agentDo you know whose quote that is?  Nah, me neither. But I bet that he (or she) wasn’t terribly afraid of rejection. With that in mind, I just sent off my first partial of The Panama Hotel—to my dream literary agent. Who is my dream literary agent you ask? Well, I can’t really tell you, except to say that her name is Sandra Dijkstra. She’s reputed to be the most powerful agent on the West Coast. (For some reason, I picture her as the Suge Knight of the publishing industry). I guess having Amy Tan as a client will get your phone calls returned. Go figure.

Over the past two years, I have a ton or rejections. And I didn’t make it easy on myself. Instead of working my way up, I decided I’d start at the top and just work my way down. To put it in a high-school metaphor, think of me as the bookish, freshman kid, working the library. Who do I ask to the prom––the braces-wearing band-geek? Nope. I girded my loins and started with the head cheerleader. So in my desk drawer I have form rejections from The New Yorker, Harpers, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, Tin House and others. But I also have a complimentary hand-written note from Cicada, and got a nice callback from the Green Mountains Review.

And I even made the Top-25 over at Glimmer Train’s 2006 Short-Story Competition For New Writers.

What’s my point? Don’t be afraid to succeed. Don’t dip your pinky-toe in the water. Look for the highest diving platform and cannonball your way into the deep end. You’re going to get wet. Might as well have fun doing it.

Have you seen this guy?

Okay, so I’ve been a bit of an absentee landlord lately. My apologies. Like a marathon runner crossing the finish line only to collapse on a waiting stretcher, I finished my book, The Panama Hotel, and my brain went on strike––so aside from work (which was screamingly busy), I haven’t written a darn word of fiction since. I guess that’s what I get for writing the entire book in a non-stop, 8-week orgy or words. At some point things get sore and you walk with a limp.

But, like Britney Spears at a methadone clinic, I’m baaaaack. No, I haven’t shaved my head, because like most men my age, I’ll get there on my own, thank you.

So, here’s a book update:

I’ve begun to edit. After not touching the book for nearly two months, and looking at it with fresh eyes, it’s looking less like fecal matter (my exhausted eyes) and more like something I’m actually kinda proud of. Gimme a month, and it’s query time––except for a certain agent whom I met at Squaw who read the short story and said “don’t query me, just send it when you’re ready and call me.”

Back to the scene of the crime. I’m going back to Seattle next week. To visit the Panama Hotel, walk the streets one more time (“Hey baby, you wanna date?”...not that kind of streetwalking) and to chill out with friends and family.

I went back to Open Pants Night. Okay, it’s actually called Open Mic Night. I did another reading at our local bookstore/coffee-clatch and got some more positive feedback. On top of that, I listened to more poetry than one sober person should ever be subjected to.

That’s a brief snapshot. More soon…no, I mean it. Hey, where are you going?