What's Down For Now

Me and "THE TREE"

It was a tremendous lightening bolt followed by a deafening crash of thunder that brought me out of the house and onto the porch last year. Bits of bark were scattered across the porch. I picked one up, it still steamed a bit.

Across the road, the large red oak had a stripe down it where the bark had been stripped off by the lightening strike.

My neighbor decided to have the tree cut down, since it was too close to their house and posed a threat of crushing it if it fell. A very real danger down here, since we have tornadoes and high winds in the Spring.

It's an old tree. We haven't been able to figure the age yet, but it's got to be close to 100 years old. I did a rough measurement on it and it's about 4 feet across and 80 feet tall. Or it was 80 feet tall.

So far, it's taken me over a week to cut the smaller branches off and work down to the big stuff. I'm talking limbs that are over a foot in diameter. Lots of tree left to process.

Most of it will wind up as firewood, keeping the old home warm when the cold winds blow.

The trunk, that's another story. I've always wanted to carve a large chair. Something about 10 feet tall, big enough for two people.

That or about a dozen nice coffee tables.

Do You Research or Just Write It?

I spend a lot of time at the local library. A couple of weeks ago, my friend, the librarian, asked me, "Do you do research for your books?"

The question caused me to stop for a moment, "Can't write a book without doing research."

We got into a discussion, since that had been a topic brought up by some other librarians.

Even when I did my memoir-mockumentary (there's a new word for you), "Going Dutch, Trials of a Wage Slave" I did research. I checked on quotes, regulations, business topics and liability. Getting sued is no fun.

The novel I just completed took me almost 5 years to write. It's on a complex topic, cyberwar, and there aren't too many references out there. The subject is so leading edge, most people can't comprehend the topic.

It led to me creating a 4 drawer file cabinet full of background information. This doesn't include the movies, videos, library books, Internet, blogs, etc. that I reviewed to gain an understanding of my subject.

The worst thing a writer can do is put out a book that doesn't have all the latest info on the subject. Sure, it might be wrong in the future, when the technology advances or society overtakes the concept.

But for right now, it better be as good as you can make it.

Faking it will get you burned, every time.

April, Who's Getting Fooled?

Time flies by, when you're working all the time.

I've been doing farm work, started the outline for the follow-up to the novel I just finished. Shouldn't say 'finished' because there will be revisions, edits, etc. when it gets sold to a publishing house. Let's just call it done for now. Doing the 'waiting on the agents' thing.

Dragged the Baja Bug off the trailer the other day. Can't believe it'll be 30 YEARS in June since I bought the beast. It was a typical, simple, red VW Beetle at that time. Got it from the second owner. The car has sat for about 10 years now. Stored while I worked in Europe and haven't had time to do any work on it since I've been back here. Too many other toys and irons in the fire.

May start yet another blog, to follow the rebuild work on the Baja Bug. I'll get some photos up in the next week or so. I started a video the other day to document the rebuild process. I've only built, rebuilt, modified, customized about two dozen VWs in my life, so I should have it looking good in time. Notice I didn't specify how much time...

Other than that, just enjoying the July weather in April. This can't be good, no matter how much we all love it. If it stays this way, will it be 130 in July?

I got a nice start on a sunburn yesterday, rototilling the garden with the tractor, before I realized that I was turning into a TOMato.

Enough of the bad puns, later.

Keep Trying

Spent the past 24 hours trying to get a partial out to an agent.

Everything is fighting it, my computer didn't want to run the word processing program. Fixed it, moved on to reformatting a correctly formatted document that turned into junk on it's own. It's not like I haven't run into this before.

When I worked in the Netherlands, sending tech manuals halfway around the world, you wouldn't believe the way things would print out at the receiving end. That's why I check what I've done before sending it. Even then, it seems like there is some type of problem.

Today, ready to send the partial to the agent, went to another computer, where DSL/high speed is available. Now, I can get on my blog...but I can't get on my email to send them the partial!

To compound this, earlier I called their office, to clarify a couple of questions I had about the submission. Sent to voice mail, haven't heard back. Can't check my email to see if they answered my questions that way.

Are we having fun yet?

Doesn't matter, I don't stop.

Maybe my email server is having a problem.

Either way, I'll get the partial out.

If you're the agent in question, have mercy and a bit of patience, please.

What's that saying? 'That which doesn't kill me, makes me stronger!'

YOU WANNA BE IN MOVIES update

I know, I know. Made a comment earlier about how I don't like to leave any projects 'undone'.

This one's been dragging on now for, ummmm, almost 3 years. Yes, time flies when you're researching and writing a novel. My car caught on fire, twice, still haven't fixed the carbs...OK, there were some short stories in there, the three blogs, farm work and a screenplay, but you get the idea.

Then I took the last year 'off', went, as a lady friend calls it, "incommunicado'. Part of the experience/research for the now completed novel. Which means I didn't do much in the way of worrying about being on the Internet or doing the blogs. Yes, there are a couple of unpublished posts that will complete the YOU WANNA BE IN MOVIES series.

I can now say that the feature film I was human background scenery on can be classified as a bomb. It won't be remembered as a classic, at least that's what I've been told.

For the really surprising confession is...I've yet to see it.

I'm so far out in the sticks that the local movie house didn't show it. When it came out on DVD, I decided that it wasn't worth buying. The local library is so small that we haven't got a copy of it. NO, I'm not going to rent it either.

Why? Word from my fellow human scenery extras is that the scenes we were in showed great shots of the train. As for us? Well, I understand that there wasn't much to be seen of the extras.

Hey LOOK! My head as a pixel!

The Sweet Taste of Rejection

Oh, the joy!

Query emails going out, rejections now starting to roll in. Most people would be depressed, upset, angry. WHY?

You have to get rejected to be accepted. When I sold BMWs and Volvos for a living, I learned about sales averages. At that time, you had to talk to about 100 people to sell 1 car. At the dealership I worked at, you were expected to sell at least 10-15 cars a month. Anything less and it was talk with the sales manager time.

Try sending out 1,000 to 1,500 queries a month. You can see why car salesmen spend so much time at the dealership. Now, if you had the same rate of return, you'd have 10-15 agents interested in your 'product' at the end of the month.

Throw in the fact that you're not selling a known product. Raise the return rate to about 200 to 1 or higher. Yep, tough to sell a book.

You can't give up.

Me, I'm just getting started.

Persistence

Persistence, that great word which means you don't stop until you reach your goal.

Tenacity is part of my personality. I will stay on the book, project, job, whatever, until it's done. Why stop? There's nothing more aggravating than a unfinished project lying around.

Which leads to the frustrating part of being a writer. The real work comes after I write the story. Then I have to find an agent or publisher.

I've sent out the query letter.

Now comes the hard part, waiting for the reply.