Meet the Writer

This week was very busy, which seems to be becoming my normal week, that’s fine with me, ever the shying violet, I realize that I need to develop social skills, including: small talk, introducing myself and the like.
So, on with my report, yesterday I somehow got the bright idea to bring one of my blog poems to my writers group last night. I thought it would be fun, after all I was growing confident in my poetic abilities, and the next step in my mind is to read it aloud. After some thought I decided to pick one of my favorites, I thought picking a poem that I’m confident in might make the new experience easier when the nervousness of doing something new brings. Then the moment came and I thought I had lost my sanity. The writer group is comprised of people who would never do something to hurt me, not terribly anyways, so it was not really the fear of the people saying something, just what they would think. Oh, my gosh: that was a terrible poem! She needs to stick with fiction, and thoughts along those lines were my fear, which might seem silly to you, dear reader, but what made it so terrible, would be that I would agree with them, I don’t consider myself a poet: so what am I doing bringing my therapeutic scribbling to them? I got through it though, and they enjoyed it. I actually read it twice because some of the people were not at the table and because it was so short no one minded me reading it again. So, it was scary, but I got it done!
The other thing that happened this week that I want to mention to the five people who read my blog (thank you for reading it by the way,) my Mama and I went to Starbucks to meet with a writer, not to read our work or anything, just a social thing, and it was very nice. We got to know each other a little better and it was great. During our writing group meetings we don’t really have time to talk, and even during the “socializing time” there are certain voices that tend to dominate over the others. It was a refreshing change and it’s just nice to know that I have a friend in a fellow writer.

Query Letters (Part 1)

I received a question from a fellow aspiring writer, it was about query letters. As you may know I hardly consider myself an expert on the subject, but as I began to think about it I realized that I know a whole lot more now than I did when I first began. My nature of over-studying and trying to ask more questions than I think I need to ask has taught me a lot about writing a query letter, and the delivery of that query letter.

  First off my advice to newer writers is study!! Read books on how to write query letters, on what to do and what not to do. Then find your prospect agents or publishers and then you need to study more!! I know right about now you would say that being told to study is not what you want to hear, you want me to tell you exactly what you need to do, well unfortunately every genre requires a different approach, fiction, non-fiction; what level you’re writing, child, middle school, young adult, adult and it’s sub category, college level, average intelligence, or a specific field. Which is why there are so many reference books on the subject, and the rules keep changing every year. What I tell you now may be different by the time you read this. So what am I blogging about? Well, I’m going to tell you how I get ready to write a query letter, I am not saying this is the only way to go about it, or even if this is the best way to do it, this is just what I do.

  Let me set up the situation. Let’s say that I have a story called “Understandable” (I have no such book, this is just for an example) it’s an urban fantasy (aka. a fantasy story that takes place in our world as to opposed a fantasy that take place in its own world, like Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”) The main character is…a dwarf named…White, (hey, I’m making this up as I go, so stop snickering.) White works in the mines when he returns home to see a lovely lady dressed as a traveling apple sales woman, (wait for it) she’s a powerful sorceress in disguise, and she has come to the dwarf for shelter. This is an unusual occurrence as you may expect, but White lets her in, and that night she explains that she just caught wind of a plot to kill the queen, so she was on her way to stop them, hence the disguise. White offers his help as a….guide (I guess), she says thanks but no thanks, the sorceress refuses the food White offers her, saying she can only eat the apples she has with her, for they are the key to her strength. The next morning however, White and the sorceress find the basket with the fruit has been stolen, and the sorceress will die if they are not found, and the day for the planned murder of the queen is drawing near, and they need to do all of this while keeping themselves hidden from the other people of this world: the Ordinaries (that’s us)….White goes to his seven cousins for help and together they save the sorceress.

  So what do I do first after the story is written and edited?

I go and find agents and publishers that might be interested in this kind of thing. I write out an index card for each company or agent with all their important information.

Side One:

                (1)White (2)great    other project okay                         

       

        (3) 1.16.10                 11.12.07 (4) NO

(5) Fantasy Agency

(6)Aurora Kingly

(7)Fantasy@Imadeitup.com

or Aurorafantasy@Imadeitup.com  

(8) Fantasy Agency

212 I Make It Up St.

New York, MY 99999

Explanation

(1)    I list the books I am currently searching for agent for; usually I am looking for more than one book at a time.

(2)    I make a note at how well I think my project fits the agency or publishing house in question.

(3)    I note the date that I sent the agency the query letter.

(4)    I write down “NO” when I get a refusal or no response so that I can avoid sending a query to the same place twice.

(5)    Next I list the agency name.

(6)    I list the name of the person I wish to contact; there may be more than one noted person in the company, if possible I narrow it down so that I send it directly to my desired agent or publisher.

(7)    I write down the company email and/or the specific email of the person I wish to contact.

(8)    The final thing on this page is usually the physical address of the agency or publishing house.

Side 2

(1)    Picture books, fantasy, Short Stories

(2)    Q letter Snail Mail with 1^st 5 pages & synopsis along with SASE.

(3)    Q letter with QUERY & work title in email subject with 1^st 5 pgs and synopsis of work NO attachments. WILL REPLY, if none, email again.

Explanation:

(1)    I list the preferred genres of the company, or specific person I’m going to be sending the query to, in some cases, they list only what they don’t want sent to them in which case I list those instead with NO at the beginning of the list.

(2)     I note how they wish the query letter to be sent by mail. Since I am pressed for space I use a mix of my own shorthand, and the generally accepted slang of the writing world. Q letter, meaning they want a standard query letter, which is only one page long. Snail mail, which is regular mail; a lot of agencies will not accept UPS, or other deliveries and will not even let it in through the door. Some will ask for the first few pages from your work, it can be anywhere from the first five to the first fifty pages of the work, depending on the genre. They could also ask for a synopsis, which is basically a summary of the entire book condensed to around three pages for a “Short Synopsis” or around ten pages a “Long Synopsis” they may or may not specify what kind of synopsis they want and you’re left to guess. A SASE is a Self Addressed Stamped Envelope, a lot of companies will not pay for postage to send you a rejection or an acceptance, so you need to send an envelope addressed to yourself with a stamp, even then some do not guarantee a response.

(3)    This is where I note the recommended mode of sending the query by email. Most agencies and publishing companies get a lot of spam, so even if they don’t require it, it’s best to put QUERY in the subject line of your email, with your book title. Most of them are paranoid of viruses, and do not open attachments, so anything that they ask you to send along with the query you should paste to the email, they will most often request it but even if they don’t, you should do it anyways. Some will guarantee a response and will ask you to email another query after a given period of time, because if you didn’t get a response, they accidentally deleted it, or it got lost. Most are not so kind. Most of them will give you a time span of days to expect a reply, and then if they exceed it, you are to assume it to be a refusal.

So, this is how I start my query letter adventure, I think this post is long enough for one day, I’ll be posting more on this subject another time.

Traitor

Dolorous held the crystal goblet up to the light, which caused the dark liquid within to shine burgundy. Reaching across her work table she filled a small syringe with dragon’s blood and began to slowly add the blood to the concoction. Dragon’s blood has multiple functions; most of them are for healing. However, that’s not what she needed it for this time. Her mother had been a healer for the king before he was overthrown by a rival kingdom bringing her family down to the level of peasantry. After the fall of the true king, ignorance and fear took the place of knowledge and exploration of the natural world and its properties. Now, the act of healing, once a revered art, now was seen of nothing short of magic, people grew to fear healers and one night during Dolores’s thirteenth year, her mother was seized by some villagers and dragged behind a chariot until she breathed no more. The reason behind it was some of the crops had failed due to a drought and they had blamed her mother.
Ever since then Dolorous had dreamed of fighting the establishment, and hopefully restoring peace and learning to her homeland. She knew things were going to get worse before it got better, and she had been right, a civil war brought out more fear and panic, but at least someone was trying to do something. She had joined the rebelling forces, willingly. She was not the only healer in the cause; in fact most of the rebel forces were descended from well-educated people and had learned how to read before it became a mortal sin to do so. They were not the barbaric and brutish force who rapped women and ate small children as the establishment would have like all their subjects to believe.
Dolorous added the dragon’s blood until the liquid turned a dark purple against the light. Filling a new syringe with the poison, she then poured wine into two more crystal goblets, and then began to add the poison to one of the glasses, until she knew it was fatal. Then holding the regular glass of wine and the poisoned one up to the light she carefully scrutinized it. There was no noticeable difference in appearance. Then she carefully smelled both of them, they both were the same. Then dipping her fingers in each she tasted both of them. Perfect. It was absolutely undetectable. She had been working on perfecting this poison for over four years. Now she was confident it was ready.
That was when she heard the distinct sound of a boot heel behind her.
She cursed beneath her breath just as someone seized her around the middle, then she felt a sharp object against her throat. She had thought she had been followed, earlier today, but she had felt sure she had shaken them off before she returned to her workshop.
She cursed again.
“For a lady, you sure do use a lot of foul language,” the intruder observed.
“Well, you would know all about being foul,” she retorted wrinkling her nose, his breath smelled like rotten everything.
There was a sound of an arrow and she felt the man gasp before he fell dead at her feet, nearly taking her down with him.
Turning around she saw her bodyguard holding a bow in hand.
“That was awfully close,” she said to him.
“You’re alive aren’t you?” He replied coolly.
Rolling her eyes, she went back to work as the bodyguard dragged the corpse out of the room.

Storytelling

The more I think about it the more I realize that everything that I enjoy doing involves storytelling. Think about it: acting and watching others act is a way to physically show and recite a story; writing is of course storytelling in its roughest form, no colors, no pretty decorations, it’s just wholly dependent upon the writer’s ability to portray an idea, and the readers ability to process and envision that idea and understand it; music is an emotional story whether it is wordless, in a foreign tongue or otherwise, whether you are the composer of the story or the listener, you are portraying an idea or tale through sounds; dancing is another way of acting out a story; so is a painting and drawing, these pieces of art each tell its own tale in a still form. In this respect, the arts themselves are just a way to communicate ideas, feelings and stories to those who have the ability to understand them.

The Book I've been Reading

“Edgar Allan Poe Complete Tales and Poems” is what I’ve been reading lately. Another eighteenth birthday gift it contains 73 short stories and 48 poems. So far I’ve read four of the short stories so I’ve barely managed to scratch the surface, but I think it’s a must have: Edgar Allen Poe is a great writer and he writes on a variety of subjects, and has a vast vocabulary, it keeps me thinking and I do love it. So: “Edgar Allan Poe Complete Tales and Poems” not for the simpleminded or the bigheaded: you have to be selfless enough to go and pick up a dictionary.

The Raven - I Adore You

Today was very exciting. I went to a public speaking contest early this morning (a few minutes past eight o’clock). At the moment of arrival I realized that I didn’t have “The Raven and other poems" by Edgar Allen Poe with me, which was the book I was going to be reading out of for my interpretive reading. (How the interpretive reading category works is you pick a selection from a book of your choice, and you have an introduction of the selection you’re about to read and then a closing statement.) So, my older brother rushed it over, which was really sweet of him, I know he wasn’t planning on getting up that morning, so I ruined that pretty thoroughly.  

 
  When it was finally my turn to go up I opened with the following words to the judges: “I’m going to be doing quite a bit of acting: I’m going to be pretending I’m awake.” I wish I could say their laughter helped me from being too nervous, though I’m really glad they did laugh, because that would have been really awkward. I’ve had the awful experience of telling a joke in front of an audience and being met with silence, it’s not something you want to happen to you, let me tell you that.

  After I was about halfway through the poem I started to get lost in Poe’s wonderful writing and I calmed down, and had fun. I didn’t really practice the closure to my interpretive reading, however, I didn’t tell the judges and they didn’t need to know.

   Amazingly enough, I won the gold award in my category… It just shows that "The Raven" really is great... Shit, now I have to get ready for State next week; I might actually need to practice for that.

Anne Boleyn's Execution Anniversary

For my eighteenth birthday I got a history book called “The Lady in the Tower – The Fall of Anne Boleyn” by Alison Weir. Words cannot describe how thrilled I was to see it. I’m enthralled with English history, but especially that of the Tudor dynasty. It’s so much more intriguing than a soap opera because it actually happened. Alison Weir is an excellent historian, and while I don’t always agree with her conclusions, she always includes other opinions and theories of other historians and why they feel that way, and it is all wonderfully written. The combination of a great writer/historian and one of the most dramatic moments of English history equals a great book.

 

Anne Boleyn

I believe Queen Anne was convicted on trumped up charges by her enemies for her opinions on religious reforms. She was reputed for her brilliant mind and offended many who would have been her friends with her stubborn nature and sharp tongue. Queen Anne had always had a strong influence on her husband Henry VIII, making her an even bigger problem with her political adversaries. Evidence and documentation shows that even in the weeks leading up to her arrest, she still wielded some power over King Henry. However, in her failing to bare the King her husband and her country with a living son, she lost a lot of her much-needed royal favor.

Elizabeth

Anne’s enemies needed to find a way to bring down her and her faction in a swift and single blow that would be so terrify that no one would dare say “nay” for fear of their own necks, and good enough to convince the easily influenced Henry, who had already set his eyes on Jane Seymour. History shows that Anne’s enemies succeeded. Ever the court flirt, she unwittingly handed her enemies a way to destroy her and her entire faction so effectively and thoroughly that to even speak Anne Boleyn’s name for the remainder of Henry VII’s reign and into that of his son’s Edwards, Lady Jane Grey, and Mary I was ill-advised. It was not until Elizabeth I, Anne’s daughter, was crowned Queen, that Anne was spoken of openly in favorable tones.

"Anne Boleyn in the Tower"

After she was convicted of treason by way of plotting the king’s death and committing adultery with her co-conspirators:
Sir Henry Norris, Sir William Brereton, Sir Frances Weston, (all of whom were close friends of Anne’s and had the king’s ear on many issues) and Mark Smeaton (Henry VIII’s lute player), and incest with her own brother Lord Rochford, her husband managed to get an annulment of their marriage. Yes, an annulment, meaning that the marriage between Henry and Anne was never lawful, which means Anne couldn’t possibly have committed adultery if they weren’t married. That didn’t stop her from going to the scaffold and dying by way of the sword on May 19, 1536, for adultery, now did it?

Anne Boleyn
Painted around the time of her fall.

Never admitting her guilt, Anne all but denied it on the scaffold when she was making her last confession: her last chance to seek forgiveness before meeting her maker, and save her soul. Why she didn’t out-and-out denied it is because she knew by doing so she might provoke those who had condemned her to take it out on her cherished daughter Elizabeth.

 

Memorial for Queen Anne

Every year, since the 1960’s, on the anniversary of her death, anonymous persons order red roses to be placed on the memorial plaque in St. Peter ad Vincula which is said to mark the place where Anne’s body lies. However, a number of historians now believe that spot actually marks the where Katherine Howard (Henry VIII fifth wife) lies, and Anne’s body is beneath the memorial for Lady Rochford (who acted as go-between for Katherine Howard and her lover, and lost her head for it. It was also Lady Rochford’s testimony against her husband [George Boleyn] and Anne that was the primary evidence used to prove that Anne had committed incest with her brother. On the scaffold, Lady Rochford admitted that her testimony against her husband and sister in-law Anne was a lie). 

Henry VIII

Anne, handmaiden to Katherine of Aragon, Henry VIII first wife, was raised up to be Queen, and then she was brought back down by the same men who raised her up and her handmaiden Jane Seymour. I find it intriguing that they never took Anne’s title of “Queen” away. Her coronation papers to become queen were not based upon her marriage to Henry, and they were never undone, and she went to the scaffold a queen. It is because of her infamous fall that we all get a little feeling of foreboding when we hear anyone reference the Tower of London, in which Anne was locked in the very rooms she slept in as she awaited her coronation to become queen, and later her daughter Elizabeth would be locked in those same rooms as she awaited her own fate by the hand of her sister Mary I.

  I find it eerie that I finished “The Lady in the Tower - The Fall of Anne Boleyn” on the 475^th anniversary of Queen Anne’s death, so eerie in fact that I felt I had to share the fact with everyone.

Anne Boleyn

Poems by Emily Dickinson

I have been keeping a small book of Emily Dickinson’s poetry by my computer: I read a bit while I’m waiting of something to load up, and I’ve come to find that I can read the exact same poem on two different days and sometimes I can understand what she is

trying to say better than other times. I think it has everything to do with my mood. If the poem is subtly rebellious to the higher order of things and I am in a similar state of mind I will pick up her meaning a lot better than if I were at peace with the world and was trying to read the same poem, in which case I will have trouble understanding its meaning.

  To write poetry that is entirely written with raw emotion through symbolism is an incredibly difficult task (I know because I’ve tried). While poets sometimes frustrate me “Why can’t they just say what they mean straight out instead of using ridiculous, and overly decorated and exaggerated innuendos?” However I do recognize that reading and writing such poetry does exercise one’s mind, and expands one’s vocabulary as well.

  So, I shall keep Emily Dickinson beside my computer, besides it’s a good way to spend the time as pointless and life sucking advertisements load onto my server screen.

Lady Jane Grey

"Innocent Traitor; A Novel of Lady Jane Grey" by Alison Weir is the book I have been reading lately. Alison Weir is an excellent writer and historian who paints a very vivid setting of the mid 1500's in the political world of the time.

Lady Jane Grey lived a very short and all references agree - wretched life. As a young girl, she was no doubt kept in the dark about much of the plans that were made about her own life until deals were made and the contracts sealed. in order to paint the full picture of the intertwined religious and political structure and power struggles surrounding her life, we must look beyond what she knew and what others did concerning her. Alison Weir weaves and excellent story consisting of all the view points of the people who made the decisions that brought about Lady Jane's life course to a tragic end.

Stairs Leading to Nowhere

I was flipping through one of my composition books and came across an old writing prompt that said “Stairs leading to nowhere…” My first story was about a crumbling staircase in a graveyard that used to be a part of a building that’s function was long forgotten.
Today when I looked at the prompt it brought up things in my mind that were completely different from what I had come up with the last time I looked at it.
The first things that popped into my head were the unfinished “Adoration of the Magi” painting by Leonardo Di Vinci, and the stone steps in our old backyard in Bella Vista, and how Arkansas is a place that will lead a local to nowhere and an outsider to certain ruin…
Then there was something else a lot more profound than the others. Drugs and alcohol are “stairs leading to nowhere” in a symbolic sort of way.
Everyone can look at history and see what those things do to people, that it leads to absolutely nowhere, or like the “Adoration of the Magi” they lead to a shear drop that could kill you.
Anyone can see it, yet generation after generation continue to choose not to look beyond the step directly beneath them, and when they run out of stairs they may not even realize that their falling until they hit the ground.
Then what? What do most people do if they survive hitting the ground? Turn around and start looking for a staircase that will actually lead them somewhere? Some do, most don’t.
Sad to say a large number of them get right back on that same old staircase, thinking that this time they won’t climb so high this time, and they’ll avoid falling. A number of them do succeed to a degree while others take the big tumble all over again. All these people continue to use the stairs, never seeing that they will never bring them anywhere.
They just stay stuck in place, never moving on as human beings, never progressing, they are content to remain stationary, content in their nothingness and insignificance, until they become another step on the stairs leading to nowhere.

"The Road Less Traveled"

Now, I read a lot….I know big shocker “A writer that reads a lot? Get out of here!” No really. (It’s kind of like being Irish and having a drinking problem; it goes without saying doesn’t it? If you’re Irish and you don’t have a drinking problem, then you can go ahead and mention it, otherwise, you don’t really have to say anything.) But, I do, I read a lot, and I love to read. It has become my pet project to read all of the books on Mama’s bookshelf, and, like me, she’s a writer, and thereby she’s a big reader too. So, I've set myself quite a big project.


I’ve begun to read a book called “The Road Less Traveled” written by M. Scott Peck., M.D. It’s a pretty heavy book and it makes me stop and think, and I love to think, so I’m thoroughly enjoying this book. The main reason behind me reading this book is so that I can read (and understand) the sequel “People of The Lie” also written by Scott Peck. The reason behind my desire to read the sequel, is that it just kind of jumped out at me. If you are a big reader then you know the feeling when you walk into a book store, and (after you’ve calmed yourself down from the excitement brought on by all these books!!) you start looking at some of the book titles, some books just jump out and scream “Read me! Read me! Put down that crappy novel you’re holding and PICK ME!!!” Well, that’s what “People of The Lie” kind of did for me, except this time I wasn’t in the books store, I was in my living room, and I wasn’t holding a crappy novel, or even reading one for that matter (I was reading “Doc Holiday, The Life, The Legend” by Gary L. Robert, which could be considered crappy for Robert’s inability to write a story in a smooth and flowing manner, I suppose) but I have decided to set that one aside for now, until such a time that Scott Peck’s writing can no longer hold my attention. (I’m ADD in case you haven’t been able to interpret that from my writing yet.)

Just Words

Everyone has heard the saying "sticks and stones my break my bones but names will never hurt me" and we all know that's not true. It's just a subtle way for parents to tell their children to "shut up and toughen up."
Words are powerful things, they can be used to communicate the way you feel, they can be used to deceive, they can be used to move others in a certain direction, or to a certain way of thinking, such as a politician trying to win your vote. The power of words is awe inspiring, they can be used to boost someones self-esteem, or to bring it crashing down. We would still be gathered around in a cave if it weren't for word: (ug, food.)
If the spoken word is the King of ingeniousness, then the written word is the god of ingeniousness. The written word is more credible in a courtroom, than hearsay. Written words tell us the way of life was hundreds of years ago. We can even find ancient ideas that are still relevant to the present date.
Some people say fire was the greatest invention of man, others say the wheel, and still others say the microwave. But I say that words, (especially written words) are the greatest accomplishment of mankind. If it weren't for words, we wouldn't know how to make a fire, wheel, or microwave now would we?