Tag Archives: writing

The All-American Chef

For Christmas, the blathering idiot received a BBQ mitt and a cooking apron. Across the front of the apron, above three embroidered stars was the phrase, also embroidered and in all capital letters: ALL AMERICAN CHEF.

The blathering idiot was happy to receive such a gift. He prided himself on his outdoor grilling skills, and after all an All American Chef should have all-American tools to help him create his all-American dishes. He tried on the mitt: it fit great with plenty of room. The apron was adjustable and the red color pleasantly suited him.

Though the weather was a winter cool, he decided to grill out. What better way to show off that he was an ALL AMERICAN CHEF? He pulled out his grill, poured in the charcoal briquettes, and was ready to start the fire.

All American Mitt and apron made in China

All American mitt and apron made in China

But before he started, the blathering idiot wanted to make sure he took good care of this apron and mitt, so he turned over the tag to see how to care for these new tools. After all, a good chef always takes care of his tools. And in all caps, he read that his ALL AMERICAN CHEF mitt and apron had been MADE IN CHINA.

The blathering idiot didn’t feel so ALL AMERICAN any more.

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The presentation

The blathering idiot went to the lingerie store to buy his girlfriend a $50 bra. She had given exact instructions as to what she wanted and where to get it.

The blathering idiot had never been in a lingerie store before. But even before he went, he thought $50 was a little much for a bra. Her physical structures were nice, but not stellar. Neither were his own, and he wouldn’t think of spending $50 to support his.

Still it was his girlfriend and it was the season for presents, so he entered the lingerie store and approached the saleswoman to ask where he could find this “accoutrement.” He had learned that word recently and this was his first chance to use it, and for some reason it seemed to fit.

As she led him to the display, she asked if he might be interested in any of the shop’s specials.
The blathering idiot thought they might be offering some eggnog or Christmas cookies, so he said yes.

She smiled and then explained that their $75 undergarment was on sale for $65 and their $100 undergarment was on sale for $80.

First, she took him to the $50 bra, which looked much like the bras he had glimpsed most of his life, from his mother to his girlfriend, and a few other women in between, especially the one time in high school when his friends had pulled off his underwear, pulled it down over his head, and then shoved him into the girl’s locker room.

“As you can see,” the sales lady said, “there is nothing about this undergarment that stands out from the rest. It is a good one, but for that special woman in your life, I’m sure you want better. A little something that will grab her and your attentions.”

She then winked at him and showed him the $75 bra. It was smaller than the $50 one and had some areas of exposure he had never considered in a bra.

Then, without saying a word, she showed him the $100 bra. They were just two small cups that appeared barely big enough to fit over the tips of his girlfriend’s structures.

When he asked about the loss of material, she said it was all about presentation. “The less material, the more presentation, the more sizzle. Think how proud your girlfriend will be to wear this $100 undergarment, and that pride will show, causing her to walk taller, stand straighter, giving her all the support she will ever need.” She smiled at him. “After all, presentation is everything.”

The blathering idiot was sold. He bought the $100 undergarment on sale for $80, had it wrapped, and couldn’t wait to see his girlfriend’s presentation.

When she unwrapped the undergarment, she didn’t know what to think. Or, rather, she did, but kept her first thoughts to herself. She asked the blathering idiot about it, trying in the nicest way to figure out where he’d screwed up. He talked about sizzle and carriage and presentation, and with that undergarment on, she would walk tall and walk proud.

The blathering idiot’s girlfriend didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or be angry. All three emotions played across her face.

The blathering idiot took it to be gratitude beyond words.

Shortly thereafter, he walked home with the two small pieces of the undergarment fitted over his eyes. She told him he could only remove them once he got home. Otherwise, he wouldn’t make the right presentation.

He walked proudly into the night.

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One size fits

The blathering idiot bought a ball cap at the store. It had the symbol and colors of his favorite team. He was proud of the cap and what it stood for. He felt he was part of something larger than himself.
Then he took the cap off and looked under the lip and saw a tag that read: One Size fits most.

The blathering idiot was upset. He had thought for sure that he had bought the deluxe model of this type of cap. It had cost him enough, and it even said “Limited Deluxe Edition” on another tag under the lip.

There was only one thing the blathering idiot could do: He immediately went to that store and demanded that they fix his purchase.

When ask what the problem was, the blathering idiot stammered: “The cap. It doesn’t fit all.”
The clerk, thinking the blathering idiot meant “at all,” asked him to try it on. The cap fit perfectly.
The blathering idiot immediately jumped to his feet, knocking the hat off.

“I am not in the all,” he said, and then he demanded to see the store manager.

Eventually, when the store manager came out to see him, the blathering idiot was clearly irritated. He shoved the tag up almost into the manager’s nose.

“This tag,” the blathering idiot said, “says one size fits most. It should say one size fits all.”

“But it won’t fit all,” the manager said. Then he asked, “Does it fit you?”

“That’s not the point. I paid for a one-size-fits-all hat of my favorite team, and instead I get a one-size-fit-most hat.”

After trying a few more times to convince the blathering idiot that as long as the hat fit, there shouldn’t be a problem, the manager reluctantly refunded the blathering idiot’s money.

As he left the store, the blathering idiot muttered, “How can I belong to something larger than myself when nothing is no longer one-size-fits all? What’s this world coming to?”

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The trunk

The blathering idiot went to the zoo to see the elephant’s trunk. He got so close, the elephant dropped a load of hay and elephant snot on him.

The blathering idiot then went home, took a shower, and pulled out his trunk to get some fresh clothes to wear. He did not select his swimming trunks.

He then gathered up his elephant-snot encrusted clothes and put them in the trunk of his car to take to the Laundromat. He did not want to wash these clothes at home.

While watching his clothes spin round and round, the blathering idiot tried to figure out why the elephant’s trunk was in the front, his car’s truck was in the back, and his clothes trunk was usually in the closet.

He pondered this philosophical point as he drove home, almost not noticing the car in the wrong lane headed toward him. At the last moment, he swerved out of the way, but in doing so ran into the trunk of a tree, causing his air bag to inflate, keeping the trunk of his body from hitting the steering wheel. However, a large branch of the tree broke off, severing an electrical trunk line, which fell across the trunk line of a nearby railroad track, truncating service for most of a day.

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Giving 110 Percent

The blathering idiot attended a seminar where the presenter, a microphone clipped over his ear and an overabundance of enthusiasm clipped onto his voice, told the audience that the key to success in work, in financial success, in love, in all of life was to give not 50 percent, not 75, not even 100, but “110 percent.”

After the all-day workshop, the blathering idiot returned home to find a pile of bills waiting for him. He opened them and totaled how much he owed for the minimum monthly payments, and it was 130 percent of what he earned. He smiled, closed his eyes, and waited for success to come.

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Get a grip

The blathering idiot stood in front of the full-length hallway mirror. He looked down at his left hand. Then he looked down at his right hand. He brought his right hand up toward the mirror and turned, open-palm outward so he could see its reflection in the mirror. He did the same thing with the left hand. He then turned the left hand toward the right one and bent the fingers and thumb to make a beak.

“Hello, right hand,” he said as he flapped the beak open and closed.

The right hand remained palm outward toward the mirror.

The left hand waited a minute, then tried again. “Hello, right hand. I’m the left hand and would like to get to know you so that I know what you’re up to.”

The right hand turned slightly toward the left, curled into a fist, but then wiggled its thumb like a lower-lip: “Harrumph.”

It then fled to the safety of the front pants’ pocket.

The left hand turned toward the blathering idiot. “How do you intend to handle this?”

The blathering idiot shrugged. “Maybe the right hand doesn’t want to know what the left hand is doing.”

The left hand smacked him. “Get a grip.”

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The blathering idiot

Once upon a time in a street not so far away, a piece of history came floating by. It rode on a clown of expectation, juggled just high enough for everybody to see, if you were looking. I looked, but in the end could not figure out what was going on. Then a frog hopped up to me and said, “Your tie’s on backwards.” But I wasn’t wearing a tie, and least I wasn’t until I felt up around my neck to be sure and realized that somebody had slipped a noose around my shoulders when I wasn’t looking. The other end was dangling over a tree limb in my front yard. A rake was dangling from another tree limb. I had been raking until I saw the piece of history floating by. Then I had stopped and stepped to the street to see what it was all about. And now there was a noose around my neck. Some days it just doesn’t pay to watch the parade of history go by.

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Pictures at an exhibition

Below are a few photos of agents and editors taken while at Killer Nashville this past August 20 – 22, 2010. Consider this visual reference for the names of people mentioned in some of my earlier posts on pitching your novel to editors or agents.

From left, agents Jill Marr, Cari Foulk, and Jeff Gerecke. Beth Terrell, author and Killer Nashville Executive Driector, leaning over behind them.

Jill Marr (seated left) and Cari Foulk listening to a question at Killer Nashville 2010.

Jill Marr (seated left) and Cari Foulk listening to a question at Killer Nashville 2010.

Agents Jill Marr (left) and Cari Foulk standing for a few moments after listening to pitches.

Agents Jill Marr (left) and Cari Foulk standing for a few moments after listening to pitches.

Agent Jill Marr walking out of the Pitch Room.

Agent Jill Marr walking out of the Pitch Room at Killer Nashville 2010.

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The pitches

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Below are two of my pitches. I used the The Painted Beast pitch on all the agents and editors I talked with at Killer Nashville. I was able to use The Small Resurrection pitch once or twice.

Two pieces of advice, one I have said before: Practice the pitch and make it as natural as you can. Two: Think of a pitch as a spoken version of the back-cover blurb you read on many paperback books.

The Painted Beast

Ex-cop Stephen York was once a hero. Decorated and lionized from uncovering corruption in the police department and bringing down a criminal enterprise, he now works two or three menial jobs in order to hold body and soul together, not only for himself but also his thirteen-year-old step-daughter and eight-year-old daughter. One night his ex-wife, who has escaped from prison, returns home and terrorizes him. He escapes from her and she from him, but shortly thereafter she kidnaps their daughters. In order to save them, Stephen has to kill her, which puts him under suspicion for murder and under the thumb of a police detective who has personal as well as professional reasons for wanting to grind Stephen down further. In addition, his step-daughter’s biological father steps forward to kidnap her with the intention of leading her into a life of child pornography and prostitution in order to get money to help re-establish the criminal empire that Stephen had helped take down. This time, in order to save his step-daughter, Stephen, who has not been a particularly good father, has to offer his life in order to save his step-daughter’s. In so doing, he learns another definition of hero. At its core this novel’s theme asks and answers the question: Can a fallen hero be a hero again?

Limerick version:
There once was an ex-cop who did poorly
At being a father and what’s more he
Killed his ex-wife,
Then offered up his life
To save his daughter from a life in pornography.

***

A Small Resurrection

Is believing in what you see the same thing as seeing what you believe in?

Knoxville, Tennessee, is the last place T. Xavier Gabriel wants to be. But the director of the 8th highest grossing film in Hollywood has come to town to ask his ex-wife for forbearance in paying the large alimony and possibly also for a loan to help restart his fallen career. She, however, has other plans. She wants him to

Pitching your novel

Use conversational voice when talking about your novel

rescue their 22-year-old daughter from the undue influences of a 24-year-old evangelical preacher. Gabriel wants nothing to do with that, having already admitted to be a failure once as a father, he doesn’t want a second bite of the apple. But when he finds his daughter keeping company with a resurrected Rod Serling, he sees a chance to use this Serling look-alike to resurrect his own career. But getting Serling away from his daughter puts her in jeopardy, and Gabriel must decide if he is going to save her or save his career. To save her, he must enlist the aid of Serling, who is not quite sure who he is or why he has been resurrected, and in saving her he puts an end ever resurrecting his career.

Limerick version:
There once was a director named Gabriel
Whose life was a broken down fable
Then along came Rod Serling
And an offer so sterling
That it could save Gabe if he was able.

Two final notes:
1) The limerick versions were not something I pitched, though I thought about it. It was my way of have a pitch that could be done in 15 seconds or less.

2) Some pitch advice says you need to have antecedents as part of your pitch. Antecedents are novels that are like yours. Something similar to your novel. This is supposed to show that you know about your novel’s market and where it might fit. While I had that prepared for The Painted Beast, it did not seem to be something those I pitched to at Killer Nashville were interested in. That could have been a mistake on my part. But I had the feeling that these agents wanted to be the ones to decide where it belongs.

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Pitch aside: dealing with contradictory information

This information comes from agent Nathan Bransford, and while he is aiming the information at query letters, I think the same advice can apply for pitches, with a little modification:

1. Take a Deep Breath: As long as you’re getting the big stuff right, you’re going to be fine. You don’t need to have every single little teeny tiny thing perfect. You can get my name or gender wrong and I still might request your pages (just did this last week in fact). I’m not going to reject you because you sent me the first five pages of Chapter 1 instead of your Prologue if I like the idea and your writing. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Because really: if an agent is going to reject your query over some small niggling detail, are they someone you’d want to work with anyway?

2. Remember That Agent Blogs Are Just Trying to Help: I know how tempting it is to throw up your hands and just think that literary agents are so many Goldilocks with completely different ideas of how hot the porridge should be. Please just remember that we offer so much advice because people ask. We get e-mails and comments all the time asking about everything from paper size to fonts to anglicized spelling to serial commas. So we try to help, and we’re not always going to agree on everything. Personally, when I’m wearing my author hat I’d rather have too much information than too little, so I tend to err on the side of dispensing too much agent advice. It’s up to you to decide which advice you agree with and which you don’t. Just remember that we’re trying to help, not trying to make your life miserable.

3. Not All Publishing Advice is Created Equal: I went back and looked at some of my early blog posts, and holy cow after just four years they’re already wildly out of date. Consider the source, consider the freshness of the advice, and beware of anyone who tries to tell you that there’s one way and only one way to find successful publication. Occasionally an author out there somewhere will have a sense that the way they found success is The Way That Should Work For Everyone, whereas people who have worked across the publishing spectrum have seen the proverbial cat skinned in an impossibly vast number of ways.

4. Try As Best You Can to Meet an Agent’s Specifications, But Don’t Go Crazy Trying to Do It: If you happen to remember that Rachelle wants you to query with your pen name and I want to hear from the real you: great! Query accordingly. But don’t go creating a massive spreadsheet with every agent’s particular individual preferences. No agent expects you to do that.

5. If You Think the Contradictory Query Advice is Mind Boggling, Just Wait Until You Reach the Publication Stage: In case you haven’t noticed, this business is an art, not so much a science. There’s no one way to do things, and you’re going to face conflicting advice and opinions about your manuscript, cover art, marketing plan, you name it. There are even more opinions out there than people (sometimes people can’t even decide what they think and have multiple opinions). At the end of the day, all you can do is just take all the advice into account, and choose the route that works best for you.

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