Why you don't get published.
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Q & A 23 Come on, WHO'S NEXT?!!
Can those waiting in line get a number like the deli or DMV to know when they might be up to bat? This uncertainty pisses me off.
Goodness. Evil Editor has been at this about a month. He would be interested in knowing how many of the agents and editors you query, and who don't respond within a month, receive a followup letter from you, stating that you are pissed off. And how many of them you ever hear from again after that.
If Evil Editor wanted to check on your query letter, he couldn't, as you have signed your comment "anonymous," and have failed to name the book. Of course, if you had named the book, and Evil Editor had suddenly gotten to yours, he would then be deluged with comments from everyone saying how pissed off they are.
You seem to be under the impression that Evil Editor writes each blog entry for the entertainmment of the query writer alone. The truth is, he writes each blog entry for the entertainment of himself alone. Along with, of course, those who have the ability to apply the lessons of other writers' critiques to their own query letters.
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21 comments:
I'll email back with something. Possibly a deli number.
Better yet, a clue.
But dangit, they paid good money, and it's in the contract to have their letters critiqued in a timely fashion!
Oh. Wait.
Sarcasm aside, I honestly don't get how someone could look at that queue and NOT expect it to take a long, long time for you to get through it.
So, no numbers then.
How about a sandwich, then? Can we get a sandwich while we're waiting? Like at the Deli -- you know.
...and the thing is, EE is doing this purely out of the goodness of his heart, proving he is not as evil as he pretends to be. You have no right whatsoever to a critique and your temple tantrum is embarassing to all of us.
Will it be an “evil” deli number?
(moo-ha ha)
But alas, I queued too late and must wait before I can complain.
I LIKE waiting… this is me waiting patiently.
(insert whistling and thumb twiddling here)~W
Whoa. Sounds like someone doesn’t appreciate the fact that:
1) You aren’t getting paid for this.
2) You have no obligation to anyone.
3) Every morsel you give us is a gift.
4) Being an impatient goober doesn’t get a query reviewed any faster.
Most of us are grateful, and we're learning from ALL of the revisions, Q&A, and suggestions.
-DJT
EE, how many times are you going to be forced to answer that question?
Amazing. You do people a FAVOR and they act like you're their own freaking editing servant.
"I'm getting pissed off."
What an arrogant jerk.
I don't have a query in the queue. But I could always use a deli number! Preferably attached to an order for corned beef on rye with a nice Kosher dill along side.
The difference between a newbie author and a more seasoned one?
Patience. And gratitude.
Uncertainty is the unavoidable state of everyone alive. Learn to deal.
EE should shrug off the queries he doesn't want to revise. Just reject them; rejection is what queries are for.
I suppose evil minions could try to help out by pre-ridiculing the titles that seem especially silly to them. For example:
"Closed Legs Don't Get Fed"
sounds like it's way on the other side of erotica.
Closed Legs Don't Get Fed
-- to the sharks?
-- to the Super Cannibals?
-- to the evil minions (in lieu of that deli number)?
My apologies to the person that entered this title, if it was not the person who was so p.o.ed that his/her query hadn't yet been mocked. [Sheesh! How can he/she expect EE to mock his query, when he is waiting for *mine*? ;-) ]
I suppose evil minions could try to help out by pre-ridiculing the titles that seem especially silly to them. For example:
"Closed Legs Don't Get Fed"
sounds like it's way on the other side of erotica.
Closed Legs Don't Get Fed
-- to the sharks?
-- to the Super Cannibals?
-- to the evil minions (in lieu of that deli number)?
Anonymous minion… you selected me for your mockery. This will come off as stilted, but I am truly honored.
Well in that there-is-no-such-thing-as-bad-publicity kind of way.
Now there were others equally worthy, but you picked me and for that I am truly grateful!
I have wanted to write since I learned how. That’s my whole life, forming letters to string words to tell stories.
I have also ALWAYS had a secret love of the salacious… good dog how I love trash! I mean the good kitschy type of trash… dime store detectives, bodice ripping alpha males and what is better than a drugged-out-oversexed-celebrity tell all.
I’ve always loved telling fantastic stories, full of sex and violence… the type of books that nobody admits they like but everyone reads.
When I was a little girl, I would take out my dog-eared copy of “The Valley of the Dolls” that I kept between my mattress, and dream of one day being Jacqueline Susanne.
I write urban fiction with erotic themes, usually with a ripped from the headlines type of sub-plot, i.e. can you guess the identity of unnamed celebrity X.
But that doesn’t explain the title does it?
On the streets they have a saying “Closed legs don’t get fed”, maybe not the most eloquent way to ask for a sexual quid pro quo, but it is “understood” in the genre.
It got your attention didn’t it? ~W
"I’ve always loved telling fantastic stories, full of sex and violence… the type of books that nobody admits they like but everyone reads."
Sorry - NOT everyone.
Annamalai, you take me too literally ~W
One wonders just what this petulant--evil is too flattering a term for him--minion plans to do once his query is critiqued? Why the impatience? He isn't going to copy the revised version word for word, and use it to query agents, is he? I mean, these critiques are for educational purposes, aren't they? If this was a query-writing service, EE would expect to get paid for that, right?
All I know is, if I were an agent, and I received a query letter identical to one of EE's revisions, I'd feel compelled to thoroughly review the UNrevised version as a more accurate indicator of the author's writing ability.
But that's just me. I'm sure there aren't any agents out there who ever read this blog, anyway.
I have a query in the queue, and I will NOT be emailing EE and asking when it will be critiqued, because a) EE is doing this out of the goodness of his evil heart (?), b) I don't just read the blog to see my letter critiqued, and c) 'cause I'm not a whining baby. :)
Exactly what djt said. I have four kids at home - if I wanted to listen to whining, I'd not be here. Get a pacifier and plug it up or go and do something productive while you wait - like, oh, I don't know, WRITE A BOOK?
There's a thought.
And, if EE does know which one is yours, I hope he forever passes it by, regardless of the laugh-factor I'm sure it holds. Negative re-enforcement is a bad, bad thing and this type of behavior is better off left unrewarded. Shut your hole and sit back and LEARN.
Yeah, well: all this uncertainty pisses me off too... But I learned to live with it; in theory.
heisenberg,
heh, heh. :)
It's like one comment copied and pasted 20 times over. Oy.
I remember a Bob and Ray routine in which Wally Ballou interviewed a man with the world's largest collection of deli numbers. The prize of his collection was a large, wooden, hand-carved "1" from the 1870s, which was used in a frontier town general store which had only two customers.
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