Sometimes I look at what's trending on Twitter and think, how can THAT be trending? I never heard of it. For instance, right now Anoop Soni is trending. So I click on it and apparently he's an Indian celebrity who is being mocked for some reason, except I don't get any of the jokes. Which makes me realize American tweets make as little sense to the rest of the world as theirs do to us. Still it's fun to imagine what the joke is.
Sunday, July 12, 2015
What's Trending Now
Sometimes I look at what's trending on Twitter and think, how can THAT be trending? I never heard of it. For instance, right now Anoop Soni is trending. So I click on it and apparently he's an Indian celebrity who is being mocked for some reason, except I don't get any of the jokes. Which makes me realize American tweets make as little sense to the rest of the world as theirs do to us. Still it's fun to imagine what the joke is.
Wednesday, July 08, 2015
Book Sale
The queries and openings aren't exactly rolling in, which means this blog is on its last legs, which means I gotta get rid of the excess books on my shelves. So I've reduced the prices of most of the books in the Evil Editor Bookstore by about $5.00. Not that big a deal on the big color books, but considering that the shipping costs are included in the prices, the less expensive books (Novel Deviations, Why You Don't Get Published, Evil Editor Teaches School) are now ultra-affordable.Because shipping is included, these prices are good in US only.
Also, good news for those who don't wish to pay the high cost of Evil Editor's graphic novel Schliegelman Saves the Universe. It's now available as an ebook for your iPad. That's how Blurb, who printed the books, describes it, but I have no trouble viewing it on my desk computer screen, so it's probably viewable on any device. You pay $2.99 in the bookstore and I send you the code or link or whatever it is to let you read it on your screen.Saturday, July 04, 2015
Thursday, July 02, 2015
New Beginning 1047
Inside her first clubhouse, Lacy Dawn glanced over fifth grade spelling words for tomorrow’s quiz at school. She already knew all the words in the textbook and most others in any human language.
Nothing’s more important than an education.
The clubhouse was a cardboard box in the front yard that her grandmother's new refrigerator had occupied until an hour before. Her father brought it home for her to play in.
The nicest thing he's ever done.
Faith lay beside her with a hand over the words and split fingers to cheat as they were called off. She lived in the next house up the hollow. Every other Wednesday for the last two months, the supervised child psychologist came to their school, pulled her out of class, and evaluated suspected learning disabilities. Lacy Dawn underlined a word with a fingernail.
All she needs is a little motivation.
Before they had crawled in, Lacy Dawn tapped the upper corner of the box with a flashlight and proclaimed, "The place of all things possible -- especially you passing the fifth grade so we'll be together in the sixth."
Please concentrate, Faith. Try this one.
"Armadillo."
"A, R, M, … A … D, I, L, D, O," Faith demonstrated her intellect.
"That's weak. This is a bonus word so you’ll get extra points. Come on."
Lacy Dawn nodded and looked for a new word.
I’ll trick her by going out of order – a word she can't turn into another punch line.
But something had changed.
Faith began rattling off the vocabulary words: "pianist," "Uranus," "mainstream," while Lacy Dawn did her best to make them funny: P, E, N, I, S . . . . Y, O, U, R, A, N, U, S . . . W, A, N, K, C, H, E, E, S, E.
They stopped.
"We've switched bodies," said Faith. "Hey! Now I can pass math!"
Lacy Dawn nodded. She suddenly saw her future. Now she was dumb enough for the boys to like her.
Opening: Robert Eggleton.....Continuation: Khazar-khum
Friday, June 26, 2015
New Beginning 1046
My last day among the Sangi stank of trouble, even before the Acursa came. Ossilan and I downed a small dragon on the coast during our shift. Mer captains took a second one, close to Beach City. We held a joint bonfire celebration that night, attended by the gray-skinned Sangi of the wood—my adopted people—and by landwalking merfolk, who could turn tail to legs.
One of Jaire's friends added a log to our fire, raising sparks. Lord Grat Theldier cursed, brushed sparks from his tunic. Raising his head, he sniffed the wind. I sensed it too. Something in the air felt off, thicker. Like gathering magic. The celebrating throng trailed off their noise and looked north. Something was coming. I glanced at the sky and saw what looked like a hurtling, spiraling star coming our direction.
Lord Grat Theldier stood. "Move away from the fires."
The crowd broke apart; merfolk dashing for water and Sangi moving up the hill toward the trees. I joined the back of the Sangi throng. The great light swooped over our heads, making our shadows grow long, and slammed into the ground with a boom that shook the earth and echoed off the cliffs. A mer baby gave a shriek of terror that cut off with a splash.
I took a calming breath, drew Denara, and turned to face the light. There at the fire where I'd sat with Jaire stood the Acursa.
I circled warily, Denara before me in a two-handed grip. I could hear the crunch of twigs as the Sangi behind me found positions in the shadow-shrouded trees. They would not help with this, nor would the merfolk who watched from the shallows near the shore. This enemy had come for me, and me alone.
Behind the light, a portal opened and a dragon emerged, taller and uglier than those seen earlier in the day. It took two tentative steps toward me and stopped, sniffing the air and wrinkling its snout in disgust. “What the hell are you burning?” it said. “And put down that stick.”
“This is Denara!” I shouted, brandishing it menacingly. “It is a mighty weapon!”
“It’s a stick,” the dragon said. “Put it down and get over here.”
“I will draw no closer to the Acursa!” I cried.
“Acura,” the dragon said. “It’s an Acura. And seriously, did you kids build a marijuana bonfire? Where's your camp counselor?"
I looked around me. Lord Grat Theldier and the others had vanished, perhaps for good. The dragon rose taller, and its voice deepened dangerously. “Get in the car!” it roared.
Terrified in the face of its fury, I had no choice but to lower Denara and comply with the dragon’s command. “Fine,” I muttered. “But on the way home, can we stop for snacks?”
Opening: Rebecca Kellogg.....Continuation: Joe Mosher
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Face-Lift 1264
Guess the Plot
The Mailman
1. A zombie postman conspires with his vampire mistress to kill her washed-up Superhero husband, who now owns a lunch counter.
2. John Tremble has been handling other people's packages for too long. Now he's ready for someone to handle his package. He grabs that Magic Mike DVD and a thong. Hilarity ensues.
3. He's a serial killer who incinerates his victims and delivers the ashes to their loved ones. The police are baffled because they haven't thought up a catchy name for him. Finally they give up and settle for . . . the Mailman.
4. Every day, Maggie waits for him to come by. He always has a kind word and a smile for her while he visits with Mom. She loves him--until he brings the papers that make Mom and Dad fight and split up. Today she'll get her revenge. Today she's going to bite him.
5. Jack just delivers the mail, lost in daydreams about the tropical island he'll live on when the lottery numbers fall his way. But when he drops a package he was supposed to deliver and finds it full of white powder, he realises he has won the lottery. Thus begins a new lucrative career. Until the heavies with bolt cutters arrive, that is. Then the tropical island is about the only safe place left for him...
6. In the not-so-distant future, Earth is ruled by a central government that limits communication among the newly-designated provinces it rules. Supposedly, the only person who knows what's going on everywhere is The Mailman, a Santa-Claus-like mythic figure who distributes letters and packages around the planet every night. It turns out, however, that he actually exists -- and 16-year-old Tonyah stows away on his mail truck one night to find out more.
7. When mailman Trevor Hayworth attempts a delivery, the woman who answers the door asks him to drive her to Arizona. Hours later, she and Hayworth are being chased by sex trafficking thugs, corrupt cops, and a contract killer. Looks like the people on Hayworth's route won't be getting their mail today.
8. Sally Jensen has been delivering mail for ten years. Rain, sleet.. you know the rest. But when a jerk on her route calls her a mailman instead of mail-person, she snaps and delivers a right cross to his face. Romance ensues. And there's a monkey.
9. A serial killer is loose in Bucks County. FBI agent Jane Treadwell plans to take him down. When packages with body parts of the victims start showing up on her porch, she's gotta wonder... is a McDonald's gift card enough of a tip for the mailman this year?
Original Version
Dear EE,
Ex-Marine MP Trevor Hayworth is subbing as a postal carrier in San Diego and struggling to make ends meet for his eight-year-old daughter and himself. While [he's] delivering the mail, a pretty young woman begs him to come into the house. She takes off her shirt, [Suddenly I have the urge to apply for a job carrying mail.] revealing massive [Whoa, is this one of those erotica books we never seem to get queries for?] bruises [Massive letdown.] up and down her back. She says she was taken from her family in San Salvador seven years previously and sold to sex traffickers. She asks him to help her escape and drive her to Tucson, where she has learned her parents now live. In return, she will divide with him the money in the safe. [She has access to the money in the safe? Why is she still in this house?] While Hayworth is shaping his refusal the girl’s captor walks in. [Her captor was away and the front door was open and instead of emptying the safe and running like the wind and booking a flight to Tucson after she's safe, she decides it's a better idea to invite the mailman into the house and request that he abandon his route and drive her 400+ miles?]
Hours later, Hayworth and the girl are on the run, leaving behind a dead man, [The sex trafficker surely had a gun. Lucky for the girl this was the day an ex-marine was subbing for the regular mailman.] an empty safe, and their old lives. [Including Hayworth's daughter?] Chasing them are sex trafficking thugs, corrupt cops, and a newspaper reporter who moonlights as a contract killer. Everyone wants the money and no one wants them alive.
[We need a paragraph here with the title, word count, genre, and how you became so knowledgeable about sex trafficking.]
Notes
Where was the captor when Trevor got there? In the house somewhere (in which case the girl is nuts to invite Trevor in rather than make her appeal outside), or off buying cigarettes (in which case the girl should have emptied the safe and headed out the minute he left)?
I assume mail has been delivered here for the past seven years. Is this the first time the girl's been alone in the room when someone came to the door?
Taking off her shirt seems weird. If not in the book, at least in the query.
The reader could get the impression half the book is a thrilling chase, but that half is preceded by some far-fetched events contrived by the author just to get the characters together. I'm sure there are reasonable explanations for everything; provide some, and leave out the parts you don't want to explain.
When they're being chased, are they in Hayworth's mail delivery vehicle?
I think Trevor should be a UPS driver. I think their trucks are faster and less vulnerable to gunfire than mail trucks.
Notes
Where was the captor when Trevor got there? In the house somewhere (in which case the girl is nuts to invite Trevor in rather than make her appeal outside), or off buying cigarettes (in which case the girl should have emptied the safe and headed out the minute he left)?
I assume mail has been delivered here for the past seven years. Is this the first time the girl's been alone in the room when someone came to the door?
Taking off her shirt seems weird. If not in the book, at least in the query.
The reader could get the impression half the book is a thrilling chase, but that half is preceded by some far-fetched events contrived by the author just to get the characters together. I'm sure there are reasonable explanations for everything; provide some, and leave out the parts you don't want to explain.
When they're being chased, are they in Hayworth's mail delivery vehicle?
I think Trevor should be a UPS driver. I think their trucks are faster and less vulnerable to gunfire than mail trucks.
Monday, June 22, 2015
Face-Lift 1263
Guess the Plot
Mercury Wants a Moon
1. Earth wants Mercury to be happy, but Mercury isn't happy because Jupiter teased him about not having a moon. Mother Sun can't help because she's at the peak of her cycle. It's all up to Uncle Halley, who's due for a rare visit.
2. Mercury makes an ideal vacation spot because of its year-round warm temperatures, but it's just not drawing intergalactic tourists in sufficient numbers to become a top-tier economy. The Mercurian Planetary Council decides to apply to the Solar Authority for a moon, hoping to benefit from the added eye-appeal and mystique. Once again, small-planet politics bring out the worst in everyone, while the big bureaucracy on the Sun only adds to their troubles.
3. Detective Silas Mercury is investigating a murder. Tina Moon, a local stripper, is the prime suspect. When Mercury visits the strip club for the tenth time, he's not looking for answers. He wants Moon, and she'll do anything to stay out of jail.
4. Eighteen-year-old Mercury Jones wants a moon she can control to make that hottie in school notice her. But when she makes her moon-wish during a case of the hiccups, she gets a moon pie instead. Not a bad trade off, really.
5. Mercury wants a moon, Saturn wants a ring, and people in hell want ice water. There's one man in the universe who can grant wishes as big as these. All you have to do is get him a date with Hannah Rogers and he's on it.
6. It's not fair. Mars has some, Saturn has a metric buttload, hell, even Uranus has some! Dammit, Mercury wants a moon to call its own! And that little spacecraft will make a nice start.
7.The whippet racing industry is in peril. Top dogs Mercury and Moon are making out like pandas down on the canine stud farm, and when pro breeder Kip "The Woofer" Drimpson hires the Mafia to infiltrate a Texan sperm bank, it's crimetastic DNA-fusion dogmania gone crazy. How will the world cope with the new breed of quasi-human mob pups? And who will become Top Whippet?
8.Merryn, a Gemini, totally loves her astrologer. Mercury's movements are spot-on predicting her future. So when Mercury enters Cancer, it's time for romance with a man born under the sign ruled by the moon. But placing the ad "mercury seeking a moon" in the lonely hearts section seems to attract...luna-tics.
Original Version
Dear EE
Planet Earth hunts meteors, dodges spaceships and plays with his eight brothers and sisters; [Seven. Turned out Pluto slipped into the family minivan when they left Disney World and no one noticed until months after they got home, but as soon as they did, they sent him packing.] that is, when they're not being annoying. But he loves his family, craters and all, and wants them to be happy.
When little brother Mercury is upset because he hasn't got a moon, Earth tries to help. He's got a moon but can't give it to Mercury - his people need it. Earth dries his brother's eyes with a cloud [Drying anything with a cloud is like drying yourself after a bath by standing under a shower. Even kids know that clouds are basically water droplets.] and looks for support from the other siblings. Venus, his twin, is too busy admiring herself in the mirror, while sister Saturn is distracted by a minor planet she's dating. Big brother Jupiter's teasing caused the problem in the first place. Mother Sun wants to assist but she's at the peak of her cycle and can't stop burping. [So he turns to the only sibling with mooning experience: Uranus.]
Luckily it's time for one of Uncle Halley's visits and he just might have a solution.
MERCURY WANTS A MOON is a 1,600 word [1600 words isn't a book; it's an Eminem song.] easy reader for 6-9 year olds. [A nine-year-old is reading Harry Potter, not easy readers.]
Thank you for your consideration.
Notes
Your female characters are useless to Mercury because one is too busy admiring herself in the mirror, one is too busy with her current crush and one is at the peak of her cycle. Is this how you want the impressionable girls who read your book to see the world? And then the male family member, who hasn't been seen for 75 years, drops in to save the day?
The good news is they can print the whole thing on four sheets of paper. Very economical.
Does this come with illustrations? If so, are the characters people with planets for heads or are they giant spheres with facial features?
Maybe some children's magazine or webzine would publish this.
Thursday, June 18, 2015
New Beginning 1045
Allie pushed through the dense woods with the sun dipping low in the sky. She puffed out white mist with every breath in the chilly air. Dead leaves crunched under her feet and bare tree branches swiped at her sweatshirt like bony fingers.
She pushed her straight blonde hair behind her ears and glanced around for the boulder where she’d left her bike. The huge rock sat off to her left. “Finally.” Allie raced over and grabbed the dented handlebars of her rusty yellow bike.
A light flickered in the distance and she glanced that way. The streetlight on the old road next to the woods blinked a few times then zapped to life.
“Oh man. I’m late again.” Allie sat on her bike and put her feet on the pedals, ready to push off. A car engine roared, getting louder by the second. She glanced back at the road. Hardly anyone used Skelley Road anymore and Allie wondered who it was.
A dark colored car pulled over and jerked to a stop. A man got out and strolled to the back. His figure glowed like a ghostly silhouette under the streetlight. She couldn’t see his face, but something about him seemed familiar.
He popped open the trunk and stared inside. Then he rested his hands on his hips, as if admiring whatever was in there—maybe his first deer kill of the season.
Allie grimaced at the thought. But why would he bring a dead animal out here? It had to be something else.
The man dragged a body from the trunk, a male body, his face slack in death. The driver dragged the body to the side of the road and poured something over it before throwing a lit match. Allie caught a brief glimpse of the driver's muttonchops in the bright flame. Laughing, the man climbed back into his car and drove off.
Allie approached the body. She recognized him--that famous thriller author whose picture had been in the paper. Grabbing her phone, she quickly fluffed her hair into place. No way was she going to miss this selfie!
Opening: Dottie D. .....Continuation: khazar-khum
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Face-Lift 1262
Guess the Plot
Silhouette
1. A shadow escapes his human host and searches London for a way to gain a soul of his own. A sorcerer, Mr. Marrow, promises to help him, but the spell involves bloody sacrifices. Can Peter Pan find his shadow before the silhouette, whom the public is calling Jack the Ripper, strikes again?
2. France, 1745. Mme Antoinette Girard is the finest silhouette cutter on all of Provence. When the Royal Court passes through, she is summoned by the king himself. But when she gets there, she realizes that the king is none other than her own long-lost father.
3. 13-year-old Allie sees someone with a familiar-looking silhouette dump a body in the woods. The next day she sees another body, and when she later sees someone in the bushes outside her window she realizes the killer has hunted her down. Is it time to tell her dad or call 911? Not a chance. It's time for this girl to solve a few crimes on her own.
4. The Invisible man was once free to steal from the bank, peek into the ladies dressing room, and anything else he damn well pleased. But hey, aging sucks. Now his flabby silhouette has been seen all over town and it ain't pretty.
5. When Amy discovers a broach with a silhouette of her late Grandma Steele on it, she thinks it might be worth something on ebay. But when Amy tries to sell it, her old dead granny comes knocking, and boy is she pissed.
6. Sasha keeps seeing the silhouette of her ex-boyfriend behind her whenever she looks in mirrors, which is a total drag when she's at the gym. Wasn't killing him enough? Now she's got to exercise him, too? Geez.
7. Ebony and Liss, hairdressers at Silhouette Spa, hate that their brother Dewayne keeps seeing Oolala the braider, and Oolala hates that he can't trust those cheating bitches for one second before they try to steal his man. Manicurists Racey and Kandye both have eyes for Denise's fiance, Dontrel, but Denise isn't letting him stray out of fear that Oolala will try for him too. Shampoo isn't the only thing that's white and frothy at the Silhouette Spa.
Original Version
Dear Evil Editor,
Thirteen-year-old Allie is the queen of imaginary adventures. So when she tells her best friend, Brandon, she saw a killer dumping a body in the woods, he figures no way. Especially when Allie says the killer’s silhouette seemed oddly familiar. [Was it this one?]
If not, I don't see why her claim that the silhouette was oddly familiar makes him "especially" skeptical.]
The next day, near that same spot in the woods, Allie and Brandon see a body at the bottom of a cliff. [If I'm so close to the edge of a cliff that I can see what's at the bottom, I'm way too close, and I'm sure not standing there if there's someone else anywhere near me, as depicted in this dramatic enactment.] Allie is determined to figure out who the killer is, but before they find a way down to investigate the body, it disappears. [Maybe the body was some guy taking a nap.] Then Allie sees a figure in the bushes outside her window [Having moved to a different time and place, I'd replace "then" with "later" or "that night," or "the next day."] and someone breaks into her room. She’s convinced the killer knows she was spying that night and he has hunted her down. [It sounded like she was in her room, saw someone in the bushes, and he broke in, which means she was a goner. But based on my further reading I'm guessing she saw someone in the bushes one time and at some later time when she wasn't there someone broke into her room. Clear it up.]
Now she can’t give up. [This is precisely when she should give up.] No one has reported a missing person, [according to her sources in the police department,] so the police aren’t investigating. With her dad and her brother both acting strangely lately, [Maybe it was her brother who broke into her room. To read her diary.] Brandon is the only one she can trust to help her. [Her dad is acting strangely if he's taking no action after she told him someone broke into her room. She did tell him, right?] But a school dance brings out Allie’s jealousy over Brandon—a surprise to them both—and Allie storms off. With their friendship in trouble, Allie may end up alone trying to figure out who the killer is and what happened to the body before the killer makes her disappear.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Best wishes,
My info here
Notes
She sees someone dump a body in the woods but doesn't investigate. She and Brandon see a body and tell no one. Allie sees someone in the bushes outside her room and tells no one. She tells no one when someone breaks into her room. And she's convinced a killer has hunted her down but tells no one. She seems too stupid to live.
If the killer wanted to make her disappear, he could have done so the time he was outside her window instead of leaving and coming back when she wasn't there. Obviously someone is playing an elaborate prank on Allie, someone so stupid he hasn't considered the possibility that she might call 911.
The jealousy over a school dance subplot seems like small potatoes if she believes a killer is after her. I don't see her even going to a dance under the circumstances. If Brandon does end up helping her, we don't need to know about their little spat, and if he doesn't end up helping her, we don't need him in the query.
Your letter needs to include your title and genre and word count. Or is that what you mean by "my info here"? I assumed that meant your contact info and/or credits.
Whether it's a prank or there's a killer, you're better off if her dad took her brother fishing somewhere with no cell phone service for the weekend than having her keep him in the dark when her life is being threatened.
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