Ten Thousand Words, Snapping Ostiches and Slow Ride

The last five days are a fog. The book is up and running at 10,000 words and 51 pages. I’m still fighting back the rotten cold. I tried to go to the gym yesterday – to sweat the boogieman out of me. No dice; the gym is closed due to the Chandler Ostrich Festival. That’s right, my town has a yearly Ostrich Festival. They even have ostrich races. I went to the festival once, maybe 15 years ago. An ostrich bit me in the ear. I’m not kidding. Ostriches make look sweet and dopey, but they’re not; they are vicious creatures. Kind of makes it hard to feel sorry for them when they get made into ostrich burgers. Foghat is playing the festival tonight. It would be cool to hear Foghat pump out Slow Ride, not so cool, mind you,that I’d want to leave my house, brave a crowd and risk being attacked by vicious ostriches. Yeah, I think I’ll lay low, basking in the glory of my 10,000 words in five days. I might even have a Polish beer and watch a little college basketball. Come to think of it, I think there’s an old Foghat album around here somewhere.

Slow ride, take it easy - Slow ride, take it easy,

Slow ride, take it easy - Slow ride, take it easy.

Epic Stuggle and Writer's High

I’m En Fuego.

I knocked another two thousand words today. I finished with a solid rush of writer’s high. The euphoria was still with me an hour after I stopped at 6,341 words and 31 pages. The story is coming along better than I had hoped. Twists continue to develop within the plot and a couple more new characters emerged today.

I’ve been sick since I started writing new book. The first couple of days entailed an awful lot of hacking and sneezing. Yesterday I broke into a fever after I finished writing. Now that I’m feeling better, the dramatist in me is looking back the last couple of days as some kind of epic struggle.

In the interest of documenting drama and conflict, I kept a record of the interruptions during today’s writing session. For full effect, hum the theme to The Ten Commandments as you read. Hold on, I just tried it and I can’t hum the theme to The Ten Commandments and read at the same time.

9:44 – Sat down to go over the plot and character notes

9:48 – Goggled 1960’s surfer jargon (for one of the characters)

9:54 - My ten year-old asked to use the computer. I said no. Then my eight year-old asked me to look at her blood blister. I looked at the blister. It was indeed pretty darned icky…

9:59 – My wife asked me to sigh income tax paperwork.

10:06 – My five year-old asked for a band aid. She scraped her heel.

10:07 – My eight year-old asked to see one of the books at my desk. I took a break, refilled my coffee and grabbed a banana.

10:09 – Back to writing…

10:19 – My eight year-old asked if she could get new shoes, shoes like Bella in Twilight wears. I said maybe…

10:24 – My five year old asked me to tie her shoes. I did. My wife asked what I needed from Cost Co. I asked her to remember coffee. I got up to blow my nose and walked downstairs to grab a granola bar. My wife gave me a hug and left with the girls for Cost Co.

10:27 - Back to writing…

10:36 – The phone rang. I didn’t answer.

11:16 – I took a break, watered the back lawn and made a protein shake.

11:30 – Back to writing…

12:07 – Restroom break…Called wife. I forgot to tell her to pick up frozen berries.

1:08 – Walked downstairs for a glass of water.

1:14 – Phone rang. I didn’t answer.

1:39 – Family returned. I shut the door and kept writing.

1:57 – A friend called on the cell phone. I told him I would call back in five minutes.

2:00 – Quitting Time: 6431 words and 31 pages.

3:00 – Began to come down from severe case of writer’s high. Ahhhhhh…

Another Two Thousand Words and a Serindipidous Brush with Moonlight Graham

TWO THOUSAND MORE WORDS

I banged out my two thousand words this morning. A new major character appeared in the story. I sure didn’t see him coming. That’s the magic of writing. I have a basic plot in my head, but it could change if that’s what the story wants…

A SERINDIPIDOUS EVENT

Yesterday I posted the following Burt Lancaster quote from Field of Dreams.

Well, you know I... I never got to bat in the major leagues. I would have liked to have had that chance. Just once. To stare down a big league pitcher. To stare him down, and just as he goes into his windup, wink. Make him think you know something he doesn't. That's what I wish for. A chance to squint at a sky so blue that it hurts your eyes just to look at it. To feel the tingling in your arm as you connect with the ball. To run the bases - stretch a double into a triple, and flop face-first into third, wrap your arms around the bag. That's my wish, Ray Kinsella. That's my wish. And is there enough magic out there in the moonlight to make this dream come true?

This morning I was channel surfing and came upon Field of Dreams just in time for Burt Lancaster to deliver the same lines I posted yesterday. Is the universe trying to tell me something? My back yard is definitely too small to build a baseball diamond. And I never really dreamt of pursuing a career in the major leagues. Archie “Moonlight” Graham, played by Burt Lancaster, is a minor league ball player who gave up his baseball dream to become a doctor. He realizes that he made the right choice, that saving lives is more important than playing a game. As a teacher who always dreamt of doing something more exciting, I can relate Archie “Moonlight” Graham. Or not…

If nothing else, I finally found the occasion to use the word “serendipitous” – three times.

James Patterson's Advice on Writing and the Significance of Two Thousand Words

James Patterson’s Advice on Writing

I don’t think there are a lot of readable books out there. There are less than people think there are. I don’t think it’s that easy. And it’s not a question of somebody who writes good sentences. It’s a question of being able to tell stories in a way that captivates readers.

My advice to most people, in terms of, what should you do after you write your book? Should you invest in some marketing? Should you stand outside a bookstore with flyers? Go write another book. Go write another book! You learned things writing this book. Make use of them in the next book, and keep your passion going, and get that habit.

I came across the comments in the March/April issue of Writer’s Digest. I haven’t read much of Patterson’s stuff, but I did enjoy his books about the flying bird-kids - The Maximum Ride series. The movie will be coming out in November. Patterson has had 42 New York Times bestsellers and 100 million readers have read at least one James Patterson book. This is a guy with some serious juice.

Two Thousand Words

I did it! Today I knocked out two thousand words for book number three and I did it in spite of ceaseless coughing, wheezing and sneezing attacks. Surging forward, I banged away at the keyboard until I hit my goal. I feel like Rocky Balboa after standing toe to toe with the champ, bloodied, battered, and barely cognizant - I’m still standing…

Prescott, Arizona

The wife and I just returned from a two-day recharge in Prescott, the former territorial capital of Arizona. The kids stayed home with family. We bunked down at the eighty year-old Hassayampa Hotel. The old place is said to be a haunted but neither of us saw any ghosts. Maybe next time. The two of us fed our gambling habit, each of us playing ten dollars on the penny slot machines at Bucky’s Casino. For the record, we were both busted within twenty minutes. And we found time to see Slum Dog Millionaire and Grand Torino, both outstanding movies.

We try to make the trip each year to celebrate our anniversary. My new book takes place in Prescott so I squeezed in a little research on among other things: the great Whiskey Row fire of 1900, the ghost at the Hassayampa Hotel, Bucky O’Neil and the Rough Riders, the filming of Billy Jack and Junior Bonner, and the night Bruce Springsteen rolled up on his Harley and played with one of the bands on Whiskey Row.

As I drove home from the high country it became apparent that spring has sprung – and so have my allergies. I just returned from Target where I purchased a virtual Disneyland of Allergy medications. I ‘m armed with cough drops, nasal spray, and the Target knock offs of Claritin, Tylenol Sinus and Nyquil. Come Hell or high water, I will write two thousand words tomorrow.

Teacher Mojo

It’s a good day to be a teacher. Over the years I’ve had occasion to question my career choice, usually because of the systemically anemic pay. I’ve watched friends and neighbors pull in salaries that doubled, tripled or even quadrupled my humble teacher’s wages. My wife and I have learned to live a frugal lifestyle. Although I’ll be taking a pay cut next year, I’m relatively confident that I’ll have a job. And I’m well aware that more than four million of my fellow Americans have lost their jobs and the odds are countless others will be out of work before we’re out of this mess.

Furthermore, I am grateful for the two week spring break that began this afternoon. With spring break comes time to write. I’ve learned to be productive over the breaks, writing two books over the last three years. If things work out according to my plan, I’ll be twenty-thousand words into my third book two weeks from tonight.

Finally, I’m at a point in my career where I’m honestly enjoying my job. Today I read a chapter of The Spirit Guide Bar to my students. They responded positively. Of course I am the guy in who gives out grades. I guess some of the kids fear me more than others. The boss promotes post secondary education by encouraging the teachers to wear university t-shirts. Today I wore a t-shirt that read ARIZONA STATE -1886. One of the boys asked, “1886, is that the year you graduated?” The truth is I don’t think any of them fear me - and that’s OK with me.

More Rejection

AGENT SEARCH REPORT

Query Emails sent 311

Rejections Received 61

Under Consideration 16

Miscellaneous Responses 2

Requests for a Second Chapter 1

REJECTION OF THE WEEK

Thank you for the opportunity to consider your work. We regret that your project, despite its merits, is not for us. We wish you all the best in placing your book with another agency.

XXXXXXXX

Literary Agent

THE PLAN

I’m gearing up to start the third book next week. I have two weeks off and I’m looking to pump out two thousand words a day.

INSULT OF THE DAY

Here’s a conversation that took place with a student.

“Hey Mr. Snyder, you want to meet up for some pick up ball next week?”

“I guess I’m not too old to lace up the sneakers one more time.”

“Sorry Snyder, I think you are too old if you call your shoes sneakers.”

As Rodney Dangerfield once said, now I know why tigers eat their young…

Time Travel and "It's About Time"

Like most red blooded American kids, I watched a lot of television in the sixties. But now I don’t care what the temperature is. That was a joke. A bad joke, a corny joke but it was a joke nonetheless. Along with Sherman and Peabody, and The Time Tunnel, It’s About Time helped me develop an interest in the concept of time travel. It’s About Time also helped me develop my bad or corny sense of humor.

I actually owned a copy the coloring book you see in this posting.

Unless you're an American Baby Boomer, you probably never had the chance to see It’s About Time. As far as I know, the network ran twenty-six episodes and that the end of it. No reruns.

Here’s the series in a nutshell. Two astronauts, Hector and Mac blast off from Cape Canaveral, break the time barrier and find themselves in prehistoric times where they meet a gorgeous female genie. Ok, the beautiful genie was a whole ‘nother show. They do befriend a cave couple, Gronk and Shadd. According to my Sunday morning net research, Shadd was originally named Shagg. This was before the network censors realized the British have a pretty colorful meaning for the word, shag. Back to the meat and potatoes, the astronauts live with a group of cave people until they find the copper they need to launch their space capsule. They return to 1966, where they realize Grogg and Shadd have stowed away in the capsule. The last seven episodes focus on Mac and Hector as they to hide their cave friends from NASA.

The show was created by Sherwood Schwartz, the mastermind of Gilligan’s Island and The Brady Bunch. I found an eight minute clip of It’s About Time on You tube. Watching the clip was an exercise in time travel back to a Sunday night in 1966. It was also a hoot. The background music is quite similar to The Brady Bunch and Gilligan’s Island. One of the Astronauts sounds and acts an awful lot like Gilligan and Schwartz used a lot of the same props Gilligan’s Island and It’s About Time.

In this particular episode, the astronauts find themselves tied up and on trial because Mac snapped a photograph of the boss. The cave people call their chief boss and speak English – caveman English, but English nonetheless.

One of the cavemen waves the photograph and says, “Prisoners evil spirits. Try to hurt boss with wicked magic.”

Sounding just like Gilligan, Hector says, “What’s he kicking about? It’s in focus. The background looks nice.”

How come people stopped saying what’s he kicking about?

Then Mac, sounding an awful lot like the skipper, says, “What’s he kicking about? To these people, a photograph is black magic.”

Hector comes back with, “It’s in color.”

Corny jokes are a good thing. I propose we all try to crack at least one corny joke each day. While we’re at it, let’s try to say “What’s he kicking about?”at least once a day too.

IT’S ABOUT TIME THEME SONG

It's about time, it's about space,
About two men in the strangest place.
It's about time, it's about flight -
Traveling faster than the speed of light.
This is the tale of the brave crew
As through the barrier of time they flew.
Past a fighting minuteman, Past an armored knight,
Past a Roman warrior, To this ancient site.
It's about caves, cavemen too,
About a time when the earth was new.
Wait'll they see what is in sight!
Is it good luck or is it good night?
It's about two astronauts, it's about their fate,
It's about a woman and her prehistoric mate.
It's about time, it's about space,
About two men in the strangest place.
They will be here right on this spot
No matter if they like it or not.
How will they live in this primitive state?
Will help ever come before it is too late?
Will they ever get away?
Watch each week and see!
Will they be returning to the 20th Century?
It's about time for our goodbyes
To all these prehistoric gals and guys.
IT'S ABOUT TIME!

CBS SUNDAY PRIMETIME SCHEDULE 1966-1967

7:00-7:30 Lassie
7:30-8:00 It's About Time
8:00-9:00 The Ed Sullivan Show
9:00-10:00 The Garry Moore Show
10:00-10:30 Candid Camera
10:30-11:00 What's My Line

A Perfect Day

Wednesday was my birthday. I’m…well, I’m quite young compared to the seventy-three year-old college basketball player in Tennessee. I burned a personal day. Sleeping in until six, I started things off with a cup of coffee and a little ESPN on the TV. Then it was off to the gym for a nice work out. My wife and I relaxed with coffee and muffins at the local bakery. I’m telling you, this is the life. Slightly jacked up on the coffee, I headed over to the nearest book store to pick up a couple of writing magazines.

The main event was opening day of Spring Training with my seventeen year-old, Macaulay. The Angels played the White Sox at Tempe Diablo Stadium. We basked in the Arizona sunshine, eating hot dogs and Italian Ices. As a father of five girls, my sports IQ has diminished over the last couple of decades. The only person I recognized was Angels coach, Jim Abbot, and this is due to the fact he only has one arm. You don’t need to know the names of the players to enjoy a baseball game, not when the sun is shining and the company is right. The Angels won thirteen to four. Or was it thirteen to three? Either way, it worked out good for those of us in attendance. You see, when the Angels score ten or more runs, everyone in attendance gets free chicken wings from The Claim Jumper Restaurant. So Macaulay and I stopped at the Claim Jumper where the hostess handed us each a bag of hot wings. I know chicken wings are bad for you but man they were good.

Back at the house, my wife showed up with Pei Wei take out. I had the Asian coconut curry chicken. Among my gifts were a t-shirt that reads IRISH I Had Another Beer, a sign for the garage that reads Free Beer Tomorrow, and a couple of six packs of Zwiec Polish beer. I think my family is trying to tell me to drink more beer? Zweic is my favorite beer – very expensive so I only drink it on special occasions. You have to buy Polish beer at the Chinese market. I guess this is because we don’t have a Polish market. I'm sure there are Polish markets. I wonder if they sell Chinese beer. I enjoyed a couple of Zweics and tried to follow what was going on with Lost before hitting the sack at eight-thirty. How can you beat a day like this?

The Chuck Norris of American Presidents

Andrew Jackson was a bad dude, bad and maybe a little psychotic. He fought in the American Revolution and spent time as a prisoner of war. In the War of 1812, Jackson partnered up with the pirate, Jeanne Lafayette to trounce the British at the Battle of New Orleans. Strangely enough, the battle was fought after the war had officially ended. Jackson was known as Old Hickory because he carried around a hickory stick – and beat people with it.

Andrew Jackson may be the reason we use the term OK. There are a few theories on the genesis of OK. The Jackson theory goes something like this. Jackson was a notoriously bad speller. He once said, “It’s a damned poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.” According to the story, when a bill came across President Jackson’s desk, he either labeled it with a V for veto or OK for Oll Korekt. Of course Jackson’s connection with the word, OK has nothing to with his tough guy status but it’s cool.

He fought more than twelve duels and carried two bullets in his torso as reminders. People usually managed to survive duels back in those barbaric days. Jackson did kill one poor slob, a man by the name of Charles Dickinson. Jackson’s adversary fired the first shot; the bullet cracked two of his ribs and lodged itself two inches from his heart. Jackson proceeded to take careful aim. Dickinson folded his arms across his chest to protect his heart. Old Hickory evenly lowered his aim and shot the man in the family jewels. Mr. Dickinson died a slow and painful death.

Maybe Jackson was a lot psychotic.

Jackson was six foot one and never weighed more than a hundred and forty-five pounds. By the time he became president, his skin was said to have a yellow tint. The strange coloration was probably a result of the bullets in his body, bouts with malaria and dysentery. The tough old curmudgeon somehow lived to be seventy-eight years old.

Jackson was the first president to undergo an assassination attempt. The president was approached on the street by an unemployed house painter by the name of Richard Lawrence while his bodyguards were, I don’t know, playing tidily winks. The would-be assassin produced a loaded pistol, aimed at Jackson and pulled the trigger. Nothing. The sixty-eight year-old Jackson proceeded to beat the snot out of his attacker with his hickory stick. Lawrence managed to pull a second gun, which also misfired. The presidential bodyguards had to pull the infuriated president away, quite possibly saving the house painter’s life. Statisticians determined the odds against both guns misfiring were 125,000 to one. The housepainter spent the rest of his life in a mental institution. Lucky, homicidal, and more than anything else, Andrew Jackson was one bad dude.

Say it Ain't So, Ken

I have some bad news for my fellow Ken Mink fans. It is with immeasurable anguish that I come to grips with the fact that my new personal hero, seventy-three year old Ken Mink has flunked Spanish and been declared ineligible. He will not suit up for the Roane College basketball team in this season’s home finale. Ken was planning to dress out in a 1950’s uniform and perform a rap song. Perhaps it’s for the best. Did anyone really want to hear a seventy-three year old man perform a rap song or see him dressed out in Daisy Duke shorts? I think not. Not in this life time.

I’m still inspired. F in Spanish or no F in Spanish, Ken Mink is a stud.

The Spirit Guide Bar Query Letter

A fellow blogger posed the following question yesterday:

Can you take some time sometime to suggest how I should start with sending queries about a proposed book?

Although I've yet to publish anything, I’d be happy to share what I’ve learned so far. First of all, check out the 2009 Writer’s Market. Don’t go out and buy it. It’s available at your local library. The book does provide the format for a query letter and some basic information on how agents operate. The contact information for publishers is darned near worthless because so many of the listed publishers won’t read unsolicited manuscripts. And the book’s list of agents is quite limited. Larger lists of agents can be found free online.

Here is the link to the agent list I’m currently using.

http://www.writers-free-reference.com/agents/index.html

Here is the link to Mike’s Writing Workshop and newsletter. It’s an understatement to say Mike provides a lot of information. This guy is incredibly prolific, sometimes posting as many as ten times a day.

http://mikeswritingworkshop.blogspot.com/

Finally, here’s my query and first chapter for The Spirit Guide Bar. I hope this is helpful.

To: The Bryan C. Frank Literary Agency

Subject: Query: The Spirit Guide Bar

Dear Mr. Frank,

I am seeking representation for my novel, The Spirit Guide Bar, complete at 71,332 words.

The story follows a beaten down teacher as he embarks on a spiritual journey down a road of dreams and visionary experiences. He finds himself bellied up to the Spirit Guide Bar with Ernest Hemmingway, Ulysses S. Grant and the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz. The journey stokes some hard questions. Is there a God? Does He communicate with us? What is sanity? What is reality? Are there things that can’t be forgiven?

Like the protagonist in the book, I make my living as a moderately beaten down high school English teacher. Along with performing stand-up comedy, my resume includes a four-year stint writing and hosting educational television programming. In addition to The Spirit Guide Bar, I have produced a collection of stories called The Eight Fingered Criminal’s Son, complete at 85,000 words.

Thank you for taking the time to read my query. The first chapter may be found below. Please consider taking a look.

Bill Snyder

griggit@yahoo.com

A Short Review of a Short Film and the Agent Search Report

OCTOPODI

I offer you a short review of the short film, Octopodi. It’s one of just two Academy Award nominated films I’ve seen this year. Octopodi is fantastic, beautiful, brilliant, and funny. Perhaps I should climb down off of the fence to say I loved this movie. Set on the Greek island of Mykonos, the story follows two octopuses as they try to escape captivity and make it back to the ocean. Yeah, I used the word octopuses. Bet you thought I should have used the word octopi. Hah! I could have used octopi. I could have used octopodes, but I didn’t. I used octopuses. And all three are acceptable. I used octopuses because it sounded wrong. I’m feeling like a rebel today. Sorry for the digression. Octopuses are intriguing creatures, incredibly intelligent, and capable of critical thinking. Cameras in marine biology labs have recorded octopuses leaving their tanks in the middle of the night, crawling across the floor and into tanks containing smaller creatures, eating the creatures, and crawling back across the floor and into their own tanks by the time the scientists returned the next morning. Weird - and fascinating.I don’t seem to be doing a good job at talking about the movie. The bottom line is it’s a good animated short and you’ll probably in enjoy it very much.

AGENT SEARCH REPORT

I’ve been sending off query emails for my novel, The Spirit Guide Bar since October. I’m using the scattergun approach to the agent search. Using an online list of several hundred agents, I send off queries as fast as I can past my letter to the emails. With this method, I do send queries to agents who only represent self help authors or historical biography authors, but so what. What’s the worst that can happen? Somebody sends me a scathing letter? I’d love to have a scathing letter to hang on my mirror.

Query Emails sent 278
Rejections Received 60
Under Consideration 16
Miscellaneous Responses 2
Requests for a Second Chapter 1

REJECTION OF THE WEEK

Dear Bill,

My name is XXXXXX and I work with XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.

Thank you for writing to us and sending a proposal for your book The Spirit Guide Bar.
XXXXXX specializes in the representation of authors in the international market with translation rights, and our main activity is representing authors on behalf of other British and American agents, therefore we tend to take on very few authors for whom we act as principal agents.

We did feel that your proposal looked promising, however we feel that you would do better seeking an agent closer to hand – i.e. in the US . For this reason, we regret that we therefore have to decline your representation.

If you are still looking for an agent in the UK , you can find a complete list in the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook.

Kind regards,

Yours sincerely,

XXXXXXXX

There is something wrong here. Rejection is supposed to make me feel bad. Those British really are polite, aren’t they?

George Washington was the Eighth President of the United States

JOHN HANSON

I’m a little late with my Presidents Day trivia, but here goes nothin’.

George Washington was elected president under the newly ratified Constitution in 1789. But America declared its independence in 1776. Ever wonder who was running the show between ’76 and ’89? I did and here’s what I learned. There was no president during the Revolutionary War. The first president under the Articles of Confederation was John Hanson, elected in 1781. He served a one year term. There were six presidents elected after Hanson and before Washington. They were Elias Boudinot, Thomas Mifflin, Richard Henry Lee, Nathan Gorman, Arthur St. Clair, and Cyrus Griffin. George Washington was actually the eighth president of The United States.

Finally, do you remember a pop group called the Hansons, the Um Bop Hansons? As it turns out, the three brothers are direct descends of the first president. OK, no they’re not. But wouldn’t it be a nice wrap up for this little posting if they were?

NBA Legends Brunch

Here’s a shot of NBA legend, Bob Love, the #167 nephew and yours truly.



I finally figured out how to get one of the legends brunch pictures from the digital camera to the computer to the blog. Yeah, my war with technology is fought one battle at a time.