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Nuts and Bolts

We’ll start this entry off with my rejection from Susanna Einstein of LJK Literary Management.

Had a great time in Minneapolis this weekend at an anime con. While there, interviewed Elizabeth Sloane for an article on wig construction that will appear in a future issue of AniCoz magazine.

Working on that English paper. More stats later today, as well as some queries out.

Right now, must get back to the office slog.

Catherine

Flowery (Purple?) Prose

The current book I’m reading has yet to really grip me. It is very much one of the fashionable books at the moment: let’s take a secondary character or minor character from a work of literature, and fashion a story from their point of view. I myself have a few chapters of one of these started, so I certainly like the genre.

Since the book hasn’t sucked me in yet, I find myself analyzing it. There are two things I’m finding about this book that are proving to be distractions.

1. Linearity. Rather the lack thereof. The characters in this book live in flashback city. The reason we start the book with childbirth and a slave escape, and then clearly move back to the main character’s childhood, while putting in another section about the birth of her first child (not the miscarriage that occurred during the slave escape) is to pull you, the reader, in with drama. For me, it just bounces around. And feels overwrought like an iron fence in the French Quarter.

2. Flowery prose. The book is told in first in first person which allows the author to gratuitously use stream of consciousness examination of subjects (dig that crazy river wheel section!). Also, the book is very adjective heavy. Sometimes the writing hits (I love the orange gash in the sweet potato), but most of the time, I’m drowning in the prose.

I’ve always been a spare writer, perhaps to my detriment. So, today, fellow writers and readers, I solicit your opinion on

1. Flashbacks. Do you like them? Do you use them?

2. Adjectives: How much description is enough? Too much? How do you know?

3. What is your writing peeve?

I’m giving the book more time (only 50 pages in, and it’s huge), but we’ll see. Life’s too short, and I have too many books on my shelf. I’m not condemning it as a bad book–there’s just too much in it that keeps popping me out of the narrative, which is creeping slowly at best.

Have a great weekend. I’ll be at an anime con in Minneapolis, checking papers and working on my own papers as much as I can. Which may not be at all if I’m terribly unlucky.

Catherine

A Good Cause; Writing and Jealousy

More linkage this morning. First of all, cystic fibrosis.

Friend and fellow workshopper Jenn Racek is in the Great Strides walk for Cystic Fibrosis to help raise money for the cure. Cassie, her daughter, has CF. There’s also going to be an auction of ebay items, all of the proceeds of which will go to the CF Foundation. Check out more here:

Cassie’s Auction now through April 8th.

***

John Scalzi this morning on authors and jealousy. Pay attention to the parts about being content with one’s own life, and supporting one’s friends. Nicely done, Scalzi.

Whatever

That’s today’s linkage. Now, to teach Adverb Clauses. (Not any journal where you can read that…)

Catherine

One of the Guys

caveat: I’m not a guy. Nor am I trying to be sexist by using the term “one of the guys.” I’m using a term from our culture than indicates a casual sense of belonging. And that’s all. –CMSS

How big was the town you grew up in? I come from third-world Iowa, a town of (then 703) people. And frankly, I was the weird kid. Weird for lots of reasons. Rest assured, this isn’t an essay about my family dysfunction or my backwardness. What this is about is my writing. You knew it would be.

If you come from a small town, and you are mildly talented, I think your talent may well be blown out of proportion. I was bright, but I thought I was a genius because we didn’t have a lot of bright hanging around in third-world Iowa. I was multi-talented, but, depending on the day, I thought I was a diva, an Academy award winner, or even Dostoyevsky. There are people in the world that have more talent than me. I’m willing to concede that now. Even in writing.

My ego was bolstered by a lot of fake A’s from high school English teachers who were happy anyone would write in abundance at all, grammatically or otherwise. Luckily, my high school started sending me to the local community college once a week. I was bored and there was no TAG in rural Iowa then. There I met George, who taught me that red marks on my stories were a valuable thing.

But this isn’t about my mentor George. God bless George, but no. It’s about the fact that deep down, I think many writers believe that our writing is special and unique. This may be peculiar to me, because I was bought up in the small town of Ignorant Conceit (which is on the map in Iowa, really).

Continue reading “One of the Guys”

Weekend Update

Just taking a break from some design work to suggest that you might not want to send anything off to the Axelrod Agency, which seems to be too busy with its current clients.

I’m thinking of jazzing things up around the ole Tamago a bit by reflecting on how it’s going at this stage of the writing career. Why do I think my musings might be more interesting than another writers? Vanity, baybee, vanity! Really, it’s because I have some things to say, and it’s my journal. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Up next for queries.

Ginger Knowlton of Curtis Brown
Kirsten Wolf of Jill Grinberg
Kate Scherler of Fletcher and Perry LLC
Krista Goering of Krista Goering of LLC
Sheldon Fogelman of Sheldon Fogelman

Prospect Agency

This changes nothing. I still think they’d be cool for representation.

Here’s the letter I received this morning from Becca Stumpf.

Thank you for giving me and Prospect Agency the opportunity to consider SUBSTANCE OF SHADOWS. You are clearly a talented writer, but I’m afraid this story just didn’t grab me enough to offer representation. Of course, this is only one opinion in a highly subjective field, and another agent
will likely feel differently; I encourage you to solicit additional
opinions.

It contains the usual ending of course, but it’s nice to have an agent re-inforce the quality of your work. I’m not insecure about that, but it’s nice to hear it.

Of course, I’ll keep sending it out, but I do keep getting the message. It’s not you, Catherine. It’s the book. Cool. However, until I have time to whip out another book, might as well keep giving it a go!

So, my Russian lesson was cancelled today, regrettably. Olga’s mother fell and they’re at the emergency room. I’m killing just a wee bit of time until the bank opens, and then I will use the extra time at work appropriately.

Hope you all have good weekends.

Catherine

Crickets Chirp

The ever present philosophical question: is hearing nothing better than getting rejections? My writing mailbox is pretty quiet right now.

Work still continues comparing English teaching in Japan and in the US. What I’m learning right now is that Japanese students prefer adhering to the native speaker model, at least in one pilot study done in Nagoya.

Nativism seems to run counter to embracing World English. Depending on the purpose of English, say, for example, to succeed in a US classroom, nativism may be a preferred model. What generally occurs in any given communication is a negotiation between accuracy and comprehensibility, and I wonder if the Nativists are too much in the former camp, and the proponents of World English are too much in the other.

Enough of that. I’ll get you back to faerie princesses as soon as I can. However, if any of you closet linguist eggheads want to weigh in, I’m here for you.

Professionally yours,
Catherine