I've been dumped!

Sent to the minors!  Excused!

Ok, it wasn't that bad.  My agent, Caitlin, whom I still love dearly, and I have split up.  Personally I think she found another writer but just doesn't want to tell me.  Her excuse is the old "I need to spend more time with my family so I'm reducing my client list" thing.  If only I had a dime for every time I heard that.  I'd have...um...a dime.

Anyway, I am now a free agent, looking for an agent.  As it were.  And am I crying, drowning my sorrows is large quantities of alcohol and narcotics?  YES!  But that was yesterday.  Today I'm back to business, finding my old agents lists and publishers, and getting busy.  This book WILL BE SOLD DAMMIT!

Sorry.  Didn't mean to cuss.  This is a kid friendly blog.  As in "hey kid, want some candy?"


NONONONO.  I did NOT just say that on my blog.  I meant no cussing.

Anyway, at first the news that Caitlin kindly delivered to me on the phone (as opposed to email) was devastating.  I mean, it's been 20+ years since I've been dumped.  I know Caitlin and I can still be friends, and like, she can see other writers and I can see other agents, but still, you wonder:  am I that much of a screw up?  Or worse, am I just that mediocre?

No!  Caitlin's reasons were sound, her criticisms of me were well founded, and I know she had to make the call to several other clients so I knew I didn't screw any one particular thing up.  She just didn't think it was fair to keep me waiting months on end for some feedback (not like I really, ya know, paid attention or anything).  So it was all cool.

Thus ends the cycle with my first agent, Caitlin.  Ah well.

So what do I do now?  Well, fortunately (take notes here) I kept EVERY emailed query letter I got back, and found three people who were interested in reading the manuscript after I had already hooked on with Caitlin.  Wanna know how fast the industry changes?  Not ONE of them was still in the same location.  One got automatically forwarded to the replacement agent, another gave his new email address, so I forwarded the query back to him, and the third went to a publishing house of scholarly books - which mine is not.

I kept my original query letter AND their response and sent them both back saying that my agent and I had parted ways and would they still be interested in looking at it.  Notice I did NOT send them any attachment like, a year later.  "Ok, here it is!"  Gotta give them a chance to remember who the heck you are, and what your selling.

But the biggest thing to do is to GET OVER IT QUICKLY.  I am NOT a failure, my book does NOT suck, and I am NOT going to wallow in freakish misery while every woman screams "Dear God what is that thing?".  Sorry - channeling Princess Bride there for a minute.

Yes, Optimism STILL ABOUNDS!  I will get smacked in the face, beaten to a pulp, dragged through the mud, stapled in the forehead and laughed at by the ghosts of my ancestors.  But I will not, ever, give up.

Jeff and Ben (my characters) deserve better.

I have taken the fall so that any of you who might later can learn from my mistakes.  Never take anything for granted, for you never know when things will crap out on you.

But most importantly,

WRITE ON!

I'm a loser...

Seriously - not shaving until the book sells?  That's stupid.  It's gone.  This weekend.  Along with a new haircut.

I don't know what I was thinking.  I mean, could not shaving really alter the course of the universe and have the great guiding spirits look down upon me and say "LO!  HE HATH NOT SHAVED!  THUS WE MUST GET HIS BOOK PUBLISHED!"

Haven't even heard from Caitlin in a month, so it's not like things are getting better.  Plus it itches.  And it's hot.  And I keep twirling it to see if I could make it into long braids like Captain Jack Sparrow.

But, alas, I'll never look like Johnny Depp, despite what my wife thinks.

See, I realized this morning as I was sitting in my car with absolutely no noise around me meditating, that far too much of my time is spent worrying about the future.  When I sat there with complete silence, just the thoughts of my inner voice catching my attention, time damn near literally stood still.  I would close my eyes, think, talk to myself in my head, play catch with the mental fairies buzzing around my subconscious, and when I opened my eyes?  One minute had gone by.

I'm trying too hard - that's what I came to realize.  I'm pushing.  Trying to be funny.  Trying to be wise.  Trying to be a thoughtful and literary genius.

And time is flying away from me like a bullet train while I'm on the station.  So I'm gonna chill.  I won't stop writing, because the new story I'm working on is REALLY cool, but I won't sweat publishing.  I'm writing for myself, for my characters, and maybe for my family.  I'm writing these words now for you guys, whomever you are, in the hopes that one or two of you may find them insightful.

But in the words of Smashmouth, *%!@ it Let's Rock!

Write on my people!  WRITE ON!

I am NOT. SHAVING!

Until my book sells!  And my house.  Beginning about three weeks ago, I've stopped shaving until the book sells.  Ok, I do trim the beard and shave the neck and try to look presentable - I do have a day job after all, but other than that - NO SHAVING.

In the summer.

In the heat.

It kinda sucks.  So Caitlin - if you're out there reading this, PLEASE SELL MY BOOK SOON!  I'M DYIN' HERE!

And if anyone knows of a need for a house in Connecticut, we've got a lovely four bedroom beauty for cheap.

Don't forget, too, that if you're in the southeastern PA area and want to find a kid's book critique group, check out www.scbwiepa.org and their AMAZING AND INCREDIBLE CRITIQUE GROUP FINDER!

Ok.  Enough yelling for the day.

Signing off,

Grizzly Adams

Calling All YA Authors!!!

Today the Wall Street Journal, that bastion of morality and parental guidance, published an article on the dangers of the current slate of YA books available to our teens.  Click here to read it, but let me sum it up:  YA books are hurting our teens, destroying the fabric of American society, and potentially ending the NFL as we know it.  Ok, I made that last one up, but I figured, hey, since we're laying blame here...

There's a very simple explanation to rebut Mrs. Gurdon (a not-too-popular smug and judgemental writer of all things evil and liberal), and it demonstrates why today's young whipper-snappers aren't at all like the happy, life-loving, "suicide never crossed our mind" teenagers of the 70's and 80's.

The simple explanation is this, Mrs. Gurdon.  Every day, each and every single human being awakes and is immediately faced with choices:  what to wear, where to go, who to interact with, whether or not to brush their teeth, and so on.  Whether we acknowledge it or not, whether it even comes to us consciously or not, EVERY ONE of those decisions is made based on input we've collected our entire lives.

In terms of teens, those lives are relatively short.

Younger children usually make those decisions on instinct:  they cry, scream, flop on the floor, or throw that cute little firetruck right into your forehead.  Adults are supposed to be more controlled - we don't throw firetrucks at each other because we've been around longer and can make decisions based on more data and input.  We're the "more mature" crowd (some more mature than others).

Teens are stuck right smack dab in the middle.  Too old to show all the emotions they want to, too young to know what is really the right choice to make.

Back in the 70's and 80's a teen's input was from the dreaded Rock & Roll.  Maybe some movies, maybe even the horrific and super-double-naughty Judy Blume books.  Video games were magic squares with arrows stabbing duck-like creatures posing as dragons.

Today?  Well, consider what Henry David Thoreau said:

“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand, instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.”

Well guess what, the modes of input for teens today are in the hundred or thousands.  It's not that they can see the same stuff on the internet...well, ok, it's PRECISELY because they can see the same stuff on the internet, and that the world in terms of communications has shrunk a thousand-fold.  Before, to get advice on a girlfriend situation, I would ask my best friend.  Now I can ask my FIVE-HUNDRED Facebook friends.  And guess what?  I can see how they respond to THEIR girlfriend situation.  Bottom-line?  It all adds up to exponentially increased input.  Knocking out one of them (YA books) wouldn't solve the problem.  You could write all the Princess and the Frog books for teens you want, eliminate vampires altogether (ok, actually, that'd be ok), and you wouldn't have a single teen reading them, unless their parents made them.  These books are on the bookshelves for one reason and one reason only:  they sell.  And why do they sell?  Because they're real.  And also because people like Mrs. Gurdon tell teens not to read them.  "Don't look in that closet Mr. Fifteen Year-old!"  Turn your back, count to three, and listen for the creak of the closet door opening.

I have three teens myself.  I know this world intimately because my kids and I have an extremely open and honest relationship.  I let them cuss.  We discuss the sexual exploits of their classmates.  They tell me about calls from drunken friends at two o'clock in the morning.  This is standard fair for teens:  making choices based on the input they have, while still wanting to react based on instinct.

So when my daughter grew up watching Disney TV and seeing Little Ms. Perfect try to figure out why the star quarterback doesn't want to be her boyfriend, only to have them land together in PerfectHarmony City, my daughter's response was loud and clear:  "BUT THAT NEVER HAPPENS IN REAL LIFE!"

People like Mrs. Gurdon don't want to face what really happens in real life.  And I would argue that people like Mrs. Gurdon are the dangerous ones, NOT the YA novels.  The YA novels may "help normalize [pathologies] and, in the case of self-harm, may even spread their plausibility and likelihood to young people who might otherwise never have imagined such extreme measures," but people like Mrs. Gurdon, are forgetting that there is one source of input that absolutely trumps all others.  One source that can provide the better, more responsible choice for a teen to make.  One source that should never EVER go away and should ALWAYS be there for a teen.

A parent.

You could present all the input in the world to a child about cutting, suicide, drinking, drugs, sex, depression, what have you.  But if a parent's reaction is strong, and open, and BI-DIRECTIONAL (that is, they actually friggin' LISTEN to their kids and occasionally acknowledge them as rational beings instead of items to be seen and not heard), their kids will react in accordance to their parent's reason and logic, and most importantly, their love.  

Doesn't matter if it's one parent, two parents, or two parents of the same sex.  We are brought into the world by these people, and we will listen first and foremost to what they say.  We will also immediately recognize and react to what they DON'T say.

So there you have it, Mrs. Gurdon.  Your argument becomes moot the minute you take your 46 year-old out of Barnes and Noble and put her into the home where she cares enough about her children to know what they are going through in school, and helps them deal with it a rational, thoughtful way of dealing with it.  Put her into the home where she can stop judging her children and her children's friends, and realize they're just making choices based on what they know.  But most importantly, put her into the home so she can show her children that she loves them no matter what they do or what mistakes they make, and that she's there to help them make the choices that will hurt the least. 

Oh, and if she's looking into the YA aisle for a book for a 13 year-old, take her out of there and put her in the EARLY READERS SECTION!

The New Critique Finder's Here!

Check it out here:  http://www.scbwiepa.org/critique_group_finder.html

If you're in this area (or actually anywhere in the world) and want to be in the database, let me know.  I'm very excited and proud of this feature that can hopefully bring writers together - who knows, you may have the next J.K Rowling just down the street!  (Oh wait, that's right - we're optimistic here.  You may BE the next J.K. Rowling!)

Next on my project list?  A private group of blogs that can act as an on-line critique group.  Simply post your novel one chapter at a time and your critique group can post comments.  Or throw it open to the world and let everyone post comments (only for the bravest of souls!)