'Tis the frakking season..

Merry New Years, and Happy Christmas, and all that jazz.

I do hope that you all have had chance to work and make some progress on your various WIP’s. I know I have not. Not at all. I’ve been a lazy movie watching, wii playing, procrastinator (on my time off). I’m about to go on vacation, and I’m not seeing much work done over those days either. Maybe some, but I’m not prioritizing it.

I’m giving time to the things that had been falling by the wayside: Playing video games with my kids, lounging around with the wife, and trying to get all Christmassy. I will say that it is hard trying to convince two boys that a cackling old man that should be on weight watchers, whom has the overseeing habits of a peeping Tom, and also enjoys having little children on his lap is the kind of person they need to please. Seriously, all run on sentences aside, how am I supposed to sell THAT? If it were anybody other than Santa, we’d be hearing all about in on Court TV. Forgive me, TRUE TV now.

In any case, enjoy your spiked eggnog and that drunk uncle everybody wants to pretend (and wish) he didn’t keep showing up every year. Have fun seeing all those people that told you “you need to grow up,” and give them money (just because you have more than them now) while affirming that you decided it was best not to grow up. Oh, and above all be Merry, or Mary, or whatever your cross-dressing preferences are.

Ho, ho, ho


PS. I forgot to mention the sign I saw the other day. it read: "Jesus: the reason for the season". Is that who I have to blame? I'd like to have a word with him, please.

Off Ice

I've decided to chisel out my MS from the ice block I placed it in just before Thanksgiving weekend. It was hard to do, I admit, and seeing my little paper spawn frozen, tugged at my heart as emotion threatened to drown my eyes.

Okay, okay. Maybe it wasn't THAT hard. It was nice, however, to give myself a little self-dictated vacation from writing. Alas, the time has come now to give one last read through before I delve into the hell that is query letter writing and synopsis typing.

I hope my eyes are fresh enough to catch all those mistakes that have eluded me already. I'm wearing my hunter eyes. To the common folk they appear as a mere squint, but trust me, they are predatory and menacing. Be afraid ill placed comma and awkward dialogue tag, for I am coming for you, and all your rapscallion friends. I shall try to focus on voice consistency and grammar errors. The story itself will not change. In any case, wish me luck, and tell me of your writing process. What do you find that helps you the most during editing. Besides booze that is.

Chao for now.

The Weekend Review

I drank, I smoked, I shopped, I cursed Christmas and all its merry bell ringers and braindead shoppers (me included). I drank.

Writers: Mind Your Business!

Seriously, we should. For those of us who hope to profit from our passion one day (if not already) we need to accept the reality that this is a business. Oh, but you don’t write for the money, you write because you love it, right? That’s crap. Then don’t try to get published. Just read your stories to yourself. But, oh, you write for yourself, not for others? Bullshit. Saying that is the equivalent of singing in the shower, and even then, at the very least you have a small audience. Even if he is your trusty canine companion.

Treat your craft with the passion it deserves. Not just when you are crafting, but when you are talking about it. If you are unpublished, (a minority, right?) talk to people about what you do. Tell them about your story, get them excited about YOUR creation. Get them to want to know more. Send them to your blog, to your website, to your facebook. Today, we have advantages that novelists of the past never had. And yes, it’s okay to be called a novelist, even if my grandmother thought that “novelists” were not well thought of in high society. In today’s day and age, we can network faster and easier than ever before. Use the tools that are there at your disposal.

When you get published, keep up the hard work. So you have an agent, an editor and a publisher. You have that little ISBN number assigned to your work, and your paper baby has flown the nest into the neatly stacked shelves of bookstores. Guess what? Your work is far from done. Keep talking; yell to people that YOU have a book that deserves to be read. Hand out business cards like toothbrushes in a dental convention. Go to parties (the hard-life, I know), always keep something that will make people remember your book. It is your job to make the book sell. I know the writing should sell itself, but let’s be honest for a moment, people need to know where and how to find your book first.

I’m tired of seeing people that are desperately passive with their desires, or that feel that what they have created is so fantastic they don’t have to do anything at all to succeed. Look at the most successful brands in the world, and you tell me how much you think they spend on marketing alone. Rant finished.

Public Query Slushpile

So, I have given this query writing business yet another stab. i think this makes four. If I was to take this many stabs at anything else, I'd probably end up arrested. I posted it on the "Public Query Slushpile" blog. Its a neat concept created by writer, for writers.

You should definitely go check it out. Not just my query, but the others that are there. Some are good, some really need help. You decide which is which, and hey, you just might pick up a think or two. You never know.

Let me know what you think. Ciao, for now, kiddies.

Yup

Monday. New week, new opportunity to make it a good one. New chance to start out right. And It’s already fracking blown!
On the other side, I did win the contest over at Quixotic’s blog. So, yay for me…. Totally padding myself on the back here. Even though my triumph had nothing to do with skill, but rather luck of the draw. I still win, and the rest didn’t. Nada-nada…

It's Peanutbutter QUERY time: Again!

Thank you all for your time and invaluable feedback. If anybody happens to come by the Atlanta area, let me know. I'll buy you a beer, or ten. I mean it. I am a man of my word. Here is my second version of my possible query letter. If you don't mind my asking, let me know how it can be honest. Go ahead, rip it. And Matt, yes, you can be meaner! ;)


Dear Stellar Agent of superb and unquestionable taste:

I am seeking representation for my novel entitled MEND.

He attacks. He springs upon his victims with hatred and blind fury, slashing their bodies and shredding the peace of the city too busy to remember. He kills. With no evidence left behind, four families have fallen in his wake, and he is not finished. Only now there are two very different men, with two very different motives, hoping to bring an end to the worst killer Atlanta has seen in decades.

The first is Lieutenant Nate Barker. Intelligent and methodical, Barker must solve the case of his career while battling a skeleton that refuses to stay in the closet. The other is Jacob Santos. A man obsessed by the messages the killer sends him after he strikes and haunted by the inscriptions left for him at each crime scene.

Each step Jacob and Barker take bring them closer to unveiling the secret that links them to the killer, and to the dark chasm that lies in its revelation.


MEND is a Crime Fiction novel, complete at 70,000 words.


Respectfully,

J.m. Diaz