Because you haven’t lived until you’ve seen a mustached horse or show-jumping bunnies.

Only one person bought the farm on Harper’s Island last night and I’m bitter about that.

I saw the best bookmark yesterday: Don’t Judge A Book By Its Movie.  Ain’t that the truth?

I’m on twitter now.  You can find me here…

If you like zombies – and how could you not? – you’ll likely get a kick out of this.

Over on Bookends, Jessica Faust shares her thoughts on how long to keep querying a particular piece of work.

This is the funniest response to #queryfail that I’ve seen yet.

And last but not least, Nathan Bransford talks about why originality is overrated.

I was browsing on duotrope this morning, and I saw a listing for a magazine that said, “Novice and teenage writers are especially encouraged to submit.”  Now, in a business that’s so exclusive to so many, my first thought probably should have been, gee, that’s really nice that they’re encouraging young writers to submit to them.  Suffice to say, that was not what went through my head.  Instead, my knee-jerk reaction was this: yeah, sure, they want novice and teenage writers to submit to them cuz they don’t know much about publishing and they’re easy to take advantage of.  How sad is that?

On the other hand, in a world where Googling “publishing scam” gets you 4,030 results, maybe it’s just being realistic.  So, on that note, here are a couple of links:

Writer Beware

Preditors & Editors

I don’t seem to have much to say lately, so I thought I would post a few interesting links for y’all.

First, here’s a really good post about dealing with rejection over on Amber Benson’s blog.

Next, J.A. Konrath asks, Are you confident or delusional?

Over on The Swivet, 20 examples of what not to put in your query letter.

And while I’m on the topic of queries, here’s a query letter that worked, from the author’s perspective and from the agent who represents her.

I’m blaming Ian for this one, too…

1.  I was born on Friday the 13th, and 13 has always been my lucky number.

2.  My favorite book of all time is Lightning by Dean Koontz, and thanks to three wonderful friends I own an autographed first edition hard cover.

3.  As a kid, my favorite books were The Three Investigators mystery series.  I still have them, and there will always be a place reserved for them on my book shelf.

4.  I was born in the Year of the Tiger.

5.  I love instant messaging but hate talking on the phone.

6.  I became a vegetarian the week before Thanksgiving, 2000.  Of all the food I gave up, the things I miss most are salmon sandwiches with pickle and mayo, and those shitty little hamburgers from McDonalds.

7.  My favorite food is homemade macaroni and cheese.  My favorite thing to drink is a coke float.  And my favorite dessert is Berries on a Cloud.

8.  Over the years I’ve had dogs, cats, a horse, a rabbit, and a snake as pets.

9.  I can juggle.  Sort of.

10.  When I was little, I got my two front baby teeth knocked out on a kid’s head.

11.  I have never seen E.T.

12.  Yellow is not my favorite color, but I drive a yellow car, and if I had the option I probably always would.

13.  When I was a kid, more than anything I wanted to be a jockey when I grew up.  And then I grew up.  By the time I hit 5’8″ and my horse started to look like he had an extra set of legs growing out of his stomach, I figured I was probably a shade too tall.

14.  I find clowns to be extremely creepy.

15.  I like to sing in the car.  Loudly.  And off key.

16.  Some of my favorite authors, in no particular order, are Stephen King, Rob Thurman, Christopher Moore, Kat Richardson, Tamara Siler Jones, and Julia Spencer-Fleming.

17.  I have a blue belt in Kempo.

18.  My “comfort” movies are Scream and Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.  If I want to play on the computer and need background noise, or just want to veg out, those are the ones I throw in the DVD player.

19.  I love cheesy jokes.  The worse they are, the more I like them.

20.  When I was a kid I collected Transformers.  I still have the original Optimus Prime.

21.  If I get a song stuck in my head I have to listen to it on repeat, sometimes for days, until it goes away.

22.  I love photography but don’t do it nearly enough.

23.  I got the highest mark in my Critical Writing about Poetry class at U of T.

24.  One of my biggest pet peeves is people who walk into the middle of a conversation, and instead of listening for a minute to figure out what’s going on, immediately interrupt to ask what you’re talking about, or try to change the subject.

25.  I’m much more inclined to stay up all night than I am to get up early.

I’ve been reading a discussion that’s been going on over the last few days in my friend’s journal.  I’m not going to name the friend, or link to the journal, because it’s an absolute minefield of a topic and I don’t want to get into it here.  But it has got me thinking about something else along a similar line.

When I read, I like to read stories about people who are courageous and smart and funny, who have short-comings and inner demons, who solve mysteries and do brave things and keep going even when it looks like everything is lost.  (Those are the kinds of stories that I try to write, too.)  I do not like to read stories about people who get up on their soap-box and sermonize at the other characters, and by extension, the reader.  I do not want to read expo dumps meant to further someone’s pet cause.  Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely believe in a person’s right to their own beliefs, and the right to try to persuade others to their way of thinking.  But I also believe there is a time and a place for it.  When I read fiction I do not want to be educated, I want to be entertained.  If I want to learn something I’ll go check out the non-fiction section of the book store – that’s what it’s there for, after all.

Now I know that characters, just like real people, need to have their own beliefs.  And, also just like real people, not all of those beliefs will be the same.  It would make for a pretty boring story if everyone agreed with everyone else all of the time.  In the story that I’m working on right now I have a character who’s a priest and a character who is technically an atheist, although he believes in other things.  Both are very firm in their convictions and they butt heads a lot, which I think is great, because it adds tension to the story.  But there’s a big difference between a character who has his own beliefs and a character who has the author’s beliefs, and, it seems to me, it’s pretty easy to tell which is which.  I find the latter extremely off-putting, and actually, even a little bit insulting.  I mean, it ‘s bad enough to have someone thumping on you in person where you can tell them to take a hike, but it’s another entirely to get into what looks like a good book, only to find out that you paid for the privilege.

But maybe this is all just me.  I’ve read enough of these kinds of stories to know that a good number of people like writing them.  Is there anyone out there who likes reading them?  As readers, do you think it’s okay for an author to use their writing to support a cause?  As writers, do you bring an agenda to your stories?  I know that this could be a bit of a touchy subject, but I really am curious to hear what you think, so if you’re willing to discuss it here, by all means, hit me with your best shot.

…do a book meme.

I blame this one entirely on Ian.

Here are ze rules:

Grab the book nearest you. Right now. Turn to page 56. Find the fifth sentence. Post that sentence along with these instructions in your journal. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

The dogs arfed a frantic barking salvo at the avian intruders and Charlie put so much body English into wiggling the key in the lock that he felt an atrophied dancing muscle tear in his hip.

A Dirty Job, by Christopher Moore

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

I realize that this post is somewhat long in coming, and not very timely, but I just haven’t felt like I had anything worth saying.  Not that NaNo isn’t a worthwhile topic, but the fact that I got my ass handed to me again was something of a foregone conclusion, at least in my own mind, and so not really worth mentioning all on its own.

I hate bringing this up, because talking about a story I’m working on seems to be the surest way to sabotage it, but I’m working on something brand new.  I don’t want to say too much about it – there’s a reason the title is Jinx, after all – but I will say that I just hit the 10,000 word mark, which is pretty cool.  For me, anyway.

And here are a couple of articles from Brian Keene’s website: How to Avoid Bad Markets and Bad!HWA is Bad (That’s not the real title, just so you know).  The second article won’t be of much interest to people who don’t write horror, but the first one has a lot of good advice for aspiring writers of any genre, and is definitely worth the read.  Oh, and I found these linked on Ian’s blog, so thanks, Ian, for digging up all the good stuff.

Over the weekend I gave my latest short story to my mother to read.  I don’t give them to her for editing purposes, ’cause, well, it’s my mom, and she doesn’t really have it in her to be critical of my stuff.  Then, yesterday:

Mom: Your story was really great.  I really liked it.

Me: Aw, shucks.  (No, really.  I said that.)

Mom:  It’s just that, when I was reading it, I kinda felt like there was something missing.

Me (in my head): OMG, can it be?  Is she actually going to give me a real, honest-to-god critique?   Sweet. This is new.  There must be two blue moons in the sky.

Mom: But then this morning I was looking at it again and I figured out what was missing.

Me: Oh?

Mom: A couple of pages.

Me: …