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Awesome advice for budding authors
Jan. 12th, 2005 09:53 pmCan be found via an FAQ asking how an unpublished author goes about obtaining an agent on Neil's Journal . He asked his friend Teresa Nielsen Hayden who is an editor at Tor Books and a wonderful blogger. The links at the bottom of Neil's latest entry lead to some funny and interesting reading. There's an entry on Slash/Fanfic and Mary Sue's, not to mention lots of advice for aspiring authors from someone who is "in the business". I spent a couple of hours reading the entries (and the comments, which are wonderful) and musing about taking up my long-neglected novel once again.
There was some talk in one of the threads about the definition of "clueless" and these were my favorites:
"He couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the directions were printed on the bottom."
"He didn't know whether he'd found a rope or lost a mule."
The second one caused my hubby and I to laugh for a very, very long time--until my cheeks hurt and my eyes were dripping with tears. Just imagining the farmer--standing in the field wearing his straw hat and blue overalls, holding a rope and scratching his head.
Work is not bad but not as great as it used to be. The emails are stacking up again and TPTB don't really care...even though these are our customers, too. Not for me to criticize, I suppose, but they don't seem to realize that being a week behind on responding to the web queries (when the website says you'll get a reply in 24 hours) is bad business.
But, I'm just a cog, and I do what I'm told and try not to offer up any opinions anymore. I mention to the managers each day how far behind we've fallen, but that's as far as I go. Today I was working on verifying fax IDs and entering orders. I think I may have done about twenty or thirty emails, tops. Usually I do about 120-150 per day...and that is not enough to even make a dent in the total.
Not for me to say...but I think it stinks.
Time for bed.
There was some talk in one of the threads about the definition of "clueless" and these were my favorites:
"He couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the directions were printed on the bottom."
"He didn't know whether he'd found a rope or lost a mule."
The second one caused my hubby and I to laugh for a very, very long time--until my cheeks hurt and my eyes were dripping with tears. Just imagining the farmer--standing in the field wearing his straw hat and blue overalls, holding a rope and scratching his head.
Work is not bad but not as great as it used to be. The emails are stacking up again and TPTB don't really care...even though these are our customers, too. Not for me to criticize, I suppose, but they don't seem to realize that being a week behind on responding to the web queries (when the website says you'll get a reply in 24 hours) is bad business.
But, I'm just a cog, and I do what I'm told and try not to offer up any opinions anymore. I mention to the managers each day how far behind we've fallen, but that's as far as I go. Today I was working on verifying fax IDs and entering orders. I think I may have done about twenty or thirty emails, tops. Usually I do about 120-150 per day...and that is not enough to even make a dent in the total.
Not for me to say...but I think it stinks.
Time for bed.
