The Magic Button

Just posting to show I haven't abandoned my blog or died.

So, First I give you, my UPDATE:

I've sent out some queries to several literary agents and have yet to receive a partial request. Recently, I changed my query to what I feel is better, sadly, I had to be form rejected by all the agents I've already sent a query to in order to realize I needed a better query (Ok, one sent me two short sentences which I'm very thankful for the personal feedback, except it was a contest like deal with a "follow the rules" get feedback guaranteed).

All I want is a, "Your query kinda blew ass and I was turned off by your lack of personal brown nosing." Or perhaps a, "I'm starving, I know I have 10,000 more queries to get to before I can allow myself to sate my hunger, and you query didn't blow my socks off enough for me to give it a chance." I don't need your positive outlook, I'm confident that even dribble can make it to print if the person is persistent enough (not that you would know that and thus have to be careful not to break the hearts of peoples). I'd honestly feel better about getting the below than a form rejection:

Dear Bruce,

Meh.

Signed,
Agent

Can there be a magical section of a query that shows how tempered I am to feedback in correlation to what the agent has typed?

With the presence of said magic button, after you type out your response to my query letter (no matter the length), look at the color of the button (Seriously, as I imagine this, it will take you no longer to type and view button than sticking that form rejection in the email).

If you see the magic button in the green, you have not been too harsh and there is no risk of me jumping off a bridge.

If you see it is yellow, I can handle it, but might shed a tear and take a few shots of alcohol later in the night. The chance I'll "angry monkey from the closet" point at the cat is 100% (but I do that anyways at all my animals)

If you see red, send me a form rejection! There are 3 possible reasons the button will be red. 1) My query blows so hardcore, that even though it was typed up on a computer, you feel compelled to be disgusted on how many trees it could have wasted if given the chance. 2) You (the agent) are either too much of a meanie to relate to people on a human level and/or have been unreasonably harsh. 3) I'm too sensitive and my name being in the public eye will likely lead to me shaving my head, doing a lot of drugs, buying a PT Cruiser with fake wood paneling, and burning my house down via Easy-Bake oven. (Not me so much, but the probability of someone more emotional than myself doing those things if thrown into the spotlight is very likely).

I notice a lot of agents respond to people on Twitter, some even seem to reside on twitter. Should I query via Twitter so I get a real response?

@Agent Thank you for your time and consideration. In the next 211 tweets is my first 5 pages as requested via agency website (32/243)

Adam's Spark: Evolution Appearance

This is the kind of scene you end up in if you ask to be in my novel, not that Adam doesn't approve of his presence. As usual, not a final draft and may contain rough spots, enjoy the silliness.

Magnis took a big breath of the outside air. “What now?” he asked.

Melanie shielded her eyes from the sun and looked into town, “I’m not a fan of walking. What do you say we find some transportation?”

Magnis put his hand over his eyes and scoped the area. “Is there a place in this dinky town that sells cars?”

A dirty ragged dressed man ran at them from the direction the sun was coming from. “Eve! Eve! Eve it’s you!” Half hunched over, he ran waving his arms above his head right over to Melanie.

“Gah, what the hell are you doing?” The strange man tried to rub his hands on her legs or hug her, what he intended to do was not exactly clear at that point. She backpedaled to avoid his touch.

Spark: Evolution Chapter 5

The chapter's between the 1st and this 5th one are used for giving a stronger impression of who and what my characters are. This will be the first chapter through Laura's eyes, it takes you back to what happened to Magnis at the start of the novel. I wanted to share this chapter next because you'll get a first hand look at what a spark can do as well as meet a character that I absolutely love, Lazarus. (I'll post a picture of what I feel his attire looks like, at the end of this chapter)

As before, this is not a final draft, and may still contain some errors which I hope you can excuse and simply enjoy my work.

Chapter 5

Laura sat up in bed. Was there a crash downstairs just now? She waited and heard only her own breathe accompanied by the dancing gusts of wind in the night. I must have been dreaming. She looked over at the alarm clock and saw it was after two. Five hours before I have to get up. She looked over at her sleeping husband, smiled, yawned, and began to wiggle her head into that perfect spot atop her pillow.

Glass shattered moments later.

She gasped, opening her eyes wide. That sounded very real. Someone’s in our house! She shook Magnis gently and whispered in his ear, “Magnis,” no reaction. She repeated his name a little louder, “Magnis.” He stirred in his sleep and said a random jumble of words. She pushed on him violently. “Magnis wake up,” she pleaded.

Spark: Evolution Chapter 1

Alright, well, time to see if my hard work paid off and I produced a chapter that can grab you the reader's attention. The length of this chapter is a mere 1,276 words, so it won't take you very long. This is not a final draft, so some errors of certain types may still exist, so please excuse any mistakes and enjoy the opening chapter to my novel. Thank you in advance for your time and I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 1

“Beep. Beep. Beep.”

Magnis twitched with annoyance from the first sounds of morning. He opened his eyes to meet the morning sun and felt pain. The sensation radiated from his back and spread throughout the top half of his body. He narrowed his eyes and rotated his jaw licking the inside of his mouth. Blood.

His eyes moved along the ceiling. The ceiling fan should be above me. He spread his fingers apart. Cold and smooth. Not the bed sheets and blanket he fell asleep with.

He lifted his right forearm and dug his elbow into the wood. With his head raised, he watched his feet. I can move my toes, I’m not paralyzed.

 His heartbeat accelerated. Laura would have shut the alarm off long before I would wake up from it.

“Laura!” Magnis yelled. The acoustics of the room muttered a faint echo in response.

He winced and grunted trying to accomplish the simple action of sitting up.

“Lau-ra! Where are you?” He jerked his head from side to side. I hope she is at work safe and sound? Please God just let her be at work.

Magnis' Truck Ride

This is a test to see if an otherwise unexciting and boring scene will still hold the attention of a reader. Please leave comments! This is still somewhat rough, so don't expect expert grammar and the like.


INFO: Magnis is traveling by foot to a town on an information gathering mission for Nowhere by pretending to be a traveler. After being covertly taken out of Nowhere via a 50-gallon drum to a dump, he figures out that he is going to use a fake name while in the town, Sinbad. (Explains why he says his name is different without copy/paste'ing the previous scene with him premeditating things.)

The walk was extremely boring. He muttered some of the songs he knew for a while, but soon exhausted the list of ones he knew the words to. It wasn’t long before he just zoned out and didn’t think of anything except what the road looked like.

Dirt. Rocks. More dirt. Oh hey look… more rocks with a hundred percent chance of dirt.

Unexpectedly Magnis realized headlights appeared behind him. They were already too close for him to duck into the ditch and go unnoticed. No problem, I’ll just act natural, if the wrong sorts of people happen to be in whatever type of vehicle that is, I need to not seem like a threat. If worse case happens, I can fight. With the training Nowhere has given me I’m certain I can fight even a few normal people if I have to. Unless… unless they are the people I’m looking for. In that case it might be very bad… or very good, I’m not sure.

Laura's Spark Unlocking

Here is a excerpt from Spark: Evolution that I just finished doing my recent edits on. The only thing you need to know is a man named Lazarus made Laura kill her husband Magnis before taking her to The Institution.

This is not a final copy and may still contain some technical or grammatical errors, please excuse them and read the story as intended, as entertainment. As always, enjoy!
 

Laura looked tired and unenthusiastic sitting in a cubical with several brain activity sensors attached to her head. One of The Institution’s mentors continued working with her trying their best to help her gain access to the spark and tap into its power. After a week and a day, the disappointment took a toll on both of them.

Her mentor Glen looked rather nerdy Laura thought. It must be the way he styles his short hair and the thick-rimmed glasses he wears. Although his physical build would not be typical for someone with that description. It’s hard for me to believe he is over forty when he doesn’t look any older than me.

“Laura,” he took off his nerdy glasses and tried to ease her mind, “it’s a new day. New chances for possibility. Today can be the day you find your spark, so think positive.”

Laura looked down at the floor, “Glen, how many times do we have to go through sitting here? How does The Institution even know I have the spark?”

Frustrations and Jubilations

I haven't blogged in a long while. It wasn't because I didn't have anything to say, it has been because I am working on "the craft" No, not witchcraft. The finer craft or writing. As I'm sure anyone can plainly see with any post with my actual work on it, it is very rough. Like it in that form or not, I'm learning how to turn it into something much better. One of these days I'm going to polish up Spark of the Dead as practice with my new skills.

The biggest problem I am having right now is fragmented focus. Rather than sitting down and working on Spark: Corruption I have been getting a random assortment of different book ideas. Most fit more in a short story setting vs an actual novel. This time I'm typing up each of my ideas and adding any extra thoughts to them I can at the time.

So with this frustration of trying to hone skills and scattered interest has come also means for excitement. I have been taking a hard look at Spark: Evolution and I found some areas needing improvement. Most of these realizations came with finishing the book Writing The Breakout Novel by Donald Maass. During the whole course of the book nothing is forced on you. There wasn't a time I felt ideas or concepts pushed on me. Instead it showed me how Donald Maass perceives the breakout novel piece by piece from his many years of success.

So, after reading this book and getting a lot of great help from the wonderful peeps at Writer's Digest forums I have been refining myself as a writer. I've been struggling with things, but am very happy with my progress at the same time. I was a fool to think I could naturally have the ability to write a novel and have all the technical aspects down right away. Though, from reading the book stated above, it did make me smile a lot because a very large if not all the things that breakout novels have... I'm proud to say I have already incorporated into my novel. Plot is great; normal character growth is great; pushing them to the limit and taking everything away from them in order to build them and conflict is great; theme may need to be expressed louder; emotions in place to really feel and care for my characters will be under a microscope.

To the last part above, I know I fall in love with my characters each time I read my story as if I don't know what is going on, but I'm sure being the creator has a good amount to do with that. Anyone who has read this so far has been in love with the characters in the ways I hoped they would. What I do need to do is make sure that those tension filled moments and emotion filled moments are indeed just that, tension filled and emotion filled.

Well enough from me for now, wish me luck on my very large task set before me. With my last words of the day, I say that writing a novel was easy, going after agents has been difficult (on hold for now), but nothing could prepare me for the magnitude of difficulty that making my novel technically sound has been with my limited education.