Five Months Later …

So, uh, hey. Been a while. You’re looking good. Did you do something with your hair? How’s the family? Is —

Oh, shit. Jail? For — Stealing corpses? What was — You know what, I don’t want to know.

Huh? Me? Oh, uh, not much, really …

Secret Agents

After completing “the transplant novel” in February, I’ve been submitting the manuscript to literary agents ever since. Despite the fact that I still do not have an agent, I think things are going well, which mostly just speaks to how difficult it is to get an agent in the first place.

Of the 36 (!) agents I’ve queried so far, about a third have actually gotten back to me, mostly in the form of a pre-written rejection email, while the rest have let their abject silence do the talking.

Five, however — 5 (!) — have gone the other route entirely and requested a full manuscript.

Of those five, three have politely declined, while the other two also declined, even more politely, saying that they loved the book but they couldn’t sell it, which, I mean, I get.

I have no idea if the above statistics are average for this kind of endeavor or less than or whatever, so if anyone’s in a similar boat and wants to compare notes, I’m around.

The Write Stuff

In the meantime, I’ve started working on my next novel, a magical realist coming-of-age sex comedy crime book. Probably. I’m about 40,000 words in and, honestly, I still don’t know what the fuck this thing is about. It might be a love story now?

I’ll let you know when I know.

Oh, I’ve also written three new short stories that I can’t sell, either. Four, actually, if you count the complete and total rewrite of an older one.

No, wait, five. I wrote a flash thing this morning.

So, for those keeping score at home, that’s five stories (that I like), a novella, most of a new novel, and a complete edit of an entire other novel, since January, and yet I’m still not convinced that I’m writing fast enough. Writer brains are the worst.

Oh, also also, I write for Comic Book Resources now.

Cleaning Up

Hey, so, remember how, ten years ago or whatever, when online-only lit mags started popping up like weeds after six days of rain, and there was all that debate about the permanence of websites, or, more specifically, the lack thereof, and we were all like, noooo, it’s fine, the internet is forever?

 Turns out we were right the first time.

I just cleaned up my links and, well, there were a lot of defunct URLs. Including Word Riot, apparently? When did that happen?

Also, along with link maintenance, I switched the back-end of the site over to Gutenberg, which is why this post almost looks professional.

So, yeah, good seeing you. We should grab a cup of coffee or something next time. Don’t be a stranger.