Guilty Pleasure

I'm a sucker for cute animal pictures. I always have been. When you add pithy comments to the cute animal pictures then I'm all over it. That's why I love the www.icanhascheesburger.com site. It's become my guilty pleasure. When I'm at work and I need a break, I go to the site and look at the pictures for a few minutes then I'm ready to get back to work. The picture above is my brother's family dog, Buckeye. I added the caption to infuse a little holiday spirit.

Happy Holidays,

Nancy

Merry Catmas

Lucky: "What is it?"

Bailey: "It's a Christmas tree, buddy. Humans cut down perfectly good climbing trees and plant them in their living rooms and decorate them with shiny balls. Never seen one this small."

Lucky: "Will I be able to climb it?"

Bailey: " One day, buddy. One day."

Happy Holidays,

Nancy, Bailey and Lucky

Times They Are A' Changing

Sadly, it looks like Kirkus Reviews is closing it's doors after reviewing books since 1933.

Agent, Michelle Humphrey has recently left Sterling Lord. You can find more details about that here. If you look over on the blogroll (of that link) you should see a recently posted interview regarding what type of submissions she accepts.

Anon,

Nancy

Christmas Shopping 1919 style!

Christmas 1919, my grandparents were newlyweds. My grandfather was working as an Army Chaplain and was stationed in France for part of the war and for a time after the Armistice. My grandmother sent him an account of her expenditures. Regarding Christmas presents she wrote:

Everything was so expensive this year and there seemed so many to remember. I had little time for making things, so do not think that Christmas will cost us this much every year. I felt I must treat your people well for your sake; Grandmother and I went together to get sweaters for the boys; I bought napkins for Grandmother and made a sweater for Ellen. These things count up fast.

It turns out she bought presents for 29 people. Her total cost? $41.47.

If only...

Anon,

Nancy

A Wish List

Just in time for the Holidays, the good folks at the Dystel Goderich Literary Agency have posted a wish list for submissions... The list is posted on the right side of the blog and you can get there from here.

The Wait

The wait for an agent or editor to respond to a query, the wait for someone to accept your work; those are some of the most frustrating things we deal with as writers. We rack up countless rejections as we toil in quiet desperation. Sometimes it helps to know we are not alone. Some of the most successful authors struggled to get their work published.

Theodor Geisel’s first picture book, To Think It happened on Mulberry Street, was rejected 29 times before it was finally accepted for publication. His books have since sold over 100 million copies.

John Grisham's A Time to Kill was repeatedly rejected. He now has over 60 million copies of his novels in print. Pearl S. Buck's Pulitzer Prize winning book The Good Earth was rejected something like 14 times.

What if Ted Geisel only sent out 28 queries, imagine growing up NOT reading A Cat in The Hat? Or Horton Hears a Who or dare I say it, The Lorax. Can you imagine not seeing someone sitting in an airport reading A Time to Kill, or The Client or The Pelican Brief? If these authors stopped short of their goal, that's what might have happened. Hard to believe. So what does it take to get published in this ever-changing, unforgiving world of publishing?

Perseverance: that dogged pursuit of a goal in spite of the obstacles. I think a great representation of perseverance is in this Jacob Riis quote:

I'd look at one of my stone cutters hammering away at the rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet, at the hundred and first blow it would split in two, and I knew it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.

-Jacob August Riis

So hang in there, fellow writers!

Anon,

Nancy

An Interesting Week

-I spoke to a woman who thought we were messing with her account. Apparently, she forgot she actually had to login. Did I mention she was about 2 1/2 sheets to the wind. Seriously, it was 1:00 in the afternoon.

-I also spoke to not one but two different people who were hired by writers to help them find an agent. Hiring an agent to find an agent. Is this a new trend? If it is, it's a bad one. It makes me wonder if these people are lazy or clueless?

Anon,

Nancy

This Friday

-I spoke to a woman who thought we were messing with her account. Apparently, she forgot she actually had to login. Did I mention she was about 2 1/2 sheets to the wind. Seriously, it was 1:00 in the afternoon.

 -I also spoke to not one but two different people who were hired by writers to help them find an agent. Hiring an agent to find an agent. Is this a new trend? If it is, it's a bad one. It makes me wonder if these people are lazy or clueless?

Anon, Nancy

This Friday

I had an interesting day... -I spoke to a woman who thought we were messing with her account. She apparently forgot she had to login. Did I mention she was about 2 1/2 sheets to the wind. Seriously, it was 1:00pm in the afternoon. -I also spoke to two different people that were hired by writers to help them find an agent. The writer essentially hired an agent to find them an agent. Is this a new trend? If it is, it's a bad one. How was your week?



Anon, Nancy

New Agent at the Bent Agency

Looks like The Bent Agency has added a new agent. Her name is Susan Hawk and she represents both Middle Grade and Young Adult authors. You can find out more about her here.