West of Mars -- the Meet and Greet

I noticed that Lap Steel Guitar guy has been visiting here, and when I went to see who he was and what he was about, I was sucked in. Utterly fascinated.

I think Mitchell and Eric need to explore this idea some. See if they can incorporate a lap steel guitar into heavy metal.

Labels: cool stuff

The Tour Manager made scallion pancakes tonight for dinner.

You're going, "So what? Who cares?"

But I'm telling you... wait. Remember me when you see scallion pancakes. Remember me when you become as addicted to them as I am.

And remember this post when Behold Me (or whatever I'll finally call it) hits the shelves.

Labels: scallion pancakes, Susan Speaks

Trevor ordinarily would scorn bandwagon jumping. He'd start yelling about sheep, lemmings, being blind, and how we're losing the ability to think for ourselves. He'd brag about how proud he was of being an individual.

And that's all fine and good, but when there are people out there whose only aim in life is to take advantage of someone's good intentions, well, you need to stand up and raise your voice. After all, Mitchell is one of those who's probably naive enough to be taken advantage of, and taking advantage of Mitchell Voss is a definite no-no in Trevor's book -- err, well, his thinking, anyway. His book is something else. Trevor's Song

So... without further ado... Writer's Beware list of the 20 Worst Literary Agents. I nabbed it from Miss Snark's blog, of course, but it's the Writer's Beware list, all right.

Please, none of you folks on this list call me about representing Trevor's Song. I'm not interested in what you claim to have to offer.

* The Abacus Group Literary Agency
* Allred and Allred Literary Agents (refers clients to "book doctor" Victor West of Pacific Literary Services)
* Capital Literary Agency (formerly American Literary Agents of Washington, Inc.)
* Barbara Bauer Literary Agency
* Benedict & Associates (also d/b/a B.A. Literary Agency)
* Sherwood Broome, Inc.
* Desert Rose Literary Agency
* Arthur Fleming Associates
* Finesse Literary Agency (Karen Carr)
* Brock Gannon Literary Agency
* Harris Literary Agency
* The Literary Agency Group, which includes the following:
Children's Literary Agency
Christian Literary Agency
New York Literary Agency
Poets Literary Agency
The Screenplay Agency
Stylus Literary Agency (formerly ST Literary Agency)
Writers Literary & Publishing Services Company (the editing arm of the above-mentioned agencies)
* Martin-McLean Literary Associates
* Mocknick Productions Literary Agency, Inc.
* B.K. Nelson, Inc.
* The Robins Agency (Cris Robins)
* Michele Rooney Literary Agency (also d/b/a Creative Literary Agency and Simply Nonfiction)
* Southeast Literary Agency
* Mark Sullivan Associates
* West Coast Literary Associates (also d/b/a California Literary Services)

Labels: agent hunting, Inside Writing, Miss Snark, publishing

And maybe this will find its way back into a book somewhere, sometime. Polished up, of course -- just a reminder that everything I post here is in rough state.

Anyway, here's the excerpt:

Sleeping with sketch pads in the bed was about as common as the boys sleeping with their favorite stuffed dinosaurs; Mitchell had once offered to buy her a stuffed animal of her own, but she'd countered by telling him that unless he was going to stuff himself, she didn't want another animal in her bed.

He'd pretended to be offended, telling her his skills in her bed elevated him far above animal status. She'd countered by telling him she hadn't known he was smart enough to know words like elevated.

He'd promptly shown her what else he knew. Which, of course, had been her plan all along.

Labels: creative writing, fiction, Kerri, Mitchell, outtake

Mitchell wasn't having much luck reading his guitar magazine. He knew it was stupid to sit at the kitchen table and try to read in the first place, but Kerri wasn't helping matters any.

She was pacing around the cooking area, stopping to open the pantry, the refrigerator, the cabinets. She'd move things around, dig a bit in the freezer for something near the back, close everything up again, and move on to the next spot.

Over and over.

She was on her twelfth circuit when he'd had enough.

"Woman, what the fuck are you doing?"

"I need chocolate. I can't believe we don't have any chocolate. Why is there no chocolate in this house?" she asked as she took every single thing off one of the pantry shelves.

Mitchell got up to take a look at the things she was putting on the floor. Pancake mix, syrup, cans of tuna, corn starch -- that was the sort of stuff he was expecting to see. And he supposed he remembered picking up that bottle of Big Buck's Bodacious Sauce the last time he'd been at Big Buck's for some ribs.

But when it came to things like a dry scone mix, a paper cup of corn chowder that needed to have water added before it was anything but powder, and six varieties of balsamic vinegar, all he could do was scratch his head. Some of it he could blame on Val, who loved to force her gourmet finds on them. Some of it might have come from Nancy, and some of it… who knew? Maybe one of Amy's jokes again?

"Ker," he asked softly as she growled and started putting things back, "where'd some of this come from?"

She looked at the can of baby bay shrimp in her hand. "You know," she said slowly, "I have no clue. And you know what else?" she asked, fixing him with a stare that was so bright, it made him wince. "I don't care. It's not chocolate and that is what this is about. Where the fuck is the chocolate?"

He thought fast. The boys were still with Nancy; he had time before she'd want to leave for the day. He could pull this off -- if he moved now.

Mitchell grabbed Kerri by the shoulders and turned her toward the door leading to the garage. "Come with me," he said.

"Where?"

She tried to resist, so he bent and slung her over his shoulder.

"I'm taking you out and we're buying out every single peanut butter cup the store's got. What doesn't make you puke in an hour's going into the freezer."

"Stop!"

When she struggled, he set her down as gently as he could, worried that the way she was moving, she'd hurt herself. Or, worse, he'd hurt her.

"I don't want peanut butter cups. I want…" She licked her lips, her eyes roaming the ceiling. "I want brownies."

"I think I saw a box on the floor."

Kerri looked at him, her hazel eyes twinkling. "Race ya to 'em."

"Nah, you go. Call me when they're done." He started to stroll off, but she tackled him. Thankfully, not hard enough to bring him down, but hard enough to knock some of his wind out. He gave her a scornful look over his shoulder.

"You're eating?" she asked. "Then you're helping bake."

"Only if I get to smear batter on you and lick it off."

"Nope," she said calmly, picking the box of mix up off the floor.

"You do it to me?" he asked hopefully. "Would that be chocolate enough for ya?"

She pressed up against him and gave him one of those infuriating closed-lipped kisses. "Try it and see. But… after we bake these puppies and I've had a few."

Mitchell frowned as she tore into the box. She peered inside, looking so cute he wanted to melt, then with a sheepish smile read the back for the cooking directions.

"You know," he drawled, ready to break and run before she could throw something at him, "in two days, you'll be telling me to take what's left over to the studio because you don't want to gain three pounds just by breathing in their scent."

"You know," she answered, cocking her head slightly, "you could forget about that smearing batter thing, get out of my sight, and let me enjoy my brownies in peace, motherfucker."

Mitchell decided that even Trevor wasn't enough of a fool to hang around after that charming invite. He grabbed his guitar magazine and headed out onto the back porch. Anything to avoid the evil brownie fumes; Kerri would find a way to curse him so he gained three pounds, he was sure of it.

Labels: brownies, chocolate, creative writing, fiction, Kerri, kitchen, Mitchell, outtake

Okay, I'll admit it: I'd love to have a song written about me, preferably a love song, not a "You broke my heart, die you evil bitch scum" song.

But people don't want to be turned into a fictional character; it doesn't hold the same charm, somehow. Yet they sure are fast to pick up on a negative characteristic and assume that a character is them.

I'm here to tell you, folks, that no matter how well I know you, you aren't my characters. I am. Or they are me; something like that.

Even if I had been a good enough writer to fictionalize a living person, I learned my lesson in grad school when one of my classmates saw a number of her wedding invitations declined because her family members thought they saw themselves on the pages of her first short story collection.

Now, I'll freely admit to stealing events that happen from you. Like the time I was on the phone with a friend and one of her kids sneezed right on the head of the other one. I mean, come ON. If that's not something Mitchell and Amy would do to each other, I don't know what is.

But back to how my characters are me. Today, I did what can only be called "pulling a Trevor."

I walked into the locker room at the gym this morning and found a woman (not one of the regulars, obviously) taking up the bench space near the locker I was using even though her own locker was at the other end of the row. She was on her cell phone, despite a prominently posted no cell phone policy.

I opened my locker and started rummaging through my stuff. Did she move? No. Did she react when my Gatorade fell out of my locker and damn near landed on my cheekbone? No.

Did she keep chatting?

You betcha.

Was she still there after my shower? Had she moved?

Do I really need to answer those questions?

I went over to my locker and turned to her, my dirty gym clothes balled up in my hand, and started to hand them to her. I then pretended to realize she was there, and tossed them on the floor instead.

She beat a pretty hasty retreat after that.

The part of me that's Trevor was pretty darn proud of myself.

I have another outtake for you guys soon. This one's for us girls.

Labels: Susan Speaks