Unabashed

I just finished reading Little Brother, and like just about everyone else who’s read it, I loved it. There’s been a lot of commentary about this book, and I agree with most of what I’ve read (especially this one), so I won’t add to it here. I’ll just say that this is a book people need to read. And it’s good. Really good.

Interestingly, I began reading the free PDF Cory posted on his website and liked it enough that by the time I was halfway through it went and bought the old hardback. Interesting the way that works, eh? Coincidentally, that’s exactly the way Doctorow legitimizes his tradition of posting free copies of his ebook, figuring that people don’t really like reading books on electronic devices, and if the reader likes the material they’ll go out and buy it (I know he thinks that way because he says so in the PDF’s introduction). Me, I didn’t buy it because I don’t like reading on an electronic device; I like reading ebooks on my Palm T|X or my Blackberry. I just bought it because it’s that good, I want my wife to read it, and I want it in my house for posterity’s sake. I want my children to read it one day. 

By the way, Little Brother is also a NY Times bestseller, so evidently giving away free copies of a book isn’t a death knell. It isn’t even a cold sore (Suck it, copyright proponents!). It would be interesting to know how many times a download led directly to a book sale.

Anyway, I look forward to more books like this from Cory. He’s already established as a great blogger and an activist for liberalizing copyright laws, and, though this isn’t his first book, it is his best, and it is the one that officially made him an author whose books I will buy from now on.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: author, authors, bestseller, copyright, Cory Doctorow, e-book, ebooks, little brother, piracy

Queries suck. At least writing them does. The entire novel-writing process has never made me feel so futile as penning these two vexing paragraphs. I could fill this page with links to query-writing suggestions and formats and information I’ve read from various outlets all over the web, all of it very helpful in its own context, but essentially worthless in applying to my own book. Why am I re-confronting my greatest fear? Because la Gringa wants to know where all the adult fiction subs are. And I have one. And I want to send it to her. I fear her rejection, yes, but this is more than some short story that I’ve labored over for a week and a half. This manuscript represents five years of my collective creative output. It represents potential success in publishing. It represents the hopes and dreams of a writer who wants to be. It represents potential for disposable income. I’ve been well aware of la Gringa’s advent into the agenting business, and I’ve had my manuscript ready for a good while now, I just don’t have the query letter right yet. If my book represents five years of creative output, this query letter represents another six months at least. No, it’s not all I’ve been working on, but I return to it regularly, and I suffer for its potential. I tweak it, and then I scrap it and start over, and then I agonize for a little while before I toil some more. But to dedicate so much time to something that can be the realization of all the dreams of a lifetime of writing is so daunting to me that I convince myself that the query must be better than the story itself, that my story depends on this little 100-word document to be successful, that if the story doesn’t get published it will be because I didn’t write the query letter well enough. And the worst of it is that great bit of advice I keep pinned to the wall by my desk:

…the writer never gets any better than the writing you see in the pitch letter.

Ack! Such pressure! To prove I’m worthy, that my story doesn’t suck, that I’m…well, you know how it is, don’t you, Mr. Query Letter. And I’ll bet you’re the most successful and wonderful story pitch there ever was–You. Sick. Bastard. You’re enjoying my pain, aren’t you? You see this blog and you look at me and think, “Heh, he’s in the gutter now!” Well, I’m done eating your scraps, Mr. Query. I’m jumping off this bus and catching a…a train. Or a hang glider.

Or a noose.

Oh, well. On to ver. 15.9…

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: author, book, Fiction, query, story, synopsis, writer, writing