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Hullo Spring
Springtime in the desert has begun with clouds and wind whistling eerily through the doors up here. Plus, things are blooming and budding in a way reminiscent of Seattle, but without all that chill. Coming from FL, I had fully expected to have no spring at all with this sort of heat and climate. But no - we do have a spring, and I am more than a little bit delighted.
I've been slowly moshing my way through the query pile, putting in a few minutes here and there as I find them. It's kind of fun, actually. And bite-sized, so a bit like eating cookie dough ice cream, where you keep thinking, "just this one more" and then uncover an even bigger chunk of cookie dough right underneath it, and you can't pass that up, but then there's just one more after that - and before you know it, five queries have been assessed.
It's also been a bit surprising. The way people generally talk about the slush pile, it sounds like it's 99% utter crap. Where really, it's more along the lines of 80% mediocre. Maybe I just need more experience, though. Either way, there's been a few gems already that have popped out at me, mostly in a, hey, I really want to read this type way. There are one or two I'm actually excited about, and I would really like to read the manuscripts. And there was one that sold before we got to requesting the partial, and I'm still a bit bummed by that.
It's also motivated me to get back to touching up GW so that it's query-ready. I've stipulated to myself that I have to finish SC first, though. Only 20k more to go on that front. Then I can work on revising SC while waiting to hear back on GW.
On Friday I drove all the way up to Phoenix to see the Flash Bus for my city council-mandated furlough day and it was a blast. Perhaps I will dedicate a post to it tomorrow.
In the meantime,
Day 24 - Your favorite movie and what it's about
I'm not much of a movie person. In fact, in HS and college, I pretty much just had to tell people to assume I haven't seen it, because I probably hadn't. I'm just more of a book person.
So I'm going to change this to a book question (but I do hold Jurassic Park close to my heart).
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel is close to, if not the, best book I've read. It's amazing in so many different ways and on so many different levels. Its writing style hearkens back to the gothic style of the 18th and 19th centuries, with many of the spelling peculiarities left in tact. Its characters are three dimensional and utterly believable. It's a book about magic, but magic as if it were an academic pursuit, complete with references to academic works on the subject and all the dull minutiae of real academia. Oh, and footnotes. God, I'm a sucker for footnotes.
Plus, its plot is beautiful and intricate and we are given an ending that is so very much in tune with the characters that you can't help but facepalm and sigh on their behalf. On one level it very much is a satire of academia. On another, it very much is a gruesome fairy tale. On every level it's splendid.
I also unabashedly love the Animorphs series which is in no way remotely comparable to JS&MrN, but gosh, I'm allowed my childhood reminisces.
I've been slowly moshing my way through the query pile, putting in a few minutes here and there as I find them. It's kind of fun, actually. And bite-sized, so a bit like eating cookie dough ice cream, where you keep thinking, "just this one more" and then uncover an even bigger chunk of cookie dough right underneath it, and you can't pass that up, but then there's just one more after that - and before you know it, five queries have been assessed.
It's also been a bit surprising. The way people generally talk about the slush pile, it sounds like it's 99% utter crap. Where really, it's more along the lines of 80% mediocre. Maybe I just need more experience, though. Either way, there's been a few gems already that have popped out at me, mostly in a, hey, I really want to read this type way. There are one or two I'm actually excited about, and I would really like to read the manuscripts. And there was one that sold before we got to requesting the partial, and I'm still a bit bummed by that.
It's also motivated me to get back to touching up GW so that it's query-ready. I've stipulated to myself that I have to finish SC first, though. Only 20k more to go on that front. Then I can work on revising SC while waiting to hear back on GW.
On Friday I drove all the way up to Phoenix to see the Flash Bus for my city council-mandated furlough day and it was a blast. Perhaps I will dedicate a post to it tomorrow.
In the meantime,
Day 24 - Your favorite movie and what it's about
I'm not much of a movie person. In fact, in HS and college, I pretty much just had to tell people to assume I haven't seen it, because I probably hadn't. I'm just more of a book person.
So I'm going to change this to a book question (but I do hold Jurassic Park close to my heart).
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel is close to, if not the, best book I've read. It's amazing in so many different ways and on so many different levels. Its writing style hearkens back to the gothic style of the 18th and 19th centuries, with many of the spelling peculiarities left in tact. Its characters are three dimensional and utterly believable. It's a book about magic, but magic as if it were an academic pursuit, complete with references to academic works on the subject and all the dull minutiae of real academia. Oh, and footnotes. God, I'm a sucker for footnotes.
Plus, its plot is beautiful and intricate and we are given an ending that is so very much in tune with the characters that you can't help but facepalm and sigh on their behalf. On one level it very much is a satire of academia. On another, it very much is a gruesome fairy tale. On every level it's splendid.
I also unabashedly love the Animorphs series which is in no way remotely comparable to JS&MrN, but gosh, I'm allowed my childhood reminisces.
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