( continues...) California—just close enough to Hollywood to fear it’s radiation, just far enough away to not step into the sun. Andy has been slamming the same three poems in a Chicago bar since 1989, and Manuel has voted his co-workers off the island fifteen times in his head this week, mumbling the words, “You’re fired,” when he’s certain no one is listening.

When the days of the pop stardom draft come round, they will be prepared. There will be no preparation or commitment or work, just that meteoric rise to fame, the inevitable fall, and the feel of a heat on their fingers that burns like a sun, before it’s extinguished. The A&E special will be a commercial, their dreams hawking peanuts on the edge of stranger’s sleep.

VI

If all the world’s a stage, and all it’s people merely players, then tell me: who is in the audience, and who will clap when the curtain falls?

Effing writer's block!

A trade magazine I receive is looking for stringers, and I happen to think I'm qualified. I can readily write the body of a query letter explaining why--here's my experience, here's a link to some samples, yadda yadda yadda. What I'm stuck on is a nice opening hook. Those are easy to do for a query on a specific subject, because all you have to do is imagine how you'd lead the article. Is it OK to say something like this: "I was intrigued by the ad for stringers in the December issue. As a freelance writer with experience in research-intensive news articles, I believe I am highly qualified." Or is that too bland?

OK, I think this is a slight improvement:

Your request for stringers in the December 2004 issue of PubName intrigued me. As a freelance writer with experience writing research-intensive news articles, I believe I am highly qualified to write for PubAcronym.

Thoughts?

I don't know why it's so easy for me to write other people's cover and query letters, but as soon as it's me, I freeze up and obsess over every. single. word. Actually, I do know why--it's an artifact of having gotten rejected over and over again after having the good luck to sell two of the first three articles I queried. I've gone from "I'm good and I know it," to "I always thought I was good, but I've sure gotten a shitload of rejections this past year...AM I EVEN DOING THIS RIGHT????"

It sounds fine to me, Susan, but I have Absolutely No Qualifications for delivering a point of view. And of course, you're good. It's just that there's middle ground between "good and also right for this particular piece" and "not good and not even doing this right" -- you know?

In other news, it occurs to me that I maybe oughta pseudonym the following drabble, but you are probably the only person who might know who it's about. Heh. And I don't suppose he would mind the pejorative, anyway.

Mark

Ass.

That's pretty much the extent of what I thought. Just so damnably full of himself, his talent, his reputation, his...irony.

He had the one band, the name band, full of aging ego rockers, famous enough in their corner of the industry. And the other, the rockabilly one where he got to play stand-up and sing power ballads as sweet as arsenic. So satisfied, he was.

I never intended to give him a chance. To see the depth of vulnerability and character beneath that sharp-edged veneer. Years later, empty glasses between us, I would notice I had started to care.

Nice, Liese.

And dayum. Victor. I can see you pacing and hear you reading that aloud. The whole thing has a beat. It's wonderful!

Susan, I like the blurb, but I think I'd use another word for "highly" qualified. Not uniquely, either. Definitely, usefully, especially. It's a chance to get a quirky but not nutty impression in there, something that will make you linger in the memory. In a good way. A "hook", as you say.

Little Pink Houses

The piñon and mesas blurred by through the van window. It feels like coming home, I thought fleetingly, though I'd never been and I knew I was moving to the next state over, not here.

It still looked like a dorm then, insipid inspirational posters on the walls, the exterior pink paint cracked and peeling. No one lived there except during camp. The house was vacant, stagnant.

The paint is still peeling and still pink. But when we got that call, come and stay, I knew I would. I could already feel the crackle of the cedar in the fireplace.

Ack. I can't get stopped...this is not a drabble.
---

bleed, did you, was it
for me
that you tore down your
defenses a rage of
defenseless stands you took
so that i
would attack your tower and you
would know you
were still alive
behind those walls

then when i
toppled your fragile
emplacements and you were
displaced i would
see you the real
you the desperate and
lonely you murderous and
impotent and hungry
you

and i would
have to do something about it
about you
was it for me

or did you just bleed

Nice stuff, Liese.

I finally finished the query letter, but I'm going to let it rest overnight before sending it so I can give it a fresh look first. Besides, maybe it'll be better to have it hit the editor's inbox mid-morning than have it be part of the deluge of email from overnight when she logs in first thing. Though that's probably like all the obsessing over good and bad times of year to send queries that goes on on all my writer boards.

Okay, now that I've had some time to absorb the above...

erika, this piece is really, really good. It flows well, and it pulls me forward. It's visceral, urgent, present. I particularly like this line

sweeping the floor like she was cursing it.

Unlike deb, I liked the "Something doesn't fit" bit, although I did read it at first the way she did. That is, as a statement, not a conditional. However, I felt that the double read reflected the character's perceptions. Still, it did make me go back and check what I'd read, so it might be worth smoothing. Stylistically, I did like it.

Lastly, you should be impressed, for the timeframe and for the quality. You should be damned proud of yourself. And you do, totally, rule. I'm just sayin.

Next up...victor.

I think you already know how I feel about this piece. I could go into pithy little ecstasies about it, but I don't suppose it would be particularly meaningful. Still, it's excellent.

I can't help liking the writing even though I know my opinion is being colored by really liking the subject matter. Things I spend a perhaps unreasonable amount of time mulling over. It's good, and it gives a tasty fresh perspective, the rubber-band blink when it all snaps into a new and different focus. It's good.