From my local blog: Brooklyn Heights Novelist Jennifer Miller Hawks Her Book Via Novel Strategy: A ‘Novelade Stand’ (with free cookies).

Great idea. And she's getting at least some press, which is part of the goal.

It hurts to hear things like that, though -- seven years spent writing a book, and it really does have only a very short window in which to make an impression, especially today. And the literary novel readership is harder to market to, I think.

Lovely DSF email story, Holli!

I'd think so...some of the best ones don't have elevator-pitch thrills and chills.

Thanks, Sox!

Well, I rewrote the query for Defenders and I'm *really* happy with it. It's so much snappier now.

Leah Archer wishes more than anything that she were a special person, a chosen person, magically destined to make a difference in the world. The kind of person she reads about.

She's not. Her bratty little sister is. And the unfairness of it all is driving her nuts.

After helping to cast an accidental spell, one of Leah's friends is kidnapped away to a kingdom caught in a ten-year winter, and Leah and her sister mount a rescue mission. It'd be the fantasy adventure of Leah's dreams-- except it’s dangerous, and scary, and cold. Except that if her sister embraces the magical heritage Leah would give anything to have, Leah might lose her forever.

Leah can’t shake the feeling that she’s nothing more than set dressing in someone else’s story. But she’s determined to find a way to make a difference, no matter what destiny has to say about it.

DEFENDERS OF THE CROWN is a 50,000-word young adult novel. My short stories have appeared in Strange Horizons and Daily Science Fiction, and will soon be featured in Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show.

Sold a story to Nature Magazine's Futures section today. It was a good day.

Connie, it was great meeting you in person!

You know, if you folks weren't already such awesome writers, I would pimp the hell out of the writing department of my division. They have some really awesome faculty on hand that offer all kinds of critique services and online courses that get rave reviews. If anyone is interested, I'll post links; otherwise, I'll just shut up.

well, you can if you want.Some of us don't have writing-course money, but maybe sometime.

Sold a story to Nature Magazine's Futures section today. It was a good day.

Congrats!

Cog 2 is all outlined with lots of scene synopses. Now all I need to do is write it.

I have a great idea for a novel. Well to be exact, I have a great world. I have to come up with a plot and characters, but world is one of the scariest I've every thought of. (Based on a dream, I mentioned it while back). Here is the basic description of the world.

We have always been surrounded by ghosts. Everyone who dies becomes one. Fortunately for the living, the dead have their own concerns. That is why we encounter them so seldom. The dead are everywhere but mostly pay us no attention.

Unfortunately a team of paranormal researchers have learned how to draw the attention of ghosts, to materialize them, enslave them and control them. Now tangible ghosts, ghosts who can work 24 hours a day without food or rest, are displacing the living in all fields. Soon the world will consist of the very rich and their spirit slaves. The rest of the living will become servants to the fashionable rich who choose keep a few living workers, or charity cases. Most will simply be denied work and food and medical care, so that they can die as soon as possible and transform into the useful dead.

We are not quite there yet; the transition is in its early days. Four in ten of the living still have some sort of job. But the dead replace more of the living every day.

There have been attempts by rebel candidates to campaign on a program of reversing this process. But existing legislators in democratic nations have passed reforms to fight the scourge of voter fraud. The new IDs these reforms require are so expensive that now only the very rich can vote. Some say that these new laws were passed under ghostly threats, others that simple bribery was sufficient. In undemocratic nations, the process has been even simpler.

Nor is there much room for other kinds of politics. Neither peaceful protest nor armed rebellion seem practical. Any attempt at either is put down by hordes of tireless unkillable soldiers from the wars of the past. Warriors who fought with or against Alexander the Great will float side by side with Stalin's. The armies of Hitler and Churchill will fight together to supress dissent or rebellion.

The rich and those who are still employed live well in the new ghost economy. Nobody needs to drive; they can be transported in the ghost-powered, ghost-steered flying carriages owned by the grand new monopoly "For the dead travel fast". Ghostly servants are available cheaply from "House Elves Inc." Since the dead are not only a source of cheap labor, but can replace most machines, food and consumer goods are absurdly cheap worldwide. And if some don't like spending every moment surrounded by the dead, or wish to do more things for themselves - well it would be dangerous to say so. No need to join the hordes of homeless beggars sooner than you must, or become part of the great dead majority prematurely.