Monthly Archives: March 2013

Querying the Pitch

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Literary agents can be very specific in how they think a query letter should be pitched. Querying the PitchSend a query letter of no more than two pages, which includes your credentials, an explanation of what makes your book unique and special, and a synopsis.

Rather than leading with the plot, lay out the case for your book in a crisp, tidy four-paragraph format that begins: 1) Here is a (describe type of book),  2) It’s the story of (give only a three-sentence summation), 3) Here’s how the book came to be written and what people think of it, 4) Here are my credentials.Querying the PitchI prefer a short, clear letter rather than one that is overwritten or opaque. By which I mean, get to it: Know how to talk about your work succinctly.

Others aren’t as encouraging: No unsolicited queries accepted.

Querying the PitchI will try to get my bad side query right.

Gerbi Norberg’s Audio-Visual Image Manipulation

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There are a number of issues presented in The Life and Home of Gerbi Norberg, including native rights, eugenics, animal trafficking and the extraction of precious elements. However one aspect that is of primary metaphoric importance is a computer system, a precursor to Computer Graphics Imagery (CGI). cgiI was a closed-caption editor at the time, which involved a lot of fast-forwarding and rewinding of the videotape, and watching the characters go back and forth, pause and start again, and got me to thinking about a system that could manipulate what was seen on the screen.

I’ll never understand why people believe what they see on television, in films. The camera is a mechanism, a process that manipulates. I remember watching The Ten Commandments when I was a kid. ten_commandmentsThat’s when I realized that movies were all lies. I mean, the movie spanned the entire life of Moses, from a baby to an old man. And when you do that, compress and expand time and space, that simple idea, it’s a lie. Montage. It’s a lie. Anyway, that was the starting point for my software for AVIM, or Audio-Visual Image Manipulation. It was a simple process. I only had to divide the screen into a grid with small enough coordinates that the manipulation was undetectable, and second, establish a language for the process. It wasn’t just a matter of typing in ‘Give the duck more feathers.’ duckI had to establish the coordinates for the duck in each frame and then create the code, instructing the system to match the form, shading and color of the duck’s feathers, make allowances, how the feathers might stick out and curl, and plot the trajectory from beginning to end. It just took time.

Re-inventing the Business of Writing

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My aspirations as a writer began in Grade Five, although I must admit that my series on the Secret Spitball Society didn’t impress Mr. Bacon, nor did my extra-terrestrial cat-being proclaiming See the USA in your Chevrolet! chevy adMr. Bacon had us listen to John McIntyre’s clever, metaphoric prose instead, a story set in Niagara Falls, someone going over in a barrel. barrelAnim2My words weren’t as adroit as John McIntyre’s, but I did have stories in my head; I just had to learn how to let them come out in a pure kind of form. I continued to write – more superficial stuff, including the closing pages to a confused epic (Vile Illuminations), and some awful poems in high school, and then angsty plays (Alleluia & Bare Cage) and awkward screenplays (Ferges in Newfoundland & Beyond the Sand of Virginia) in university – before starting my first novel in Paris.hemingway1I had a few moments of my hoped-for purity in The Sacred Whore, characters speaking for themselves, images flowing out, but it was more me just doing my five pages a day, gleaning along the way, until I had arrived at page 718. Something seemed to be working. I shared my progress with Ben, a fellow writer I met at a party in Toronto. He stared back. “I’m re-inventing the novel. It’s time to shed the artifice of the narrative and create something more pure.” Purity? Oh no. squirrelsWas I as stupid and inane? I resolved to avoid writers from that moment on. I wrote in silence. I would think and read and write alone. That was all. I would send the work out and someone, somewhere would understand. And I did just that, stayed away from other writers, from everyone in the business, and wrote in London, Cordoba, Sardinia, Vancouver and New York. The isolation helped me find my sense and direction. Crown8And even if I didn’t re-invent the novel, I found a voice and only need the patience for it to be heard.

Andrew’s Death in The Dull Earth

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The Dull Earth, the second half of Affected Grandeur, is a dark narrative centered on a pair of unpleasant guys scouting France for a film on Napoleon. There are few, if any, redeeming qualities of either; they are base and self-obsessed.

Carnie was surprised at how tired he was of France. Maybe it was just the wandering and drinking and the arguments with Andrew. Maybe it was just Andrew. He shouldn’t have let him come. The film would probably never get off the ground. He could get rid of him and head down to Corsica. Film or no film, he really should go there. They had topless beaches. Topless_beach_MallorcaCarnie stopped at a delicatessen.      

“Bonjour, Monsieur.” A pretty woman stood behind the counter. 

“Bonjour.” Carnie examined the food through the glass. “Uh…trois tranches de jambon, et une piece de brie, une grand piece…” Brie_de_Meaux1Just as the woman reached into the counter, there was an explosion. Carnie fell to the floor with his arms over his head. And then it was silent. He opened his eyes. The woman stared out the window. He watched her for a moment. There wasn’t anyone in sight. He realized the car was gone. He went out the door. A truck was across the road, the car crushed beneath the front. Truck-in-Small-CarThere was a point, black, twisted, where the car vanished beneath the truck, and the machines were obscenely connected. The woman from the delicatessen was beside him; she was talking and he couldn’t understand.

The Dog Who Ate Cancer

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Biba was diagnosed with cancer a few months ago, right after Hurricane Sandy. It was grossly evident by the tumor on her right hind leg and was confirmed by the veterinarian shortly after that; her nodes were infected throughout her body. IMAG2379Her energy level declined rapidly; she could barely stand for more than a minute. She ate little – this the dog who ate eyeglasses, ant poison and an entire blueberry pie in her youth – vomited frequently and spent most of her time in bed. She hated her walks; she just wanted to be left alone. I bandaged the tumor regularly, necessary because the tumor was massive and bleeding, and she ate it raw; she tore and ate at the bandages too. That was all she was eating at that point. It was a most unpleasant affair. I wanted it to end. So did she. IMAG2378I upgraded her food to moist and organic to get her to eat a little. And she did, but too quickly, and vomited again and again. But at least she was enjoying the food. That was something. And then, after a most monstrous and vile up-spew of bile, beef chunks and old bandages, she seemed a bit cheerier. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but she was willing to walk more than a block. And then more than two. IMAG2381She was still slumping in her back legs, still sleeping a lot, but she wasn’t bone thin and always tired. She looked alive again. And miraculously, the tumor started to heal. It didn’t seem possible, but the bleeding sore was getting sealed by skin. And she’d stopped chewing on it. Suddenly she was ready for her walks and wanting to play. I looked into her cloudy eyes and she looked back. “That’s right. I ate my cancer.” IMAG2387And she wanted a treat for doing that.

3-D Ojibwa?

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I had a glimmer of light on my screenplay, The Life and Home of Gerbi Norberg, in 1996, when I piqued an agent’s interest by making reference in my cover letter to the assumed “teetering piles” of submissions on her desk. She liked the image and called. “Before you come down to chat, I would like you to address the title. The Life and Home of Gerbi Norberg doesn’t work, does it? You need something that will catch the audience’s attention.” I was most pliant; I arrived the next day with my newly christened Manitou island. manitou“What does that mean?”

“The Manitou are the Ojibwa spirits.”

“Spirits? That’s a start.” She scanned through the first pages. “Okay, and this. I’m not sure about these names. What’s this one? Asawsny?”

“Asawasanay. He’s the spiritual leader.” I pointed out the name to follow. “And Pamequonaishcung is an elder. They’re Ojibwa.”“Pamakon? Oh.” She turned the pages. “I’m not sure that’s going to work.”

“That’s what the story is about. It’s their spiritual return to the land.”

“Oh.” The meeting deteriorated from there, and there was no follow-up. I understood her point about making the story accessible, and changes of course could be made, but her approach was facile, like she expected an explosion of light. bibleI was supposed to amaze and astound, to make the sale, so that she could sell another. I balked. Eleven books later, I’m still struggling with that. (And, yes, I changed the title back to The Life and Home of Gerbi Norberg.)

Bloom Jimmy & “Call the Dancers”

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Call the Dancers, a short novel, almost a novella, is set in Dublin and features a punk band, Bloom Jimmy, who only perform the words of James Joyce. jimmyjThe lights went out. Bloom Jimmy returned to the stage.”Like to be that rock she sat on,” Jack announced quietly and then sang, “‘O sweety all your little girlwhite up I saw dirty bracegirdle made me do love sticky we two naughty Grace darling she him half past the bed met him pike hoses frillies for Raoul to perfume your wife black hair heave under embon senorita young eyes Mulvey plump years dreams return tail end Agendath swoony lovey showed me her next year in drawers return next in her next her next.'” The drums and guitars began. He began screaming. “Darling, I saw your! I saw all! Darling, I saw your! I saw all! Friction of the position! Like to be that rock she sat on! Like to be that rock she sat on! Like to be that rock she sat on!”   Bloom Jimmy & "Call the Dancers"The music was churning; the crowd smoked and thrashed. Stephanie was glad for the shelter provided by Nicholas. Joyce or not. It wasn’t good. What would he think of this? She had read a little of Ulysses, but just the sections about sex, penises being hat racks and crowbars. What was her name? Milly. The wife was Milly. That wasn’t right. Molly. That was it. Her name was Molly. Ulysses intimidated her. All of the masterpieces did, To the Lighthouse, those, consciousness and no story.

The Trilogy of “Buzz”

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I wrote Buzz in three installments, one per year, 1996-99. Leaving documents the main character’s younger years, cycling across Europe to burn off a broken heart. Syria 198A yellow road turned inland from Valencia, went up into the hills and onto the plateau of La Mancha. The climb out of Chiva was hard, four vast switchbacks to the ridge, a burnt-out tractor-trailer wreck beneath a sign welcoming visitors to the heart of Spain. Sad dusty trees teetered beside rocks and weathered white-washed houses. Maybe here he wouldn’t see so many dead dogs. 

Through is a piece in stasis, offering only the illusion of getting anywhere. IMAG1220The monster blackness in the corner of the room, ripping the roof off, vertigo and on forever, beautiful and tiny like a bar of soap, just under foot, holding it, dinosaurs across the island and his mother’s best friend lying with him naked bent over backwards, the curtains and the phone ringing, on a boat, a really nice boat with a super big flag and clean bathrooms or in tatters and leaking a bit.

And Out is the final dissolution, what it is to have thrown everything away for no reason at all. Phone 290I was trying to understand, meaning to do it right, holding her eyes perfect, leave nothing, not myself, not jumping, not dead, not there, and then just stupid, loving her, stuck in myself, stuck stupid and sad.

Black Ice: Alone Together

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Black Ice is a novel about isolation. The eldest son is handicapped, lost in his own world; none of his family knows how to connect. reader460Joel didn’t throw rocks; he didn’t punch and grab. He just read, mostly in his room, hunched up, hour after hour, at the end of his bed or against the closet door, his tongue half out, fingers tightly at the corners. Michelle worried about his eyes and posture. She had John move the desk beside the window and put in a nice straight-back chair, but Joel wouldn’t use either. Michelle left the ceiling light on to find it off again, Joel in the dark. As frustrating as it was, she knew it was pointless to get upset; she could only sigh when his glasses got thicker. He liked history books the best, stories about real people. White Slaves of the Nootka was about an Englishman held captive by Nootka Indians hundreds of years back. White-SlavesCam laughed at him, “You mean the Knucklehead people.” Joel liked the Nootka people because they liked being alone. That was like Pesto. Joel said that Pesto was a Nootka. He wrote the name in his Rabbit Book. Pesto wasn’t a rabbit; rabbits were just what Joel drew. The drawings were only at the beginning; it was all writing after that, all about Pesto and where he went.

Dream within a Dream

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Writing about dreams is a hazard to be avoided. As grand and pure as the moments may seem, they are probably too much that and thus not decipherable for others. IMAG2424And yet…and yet…I really did have an interesting dream last night. I was attending a seminar on how to submit work to agents. I was on my computer, editing my cover letter for my bad side when I received an email titled we will take you. Yes, it was from an agent. I held myself still, not wanting to shatter the moment. IMAG2369Someone ran past and I leaned forward to hide the computer screen. And then I clicked. We are pleased to advise you of our interest in your work. I scrolled down quickly, too quickly, and found an email exchange between two of the agents regarding my work, one extolling the vitality of my prose, the other in complete agreement…and then a note near the bottom about editing out the dream imagery. I didn’t care. I had an agent!