Take The Money

Imagine borrowing the money for a down payment for a home from your parents.

Now you owe them. They act as if they're happy to do it, even if they aren't pleased that you frittered away too much of your salary when you should have been more fiscally conservative.

But they have a stake in your existence by making that loan, and before you know it, your mother is calling you every day to tell you how much you can pay for a new suit, and you can't afford to buy steak for dinner. Your father tells you how much you can give to the kiddies for their walking-around money.

You don't want to live like that.

Neither does Ireland. But they may not have any choice.

The EU is about to force large wads of cash down Ireland's throat, all in an effort to prop up the euro so that other nations don't go under. The Irish government keeps insisting that it can make it on its own, get its own house in order, but things aren't progressing fast enough for the EU member states.

An Taoiseach Brian Cowen is already unpopular because he's being blamed for the financial crisis, but the house of cards was tumbling before he took office. He'd like to control the cost-cutting schemes so that he doesn't lose a vote of confidence and lose his position, but if the EU makes all the decisions on what gets cut and what must go, he can be sure the Irish electorate will send him packing.

Sadly, it won't make a bit of difference if Enda Kenny switches places with Mr. Cowen. Once the EU bails out Ireland, it owns Ireland, and the voting public can change partners but the dance won't be any different.

They can protest cuts to the health care system from one end of the island to the other, but cuts will be made because Ireland has spent itself into bankruptcy. He who pays the piper, as they say, and it will be the EU calling the tunes.

The EU will demand an increase in the VAT and the Irish will see prices rise. The EU will demand cuts in social welfare programs that its members believe are wasteful, and the programs will be gone. The Irish people and their elected officials will be painted out of the picture.

Members of the EU who have long been jealous of Ireland's low corporate tax, the vehicle that drove the Celtic Tiger, will casually step in and raise it. Corporations will flee to other tax shelters, leaving Ireland worse off and facing a more difficult time paying back the EU's loans.

A steady diet of spuds and buttermilk looms on the horizon, a return to the bad old days. And there's your parents, telling you they told you so when you went on that spending spree.

Modern Day Political Intrigue

The book group is reading Philippa Gregory's The Other Queen this month. How coincidental that Prince William is now engaged to long-time girlfriend Kate Middleton.

As for the book, I feel as if I've read it before, but there's been several novels published in the past few years that cover the same subject in much the same way. At any rate, it's been difficult getting through the book and when it's time for discussion, I know I'll veer off on a tangent.

We live in modern times, but why would the 21st Century be completely different from the Elizabethan era when it comes to royalty?

From historical fiction to non-fiction, you can follow the twists and turns that were matchmaking in the day when producing an heir to the throne was critical to the kingdom's stability. What sort of intrigue might have been involved for the Middleton clan?

I wonder if there were several mothers in the nobility who wheedled invitations to certain events so that their lovely daughters could meet and attempt to sweep the prince off his feet. Did some women call in markers to get their female offspring in the same space as royalty so that their daughter might one day be the queen of England?

Back in the days of Henry VIII, it was all about political influence and favors. The family of the king's consort got all the plum positions in the royal government, along with the money and prestige that went with it.

Although not as corrupt, why wouldn't it be the same today? Will Ms. Middleton's extended family stand to benefit from the marriage? Maybe a cousin with an insurance agency would get to underwrite the fire insurance for Windsor and Balmoral Castles, no bidding required. An uncle in banking might have business thrown his way by someone hoping to get an invite to some royal party or other.

The possibilities are endless, as is the potential for speculation.

At least we won't have to talk about a book I may not finish in time for the club's next meeting.

Keeping An Eye On The Corporation And The Employees

As if work isn't stressful enough, there are new reports coming out which suggest it's going to get even more stressful.

You will no longer be able to ease that stress with a smoke or a drink because your boss will be watching you.

Corporations with an eye on the bottom line know that health care premiums are climbing ever higher and there's a powerful incentive to reduce costs and increase profits.

If you, the employee, would quit smoking lower blood pressure reduce cholesterol lose weight exercise regularly live a healthy life style.....You thought your only job was to be a productive member of the team, perform your duties and earn your paycheck?

You, the employee, are also expected to be relatively sheep-like and a bit thick, as your employer is being told that you would do all those things in exchange for a gift card.

To date, wellness programs for the laboring classes have not resulted in lowering premiums. No matter. Corporate officers have been assured by the insurance underwriters that if they would only just push the notion a little harder, coercing employees to be healthier will eventually show positive results.

It can't be just a few employees who embrace the healthy lifestyle program. All the employees have to be on board for cost savings to be realized.

Get ready.

You'll soon be under pressure to sign on with the wellness coach who will be setting up shop near the front door so that the smokers can be kept under watch. As if you don't have enough to do, between commuting, the kids and their schedules, keeping up the house and minding your aging parents, you can add a few classes to the mix.

And it won't just be your boss getting after you. Your fellow workers, who have been promised that their insurance costs will drop if they get everyone to the spin class at noon, will harass you as well. If you smoke, you'll be under pressure to quit. It you eat, you'll be under pressure to eat fruits and vegetables and low-fat items.

It's time to fight for your rights as an adult. Otherwise, you'll always be treated as a recalcitrant child.

I'm going out for a smoke.

Our Bad, Sorry

The European Union decided to regulate the sugar industry and Ireland lost an historic link.

The sugar beet industry dated back to the early days of the Republic, when Dev decided that sugar production by the Irish Free State was the way to get business moving in the periphery of the island. Sugar beet production became a part of Ireland's story, even after the factory was under the control of Greencore.

Then along came the EU and the last sugar beet processing plant was shuttered in Mallow, devestating not only the workers who turned beets into sweets, but the farmers who grew the beets. Greencore ended up with plenty of cash to compensate them for the inconvenience, while the workers got a pittance.

The Saw Doctors memorialized the loss in this song.

Stop Believing You Don't Have To Live In New York

The New York Times has an entire article devoted to literary agents who don't maintain offices in Manhattan.

They're all shocked, absolutely shocked, that they are able to make it in places like....Brooklyn.

All the best writers are in New York City, and some of them are residing in places like....Brooklyn. Some of the major publishing executives reside outside of Manhattan. My, but how things are changing.

The agents believe that e-books are on the rise, which means their commissions are on the down swing. Not as much money to be made in the future with paper-free publishing, and considering the rents it just makes fiscal sense to do business elsewhere.

No one's saying anything about moving to Columbus, Ohio, are they?

The authors are in New York City, especially in places like....Brooklyn, because it's more affordable. Tunica, Mississippi has Brooklyn beat on the affordability scale, but there's no mention of the top writers re-locating to the Deep South.

But there is yet hope for all those other places outside of the five boroughs.

Having moved away from Manhattan, some literary agents have come to see that their clients don't all live within shouting distance. There are computers these days, with web cameras and Skype. There are mobile phones that keep us all in constant contact.

Shocking to discover that the location of the office doesn't matter much any more.

While it's sad to see that literary agents are still so focused on their own back yard that they're missing a great deal of the rest of the world, it's heartening to watch their blinders slip.

For now, if you're serious about writing, you'd want to be living in Prospect Park or an equally trendy, up and coming area. Within another few years, who could say? Manhattan may devolve as the absolute center of the publishing industry. And maybe then, there will be fewer novels published that are set in New York City and feature protagonists in the writing, editing or publishing trades.

More Talk And Still No Action

The Justice for Magdalenes group has been roaring for years, asking that the Irish government do something for the women who were victims of a social engineering program run amock.

And for all those years, their requests have been brushed away by a sweep of words.

The Irish Human Rights Commission has weighed in on the issue, and they have added their voice to a growing outcry.

Women and girls who were locked away and made to work at hard labor without pay should be compensated, according to the IHRC report. The government should make a full and complete investigation into the treatment those same women received, and at the very least, an apology should be issued.

The last time the forgotten Maggies approached the government, seeking inclusion in the redress scheme for victims of the industrial schools, they were told that it was the religious congregations they should be approaching. The Irish government had nothing to do with their incarceration at all.

Except, as it turns out, the State was often complicit in the drive to rid Irish society of illegitimate children and unmarried pregnancies. According to the IHRC report, the State may also have been in violation of its own statutes regarding forced labor, to say nothing of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The IHRC report also calls into question the amount of control the State had over the laundries, given that hundreds of women who died while incarcerated in the Drumcondra facility at High Park were buried without proper death certificates being filed. When the nuns needed the ground, they dug up the bodies and cremated the remains, again all done without going through proper legal channels.

At the moment, the Irish government is struggling to stay solvent. It's doubtful that the Dail can consider any amount of monetary compensation when the cupboard is utterly bare, but it would cost nothing for them to simply say, "We're sorry." And to never let it happen again.

You're Fired, My Son

You've heard of priests being removed from active ministry due to substantiated allegations of sex abuse. It turns out that only His Holiness in Rome can actually kick them out of the priesthood completely.

And not all of them have filed the necessary paperwork.

There must surely be enough trauma involved in the investigation and the court trial and all the rest. Added to the abuser's burden is the requirement that he petition the Pope to be officially de-frocked.

Little wonder that many haven't gotten around to it in a timely fashion. The Chicago Archdiocese, however, has run out of patience with the procrastinators and is doing the work for them...whether they like it or not. Letters are in the mail.

It's not just the pedophiles who are clogging up the works. There are deacons who don't have the time for deaconing and have given up their privileges. A busy man might not bother with official protocol, formally telling the Catholic Church know that he's hung up his stole for good.

Then there are priests removed from active ministry because they got married. They're of the "once a priest always a priest" mindset, while the Archdiocese figures there's a limit to that particular line.

What happens if one of them were to officiate at a wedding? In the eyes of the Church, it's not a valid union. Living in sin? Bringing forth children outside of a Church-sanctioned marriage? That's a one-way ticket to hell.

And it isn't like the average Catholic could be protected from such a scenario unless the Archdiocese goes after the recalcitrant priests. After all, married Episcopalian priests can convert to Catholicism and remain clergyman...with wives. Marriage is a sacrament, after all, and far be it from the Church to make trouble when it wins a point for its side.

Booting out the clerics who believe in a married priesthood is one way to provide cover. Since no one wants the pedophiles to remain priests, the faithful would be all in favor of forced de-frocking without realizing who's getting the axe at the same time.

What has some concerned is the fact that six or seven former priests, convicted of sex abuse crimes, would be released from the retreat house in Mundelein, Illinois. No longer priests, fully laicized, but where would they go? Not to your neighborhood, you're hoping.

Laicizing the perverts would save the Archdiocese some money, but the burden would be shifted to the general public as the ex-priests would be indigent. No job, no job prospects, and no place to lay a weary head. Will they register as sex offenders wherever they end up?

Or will a forgiving Church cut them some slack, keep them under guard at the retreat house, and be satisfied that they'd found a way to slap down the anti-celibacy advocates?

Change In The Air

I sent off a few queries over the weekend, and would have submitted one to Nathan Bransford but he's quit the business.

This time, it wasn't me who sent him packing.

Thinking that Janet Reid at FinePrint Literary Management might be interested, I checked her website for query preferences and was reminded that she once had her own agency. A one-woman operation couldn't make it in today's publishing climate and she joined forces with a bigger firm so that she could survive.

New agents at old agencies are always good for querying, and I sent one off to Bernadette Baker-Baughman. She used to have her own agency as well, but now she's toiling under the auspices of Victoria Sanders.

There are many, many single-agent shops that have merged into larger firms. The overhead is high and one agent can't easily bring in enough revenue to cover the little things like office rent, utility expenses and the like. Even if they work from home, there's always rent to be paid and the phone bill doesn't pay itself.

It could be that all the gloom and doom talk about publishing going the way of the dinosaur (evolving into birds) has me feeling that my chances of getting published have flown out the window. Fewer agents to query, fewer manuscripts being accepted, and fewer published novels appealing to my reading interests.

Time and business adjustments have left me behind.

What more can I do than keep trying? Write another manuscript on a different subject, and hope that the publishers catch up to me at some point?

Giving up doesn't feel right for me. Like the small mammals who scurried around under foot before the mighty beasts were wiped out by their own mass and inefficiency, I can maintain an existence and then burst on the scene when the dust settles, manuscript in hand. And about six others under the bed, waiting to be dusted off.

Going Hungry On Suffolk Street

Restaurants serving organic foods are few and far between. With the shuttering of Nude, it's that much fewer and farther between.

Bono's brother Norman was the owner of the trendsetting cafe in Dublin. The problem is, trends have gone the way of the Celtic Tiger and Nude is no more.

The lime green signage popped up around Dublin as the Irish found more cash in their pockets. Joining the rest of the developed world, they discovered a penchant for fresh food, well prepared. Some even tried vegetarianism and headed to Nude for meat-free meals.

The Tiger is on life support and Mr. Hewson's dining venture has given up its last breath.

No matter how tasty the fare, when you're worried about losing your job you aren't so inclined to pay E8.00 for a bowl of soup with a muffin on the side. An entire can of soup can be had for less, and maybe it's not organic but it fills the belly.

University students flocked to the place, but it's the university crowd that manages to find the cheapest places to eat on a tight budget. Just because they filled the tables doesn't mean they spent enough on food to keep Nude open.

Over the past few years, those same students who might have patronized Nude were on their way abroad, looking for jobs that didn't exist in Ireland. The clientele departed, and not enough tourists arrived to take their place.

The restaurant operated at a loss, running specials at a cut rate to attract clients but losing too much money on the deal to create an uptick.

In the end, there wasn't enough ready cash around for spontaneous purchases of smoothies, organic soups and vegan muffins. Ireland is one of the European Union's problem children, a nation with a tower of debt that threatens to collapse the EU.

As for Mr. Hewson's brother, the band is prospering, with a new U2 album due out in plenty of time for holiday gift-giving. There will likely be a tour to promote the music. Does the band need a food and beverage coordinator, perhaps?

To Sleep, Perchance To Dream Productively

I woke up well before the alarm went off.

The words in my head were shaking me awake.

For some time, I've had a sense that the opening chapter of the manuscript I'm currently working on was in need of...something. It didn't feel quite right.

And then there's the whole First Five Pages thing to consider.

There were simply too many names popping up within a four page span, and it's a direct violation of one of Noah Lukeman's key rules. But how to correct the matter?

Did I really need to name characters who'd appear later? It took a long time to realize that I could get by with a description to place their importance in the story without confusing the reader with a long cast of characters.

With that problem solved, I opened up other issues in regard to setting up the conflict that drives the protagonist. Putting in too much back story is forbidden, but some back story is necessary to explain why the man is at the point he's at, a willing participant in a political assassination.

Some of it was in my head as I opened my eyes before sunrise. The words won't let me sleep so there's no other option than to crawl out of a warm bed and sit before a glowing screen, typing new words to replace the old.

Scrooge Lives In San Francisco

Given the gay culture that imbues San Francisco, it comes as no surprise that the city's ruling citizens would ban an item aimed at children.

They're a childless lot, by and large, so they have limited experience with the offspring of the breeding class. Easy enough to wipe out the Happy Meal when you're not the one looking into the tear-moistened eyes of the dejected ones you love more than life itself.

Parents don't know what's good for their children, but a group of elected officials do. So they've banned the distribution of toys with children's meals. It is illegal for any restaurant in San Francisco to include a little lagniappe with the burger and fries.

Restaurants can avoid prosecution by modifying the food to suit the standards of those same elected officials. That means a limit on calories, sugar, fat and what have you. Again, it's because those who reproduce biologically don't have a clue.

While there are some parents who have the strength to say no to a child who's demanding something the parent doesn't want them to have, there are others who want to be best mates, not stern parents. They won't say no, but if the government gives them a sound reason to refuse, why, it's Daddy and Princess both being made to suffer and won't that make their bond stronger.

On the other hand, the restaurant can charge Daddy one penny for the toy that used to be free, and the Happy Meal is back in business.

Will the anti-toy stance have a positive effect on childhood obesity?

It would if the city fathers ordered that the free toy be placed at the top of a steep San Francisco hill, and the child made to walk up to the top for the prezzie. It isn't so much the food the little ones eat as the lack of exercise they receive in a litigious culture where physical education is frowned upon because someone might get hurt and then sue the school.

Banning the Happy Meal is going about things the wrong way. Better if the wise folk who run San Francisco had mandated that restaurants serving children install treadmills so that the kiddies could be forced to run a mile or two to burn off the calories they consumed.

Put the toy on a stick and dangle it under their wee little noses. It's a concept that works with dumb animals.

November Means Word Counts

Ah yes, November. NaNoWriMo is upon us.

As you sit on the commuter train with your official NaNoWriMo coffee mug, laptop open, your fingers fly across the keyboard. Your novel comes into being in regulated chunks, a set word count goal that you must complete each day or.....lose bragging rights, I suppose.

The notion of sitting down in the month of November to pen a novel got its start in San Francisco. Where else could such a bizarre idea have surfaced?

Participants sign up and set their daily goal, and then set about meeting it. While they work, they can proclaim their status as NaNoWriMo writers with all sorts of goodies, like web badges for decorating social media sites.

What comes out at the end might be treasure, but it's more likely to be trash if the novel even gets finished. Most quit well before the conflict is resolved and the protagonist triumphs.

For those of us who have been writing daily for years, without word count goals because we know how unrealistic a goal it is, the month of December is what counts.

That's when the NaNo authors, thinking they have the next best seller, start flooding the inboxes of literary agents. Literary agents get aggravated, and it's a tsunami of rejections.

If you've worked hard on your manuscript, spent months polishing the writing and revising one chapter after another, you don't want to be the victim of an agent's foul mood. December is no time to be querying.

Sure there's the holiday season at the end of the month, giving you only a couple of weeks to get your manuscript noticed. Those couple of weeks, however, are periods of heavy NaNoWriMo querying and your well-crafted query letter is as likely to go unnoticed as it is to stand out for its quality.

If you're ready to query, it's time to pull the trigger and hit the Send button. Waiting until next month could be a mistake.

Librarians Do It With Words

As a young man, James Klise wrestled with his sexual identity, so he's more than familiar with the misery of bullying in high school.

As a librarian, he used words to express his experiences during a time of intense peer pressure to conform, coupled with a driving urge to fit into acceptable slots.

His debut novel is out from Flux and it's speaking to gay teens everywhere.

Mr. Klise uses fiction to present the problems faced by a fictional young man who we assume is a stand-in for the author himself. And like his own life, he can say that it does get better with time.

So much better that Mr. Klise forgot what it was like to be a gay teen in high school until he took a job as school librarian and the memories came back.

In Love Drugged, the author brings the reader into the head of a gay teen who doesn't want his secret discovered, and it's Mr. Klise's real life experiences providing the air of authenticity that resonates with his readers. But this is a book for young adults and kids today don't want preaching, so the author uses a touch of dark humor to ease the sting of reality.

While Mr. Klise would be happy if his novel helps gay kids deal with the stress of being different, he's hoping that straight kids will find the book informative as well. At least if they develop a better understanding of how hurtful an offhand remark can be to someone not like them, there might be less insult and more consideration.

Terre Haute Is Lovely This Time Of Year

Destitution is a matter of perception in the case of Steven Green.

After bilking his investors of millions, he claimed to be destitute and the government had to pay for a lawyer to represent him at trial.

Convicted of wire fraud, the con man from Winnetka, Illinois would normally be incarcerated at the Federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. The Feds aren't heartless and they try to lock up felons at the facility nearest to home so the family can visit easily. That makes Indiana the best choice for Steven Green.

But Mr. Green would like to jailed in Florida. The weather is so much nicer there, and there's no ghost of Timothy McVeigh flittering along the corridors. Who wants to be locked up in the same place that an American terrorist drew his last breath?

As criminals get no say in the matter, it isn't a question of Mr. Green asking the judge nicely. So he's out to prove that he's actually a Florida resident and the Terre Haute location simply wouldn't do.

After telling some whopping lies to clients who handed over a few million dollars to fund Mr. Green's lavish lifestyle, it's no problem to tell another.

Mr. Green told the Feds that he's a permanent Florida resident, even though he's only just moved to a very plush condo overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. You wouldn't think that eight weeks at the Portofino Island Resort would constitute permanent residency, but the felon believes he can pull one over on the Feds.

After all, he got them to pay for his attorney and he's not so destitute that he can't pay $2,600 per month for his resort home. Unless, of course, he's stealing that as well.

The taxpayer-funded attorney says it's a reasonable request from Mr. Green and he should be locked up in Florida for the next 78 months. It's up to the Prison Bureau to decide if the convict is to be allowed to play them for fools, or call his bluff.

While they're at it, the Federal Bureau of Prisons might want to know how Mr. Green could also afford to hire Federal Prison Consultants Inc. to send off a report from a psychologist that supports the convict's request for a Florida cell.

Where is the money coming from?

That's what the victims of Steven Green's schemes and theft would like to know. They'd like their money back.

The Night Watchman At Harpo Studios

Oprah Winfrey is leaving Chicago, it's been said. There's a reason why she's moving away from the eerie sights and sounds of Harpo Studios---

 People would try to hide after hours, that was human nature. Seth made his rounds carefully, thoroughly, probing every room, every corner, every stairwell and bathroom stall. They'd want to hide and then break into her office, maybe take a souvenir. Not on his watch they wouldn't.

At the end of the corridor, Seth could hear people walking. Not one or two, but a whole crowd, sounding just like the folks who came for the taping. A sort of shuffling, a lazy stroll when the mob moved as a unit into the studio. By the time he reached the place where he thought he heard footsteps, there was nothing but the quiet of the empty building.

Too nervous, he told himself. Too worked up about doing a perfect job, and maybe a little concerned about screwing up just one time and losing the best position he'd ever get. He'd been a bouncer at the nightclub where the folks stampeded in a blind panic and those poor women got the life squeezed out of them at the bottom of the stairs. No, he'd never work as a bouncer again. The way the cops and the paramedics had to peel the bodies apart, all twined together like tangled branches. Night watchman suited him fine.

A little girl giggled. Seth heard her, clear as if she were laughing in his ear. When he turned to see who was playing a joke, he saw nothing more than the shadows cast by the safety lights. Couldn't have been a child, he realized. It was just the building settling, an old board creaking. It was real old, this building, used to be an armory long ago. Over one hundred years ago, at least. Old buildings made a lot of noise, same as old people did.

Aware of movement over his shoulder, Seth spun around to see if he had an intruder on his hands. A woman in grey crossed the hall at the far end, heading towards the boss's office. He took off at a fast clip, ready to demand an I.D. Then they'd know he was on the job, nothing getting by Seth Lewis.

"Ms. Winfrey," he called to the woman. It was her, he was certain, putting in a late night, getting ready for the next week's round of taping. "That you, Ms. Winfrey?"

The lady in grey had disappeared before he could round the corner, but Seth's ears picked up her mournful wailing. Steadman must have broken up with her, to bring on that kind of sorrow, or that school in Africa had bigger problems than anyone knew.

He followed the sound of weeping to the green room and threw open the door. The room was filled with bodies, lined up so tight that a person could scarcely get a step between them. They were covered with sheets, but their shoes were exposed, rows of shoes on the feet of men and women and children. Old-fashioned shoes, the kind that buttoned.

Was this some kind of joke? A prank played on the new guy? A musty smell, the stink of the Chicago River, was a miasma that mingled with the eerie gloom that was broken only by his flashlight's beam.

"This is Harpo Studios," Seth said. They had the means to rig up a scene from some cheap Hollywood horror picture.

A picture crashed to the floor behind him and Seth spun on heels, heart pumping so fast it threatened to gallop out of his chest. The flashlight swung around, spraying sparkles across the carpet where the shards of glass had scattered. Except for the rattle of air bellowing out of the night watchman's lungs, the hallway was strangely quiet.

With his breath catching in his throat, Seth took one look at the broken picture. The montage featured an old photograph of the Eastland, a lake steamer that had tipped over in the Chicago River not long after the Titanic sunk. Whole families, hundreds of people, had been trapped below deck and drowned, almost all of them employees of Western Electric headed over to Michigan for a company picnic. Spread around the center photo were newspaper articles that described the horrible day, accompanied by pictures taken by press photographers or maybe the County Coroner, chilling images of bodies that had been pulled from the river and brought to the armory. Hundreds of dead, all lined up in a makeshift morgue.

Harpo Studios was the makeshift morgue. Seth's lips mouthed the words that clattered in his skull. The victims, taken out of the water, cold and lifeless,, had waited here to be claimed. The anonymous bodies, in neat rows, waited to be identified.

A howling rose up behind him, the voices of the dead screaming, as they had screamed while the Chicago River swept over their heads. The hallway was thick with people, but not human beings, just the shadows of people, drifting, moving. Through the wall, into the green room.

The woman in gray was at his side, he saw tears shining on her face but her features were fuzzy. Seth reached out, to touch her and tell her the joke was over, but his hand went right through her.

Overhead lights flickered and then went out. The door of the green room slammed shut. Seth ran and never looked back.

Writing For Google

You can find out just about anything by searching the Internet, but did you ever wonder where the words come from that appear on your screen upon request?

The writer just might be in Dublin.

Here I was, thinking that Google linked me to scholarly articles or blogposts or the like, sending me to examine content that had been culled from the real world.

Turns out there are about forty people in an office on Barrow Street that crank out content for the web, so that when you Google something, there's your information.

John Slyne of content provider Populis is tuned to Google hits. An uptick in queries about tourist-related events in Ireland will have his employees cranking out words about Irish tourist sites. Those pieces are sold on to the hotel industry, for example, and if you click on the right links you're booking a hotel and a bus trip to the Cliffs of Moher.

Expedia and Ebay are in on the game.

Writing advertising copy on demand is a unique new field that's all about deadlines. After all, there's a limit to how long people will continue to be intrigued by Charlie Sheen's hotel-trashing antics. The New York hotels need search engine-driven content now, while web surfers are within striking range.

According to reports, the writers who slave away in the content-on-demand sweatshops earn about one-tenth of the going rate for freelance journalists, and that isn't much at all. And that in an industry that rakes in millions.

If you're desperate for pocket change, it's a way to earn a few euros, but considering how much effort you'd have to put in, it doesn't seem worthwhile at all. How can you whip up a little 750 word blurb about the sights and scenery of fabulous Las Vegas without doing a little research? In the end, you don't really get compensated for the time, let alone the effort of composing a stirring little tale that will entice guests to Sin City.

I'll never look at web content in the same way again.

Save Money, Waste Time

The U.S. Department of Education has some money to throw around, and they've tossed $783,000 to Bellevue College to promote the use of e-textbooks. The idea is to save the students some money.

Bellevue College is pleased to announce that they were the one and only college or university in the nation to make it to the top of the heap. They plan to use the funds to start up a pilot program of e-reader rental that will become self-sustaining. That means they won't have to go back to the Feds and ask for another hand-out.

And don't go thinking that the little Washington school got money to help boost the re-election of Senator Patty Murray.

Just because studies have shown that e-books aren't popular with college students doesn't mean that anyone at the Department of Education is going to not push for the "21st Century Bookstore" concept to be tested anyway.

According to Sandra Aamodt, former editor-in-chief of Nature Neuroscience, electronic books aren't read in the same way as hard copies. Reading is slower on a screen, and the student can't flip back and forth to check the end notes or study a figure.

There's no writing notes in the margins of an electronic textbook. There is the ability to jump around, to search key words and switch pages with ease, but to Gloria Mark of U.C. Irvine, the e-book is a fountain of distractions.

Hypertext can take a reader away from the topic and off into a link that defines a term  but distracts the reader from the subject matter at hand. What if there's another link embedded in there? It's easy enough to follow it, and before long, the student isn't studying the Great Depression but has discovered a site that lists the most popular songs of 1935.

To Ms. Mark, this all results in a loss of deep thinking. She's concerned that the on-line generation isn't learning how to focus because they're used to navigating their own way rather than stick with the linear thinking that is reading words on paper.

Does Bellevue College worry about the research done to date?

Not at all. They're going to issue e-reading devices to the most needy students so that those with financial difficulties can more readily afford their textbooks. Research indicates that those same students won't get as much out of the material as their more financially sound counterparts. Textbooks aren't novels, they are far more complex and the jury is still out on the ability of student brains to fully process the information.

Bellevue College, then, will use its students as guinea pigs in an experiment that may or may not turn out well. But look on the bright side, Bellevue students. At least you saved money on your textbooks.

The Members Of The Club

If you subscribe to PublishersMarketplace, you get a weekly listing of book deals that serves as an early alert to upcoming publications.

Will someone not hunting for a literary agent pay for advance notice? Would they pay to get their hands on a book galley before the lay-down date?

The Women On The Web are betting that many someones will.

Joni Evans, who once worked at big house publishers Simon & Schuster and Random House, has faith in loyal readers. To snap up Jodi Picoult's newest release, there are those who would pay a premium and the owners of WowOwow are ready to collect the admission fees.

For $15 - $30, you are made a member of the club that receives a hard copy for your reading pleasure. You gain bragging rights among your friends, if you're so inclined to boast, or you become everyone's best friend by lending the pre-release out among your clique.

What's in it for the publisher?

They'd like to sell more books, of course, but they can use the club as a focus group and test out different cover art and the like. Oddly enough, publishers haven't used market research or focus groups to help them shape their product, but that old-fashioned way of doing business may soon change.

On the down side, the pre-release reading group could all head over to Amazon and pan a book they didn't much like, which would kill sales. What if Steven King or John Grisham wrote a dog of a novel and everyone knew it before the book was released? It would make for a very weak bottom line. There's risk involved for the publishers, who are banking on their most highly marketable authors to bring in the profits.

Will pay-to-play focus groups help or hurt publishing? Or will the WowOwow situation make any difference at all? It's the publisher who decides what they'll be getting for their entrance fees, not the readers, and there's a chance that the pre-release reviews could do nothing more than boost sales for the big name authors, like Jodi Picoult, while the mid-list and genre folks go begging.

The focus group does not return publishing to the old days of nurturing a talent, before the bean counters took over and proven talent became a requirement. We may end up with nothing more than more of the same, a steady procession of books that are as alike as the parts stamped out of a punch press.

Results Not Typical

Adam Levin's debut novel is hitting the bookstores and every wannabe author who has penned a brick of a book will boldly declare that publishers are buying massive manuscripts from first-timers.

These results are not typical.

Mr. Levin studied creative writing at Syracuse University under George Saunders, who's a bit of a well-known author himself. No worries about the size of the debut novel, according to him. His former pupil has big ideas with lots to say.

You, the amateur and unschooled, have no one of equal importance to speak up for your massive collection of words.

The Instructions  covers but a few days in its many, many pages, detailing the antics of a young man who believes he is the Messiah.

No, it's not Christian fiction. The 10-year-old protagonist is Jewish, a Torah scholar.

According to Mr. Saunders, his student's writing and personality were as one, an important element to successful authorship. At over one thousand pages, you'd have to guess that Mr. Levin's a bit long-winded in real life.

The bottom line on this debut is one that doesn't apply to most writers. The author has solid credentials that give him more leeway in word count. He's a University of Chicago grad who went on to become one of only eight accepted writing students at Syracuse. By implication, he has to be good if he made it that far.

Don't think that you can get away with a similar mountain of pages with your debut novel. Publishing doesn't work that way. For you, a high word count suggests purple prose, verbosity and over-writing that the literary agent won't even bother to examine.

Want to write big books? You'd need a Master of Fine Arts or respected writers recommending your work.

Otherwise, it's revise and edit and cut and slice. With luck, your first book will get picked up, like J.K. Rowling, and then you can dream big.

Another Week, Another Query

Monday morning and there's a new sample of St. Martin's Press' latest book in the inbox.

Isn't that inspiration enough to work up a new and improved query letter and bombard the literary agents?

But what does it take to get some attention?

It's being said that the fiction market is particularly tight because of the weak economy. Fewer people are being books in any form, so literary agents are firing off rejections (or just not responding in the modern version of the rejection) because they know the publishers won't be writing up contracts.

Fewer and fewer debut fiction announcements are heard from Publishers Marketplace, and those that are listed aren't really debut-like. An established author of short stories, or a journalist, or someone who's already published non-fiction are the ones getting the contracts these days.

But you can't win if you don't play the game, so the query letter will experience another revision. I've lifted the jacket flap copy from a novel that tells a similar story to the one I've penned, and if it's good enough for a published book, it's good enough for me.

I believe I'll approach the literary agents who accept snail mail, just for the sake of getting something back that closes the loop. The non-response business is irksome, to say the least, and it's nice to get something in the post that isn't a bill.

The Isolation Of Mental Illness

I've reached an age where I'm attending funerals more often. The latest sad occasion marked the passing of a friend's mother.

We all knew the woman was odd but when you're young, you tend to think all older people are out of step with reality as you know it. She didn't cook or clean the house like our mothers, but her own mother always seemed to be there to handle the chores.

As we grew older, I noticed that my friend took on responsibility for his own upbringing. When it was time to go to university, he found a ride with someone going that way, packed up his own belongings, and that was it. He studied with a mind to taking over his father's business. Too old to require adult supervision when we got together over holiday breaks, we rarely saw his mother except in passing.

When he married, he fretted about his mother getting her teeth fixed and we came to find out that the woman was incapable of normal dental hygiene, and wouldn't see a dentist. Odd, but then again, there are those with a fear of the dentist.

The little eccentricities you don't notice as a child are magnified when you're older and have taken a course in psychology. Witnessing a woman wash a few garments, only to wash them again, and then again, left me wondering if I should suggest to my friend that his mother might be in need of help. Her napkin shredding, the way she made a ritual of eating that made a meal last for an hour, all hinted at mental illness.

What right does a son have to force his mother to do anything? Sadly, his father was a man of the old school who believed that a wife's job was to care for the family and if she didn't do it, she was fired. Rather than drag her to a professional for treatment, the father got a divorce. Not one of his social set criticized him. They wondered why he put up with it for so long.

My friend's mother lived by herself and turned her back on everyone. She alienated her extended family by not attending funerals of cousins who passed away, by refusing to speak to them if they tried to phone. With her husband footing the bills, she ate at restaurants every night. If we happened to see her, alone at a corner table, she turned away or hid behind the menu until she was finished, and then she slipped out through a back door. She needs help, we'd say to each other, but her son felt powerless.

He knew that his mother was living in squalor, by herself all day and night without a visitor. She made no social calls on anyone. My friend had to schedule his parents' arrival and departure from his children's birthday parties to avoid conflict. His mother regaled us all with bizarre tales of neighbors hiding knives in the hedges and she couldn't risk a walk in her back garden. She needs help, we'd say as we left the party, but our friend knew all that already.

My friend called on her every Sunday, desperate to convince her to see a doctor but getting rebuffed every time. One day he noticed that his mother had developed gangrene in her extremities. She had no choice but to be taken to a hospital before she developed septicemia and died a slow death.

Congestive heart failure was the diagnosis. My friend installed his mother in a nursing home under the guise of medical treatment. Like a captive audience, she had no choice in the matter when the staff psychiatrist came a-calling.

Help came too late. Medication calmed the worst of the behaviors, but no one came to visit and see the results. Mental illness left unchecked had robbed my friend's mother of her social contacts. In the hospital, she was as alone as she had ever been. My friend continued to visit every few days, relieved after a lifetime of stress.

She died alone. No dutiful husband was there to hold her hand at the final moments. My friend has his own family to care for, along with a business that is struggling in a weak economy.

Those who wouldn't speak to her in life because they took her derangement personally showed up to mourn her passing. She should have gotten help, they all said. Now, however, she's beyond helping.

A Lifeline For The Rescuers

Not so long ago, Ireland's number one export was people.

A nation mired in poverty had no jobs to keep its own employed, and so the young left in droves. For decades, they finished school and were on a plane as quick as they could raise the airfare. Thousands of Irish men and women found work in America, then sent money home to support their extended families.

Through hard work, they rescued countless Irish who relied on money from abroad to keep food on the table. The jobs didn't pay much, and it often meant that once a child left, they couldn't afford to return. Family connections were lost and sixty years on, there's no one in Ireland who remembers the great-uncle who went to New York.

Dr. Elaine Walsh of Hunter College has received some funding from Senator Chuck Schumer to conduct a survey of the Irish diaspora in Queens, New York.

She felt compelled to do something following the lonely death of retired carpenterTony Gallagher, whose body was not discovered until a week after his passing.

Dr. Walsh plans to reach out to the Irish community in Queens, calling at pubs, churches and wherever the Irish retirees may gather, to find out how they are getting on. By identifying the old ones, she hopes to foster a sense of community among them so that if one should not be seen around for a day or two, their absence will be noticed.

For now, Dr. Walsh is confining her census to the Queens borough, but plans are in the works to expand the data collection to places like Boston or Chicago, where the Irish found work when there was nothing much for doing back home.

For all the money that they sent back to support their native land, Ireland doesn't have an extra euro or two to return the favor to her scattered children. The information that Dr. Walsh collects would most likely be of use to the Irish Centre in New York, a home away from home that represents a refuge from the obscurity found in big cities.

The Irish came for decades to escape poverty and lack of opportunity back home. The cheap housing they occupied is now taken up by the newest waves of immigrants who emigrated to escape poverty in their native countries. The Gallagher Initiative seeks to find those pensioners who stayed where they landed, and now find themselves isolated, no longer surrounded by fellow Irishmen.

Through the Gallagher Initiative, Dr. Walsh intends to find them and extend a lifeline to those whose financial assistance just might have helped to trigger the Celtic Tiger that launched Ireland into the western world.

Update The Database And Move On

After the better part of a year, the editors of the Baltimore Revue were good enough to let me know that they'd taken a pass on the short story.

So I updated my submissions database, searched for three more literary journals, and sent out more submissions.

Literary agent Jenny Bent encouraged me to keep trying, but I'm not entirely sure if she meant to keep sending queries to her, or to other literary agents. A lovely rejection, but there's no time to waste on parsing her sentences.

Katie Kotchman of the Don Congdon Agency tells me not to be discouraged because many best sellers were passed on by literary agents many times before being published.

I'll keep trying and I won't get discouraged.

I've become completely numb to the rejections.

This is all about a business that is run by the numbers from the top but by emotion at the bottom. From literary agents to acquisitions editors, it's all about falling in love with a manuscript. Love is lovelier if the author has credentials because it's a subjective business and who cares about the beauty within the manuscript when everyone wants the outward attraction of the MFA.

Today, I'll revisit the query letter and change it around, hoping to create an intriguing hook but having my doubts. Oftentimes, it isn't the query letter but the plot that doesn't resonate. Publishers are looking for particular stories and if I get lucky, one of them will be looking for something like what I've written.

Until then, I can only keep submitting in the hope that I get my manuscript in the right place at the right time.

No point in dwelling on what a particular rejection letter means because they really don't mean a thing. I have writing to do, another possible line on a piece of historical fiction---Regency period, hot, hot hot!---and there's another short story working away in the deep recesses of my brain.

Keeping too busy to worry about getting rejected is one way to get past the rejection.

You Can't Always Publish What You Want

Mary Jane Schriner thought she had a memoir in her. The estate of George Steinbrenner wants her to keep her memories to herself. Or else.

Long ago, when the grandmother was Mary Jane Elster and George Steinbrenner was a young man gone a-courtin', the future owner of the New York Yankees wrote often to his sweetheart. She, in turn, saved the letters, for what sixteen-year-old girl with a college boyfriend wouldn't cherish such missives?

After Mr. Steinbrenner's death, Mrs. Schriner wrote a short essay which was published in the New York Times, along with one of the letters.

Lonn Trost, CEO of all things Yankee, fired off a letter of his own but it wasn't the least bit sweet.

By law, Mr. Steinbrenner holds the copyright to the letters because he wrote them. Mrs. Schriner is nothing more than a holder of the sole copy. That means she has no right to publish them. That right rests with the estate, and the estate isn't letting anything Steinbrenner get loose.

Michael Schriner can't understand what the problem is. He says the manuscript is nothing more than a sweet re-telling of a long ago age, and presents George Steinbrenner as an average eighteen-year-old who's quite taken with a girl.

But the Steinbrenners are having nothing of it. They're claiming that publication would damage their business interests and embarrass the family. Wouldn't want it to get out that the old man was once young and charming and capable of penning sappy love notes. Why, the value of the Yankess would plummet. The players would fall apart on the field and get swept in the pennant series.

The potential damage is so great that Mr. Trost asked the Baseball Hall of Fame to not display the letters, least a few syrupy words drip out and people start thinking that Steinbrenner wasn't such a horse's ass after all.

Curious about what the fuss is all about?

Mrs. Schriner is going to sell the letters. She's 77 and losing her sight. She has no use for the letters anymore. You could buy them and read them and write a thinly veiled roman a clef, then claim it's all fiction and you made up the epistles and aren't quoting Steinbrenner directly.

Or you can read Mrs. Schriner's blog, and decide for yourself if her tales of going to a movie with George Steinbrenner are too racy for print.

That Was Fast

All that talk by the talking news heads about the rescued Chilean miners getting book deals and movie treatments? It's already in the works.

You can bet that George Lucas at Inkwell was sending out feelers on behalf of Guardian reporter Jonathan Franklin within hours of the rescue operation getting underway.

Mr. Franklin has a proposal already making the rounds in New York, and yes, the last of the miners was hauled out of a hole in the ground only a few hours ago. His potential manuscript has already sold to Transworld in England.

There'll be competition for book buyers, however. The New York Time's man on the spot, Alexei Barrionuevo, is being represented by super-agent Esther Newberg of powerhouse agency ICM.This manuscript not being ready yet, it's suggested that Mr. Barrionuevo may lean more heavily on the aftermath which is just now coming into being.

One book of before, and one of after. Will the public wish to purchase them both for a full and complete telling?

First out of the gate is Mr. Franklin, who saw the potential of the story and lined up representation early on. Non-fiction needing nothing more than a proposal and a few sample chapters, he may have begun his manuscript from the minute the rescue team contacted the miners back in August.

Before publishers hand out big advance checks, however, they have to decide if the public has had its fill of Chilean miners, thanks to the 24/7 news coverage. Or do the gentlemen have compelling stories to tell that would flesh out an entire book and make it interesting?

Certainly the player whose wife met his mistress at a prayer vigil has a compelling tale to tell. Sitting in the dark, waiting for help, did he suffer the pangs of guilt and apprehension over the unavoidable confrontation?

What of the man who could only watch on a video feed as his daughter was born? Did he suffer untold misery because the moment was meant to be witnessed with a degree of privacy that was unavailable in an emergency shelter?

Are there enough readers out there who simply have to know how the shift foreman held it together and kept his underlings fit both mentally and physically?

Guess right, and the publisher will turn a tidy profit on holiday sales. Guess wrong, and it's a lot of pulp and newly signed authors getting tiny advances to compensate for the loss.

It is indeed a highly subjective business, isn't it?

A Radio Station Makes A Fine Platform

Literary agents want authors with a platform.

That means you have a soapbox of your very own on which to stand, hawking your book. You provide a great deal of your own (free) publicity by using this venue of yours to plug your book and boost sales.

Did NPR host Michele Norris have a particulary interesting life that was worthy of the memoir treatment?

Maybe and maybe not, but she has a solid platform from which to sell her wares.

Using the power of the national radio station that employs her, Ms. Norris had fifty-eight minutes over the course of two weeks in which to plug her recollections. She appeared as a guest on four different NPR programs to talk about the book, and that's a tremendous amount of hype that didn't cost the publisher a dime.

For her part, Ms. Norris stands by NPR, in the face of criticism from listeners. They like a variety of topics, apparently, and hearing Ms. Norris tout her prose four times was a bit too much for some.

But Ms. Norris had so much to say that was interesting, said the talk show hosts who hosted her.

Of course she did. My colleagues at work are an interesting bunch as well, but what passes for brilliant conversation among an insular group may not be so brilliant on the outside of the box.

It's a good excuse, of course. Ms. Norris was on so much because her book is the delight of NPR's staffers and they wanted to share. No professional courtesy given, not at all. Not even a subconscious desire to do a favor for a friend. Not at all wrapped up in a colleague's excitement at being published. They're cold as stone there at NPR, cool and collected and introspective and all the rest.

They can tell themselves all they like that they did nothing wrong, but the Chicago Way has infected Washington, D.C., and it's running rampant through the halls of NPR.

It's not what you know that counts, it's who you know, and Michele Norris knows a lot of people with national airtime. She got more because of who she knows, while an equally worthy author doesn't get invited to the party.

Do you think that Pantheon was the least bit disturbed by the preferential treatment given Ms. Norris?

Not unless potential book buyers turn their backs on a purchase because they're upset at a blatant display of favoritism by NPR.

The Spire Gets Spiked

What started with so much excitement has fizzled out like a sparkler, leaving behind nothing more than ashes and dust.

And a very large hole in the ground.

Garrett Kelleher's grand dreams of architectural glory have died with the economy and the proclaimed Chicago Spire designed by starchitect Santiago Calatrava will not rise up on the banks of the Chicago River.

The project was a long shot at best to begin with. Mr. Kelleher wasn't talking, but no one could figure out where he would get the funding for such a massive structure, a mixed use building that would be the world's tallest when completed.

Like so many Irish property developers, Mr. Kelleher turned to Anglo Irish Bank. At the moment, Anglo Irish is waiting on European Union approval for its restructuring plan. The bank is currently owned by the Irish taxpayers, and they have no interest in building anything besides their own economy these days.

The property that would have boasted of a two thousand foot spiral tower will end up in Anglo's hands. The bank has filed a foreclosure suit against Mr. Kelleher, seeking the return of the $77 million they loaned to him.

Sure he doesn't have that kind of cash around. So the Irish people gain possession of a piece of ground with a big hole in it where a foundation was supposed to go. The property market in Chicago is as bad as anywhere and no one will be buying the ground from Anglo Irish any time soon, and not for $77 million.

Anglo Irish may end up with the property, but the bank is so distressed that's it's likely to be wound down in the near future. All sorts of dodgy loans were made, in particular to the "Golden Circle" of ten prominent Irish businessmen who backed the loans with bank stock...which is now all but worthless.

Goodbye to Calatrava and the publicity the Spire would have brought to the city of Chicago.

Someday, something else will go up where the Spire once existed in the photoshopped world of the dreamer. It won't be the world's tallest building and it won't be as unique as Calatrava's original designs.

Sic transit gloria.

Freelancer And Publisher

College professors have long been in the habit of creating their own course textbook and then charging their students a small fortune to purchase it.

The professor gets a small cut of the action. After all, he or she went to all the trouble of pulling the material together, compiling information and charts and illustrations, so they're entitled to be reimbursed for their labors. In essence, they act as freelancers and like freelancers they don't get much in return.

In the past, the university had to send the manuscript off to the copy department to be bound and collated, adding another expense that the student had to cover through their book fees.

It is now so much easier, but possibly not less expensive.

McGraw-Hill's higher education unit offers university teachers the opportunity to compile a course text through McGraw-Hill's database. The instructor has access to all of the publisher's textbooks, along with countless articles that are accessed via the publisher's special search engine.

Point and click. An article here, a chapter from an existing textbook there, and the specialized copy is created. McGraw-Hill then whips up an e-book for the teacher to peruse and approve, and once the galleys have passed muster, McGraw-Hill prints to order.

If it sounds like vanity publishing, it is.

The difference here is that the professor is compiling a book that fits a very tiny niche. Never would McGraw-Hill use the traditional publishing platform because they'd lose a fortune on such a small run. However, printing on demand makes plenty of sense.

It also means that McGraw-Hill doesn't lose those hundreds of little bits of market share. By using modern POD technology, they can make money in an area that used to be a loser for them.

The university no longer has to tie up their printing department to crank out the myriad special texts required, and the instructors have the ease of use that McGraw-Hill has built into their system. The student has the option of purchasing an e-book, which is more efficiently produced by McGraw-Hill than the school itself, particularly if it's a small, two-year college with a limited budget.

And the student?

As always, they pay the going rate for their books and if McGraw-Hill has to earn their fare share, it means the student will pay a premium over what was once a fairly cheap enterprise in which the university wanted to cover their costs and not turn a profit.

The most popular students on campus may end up being the computer geeks. Anyone who can get hack into the system and download expensive e-books for free may find their skills in demand.

Students, as ever, are always looking for a way to economize.

At Risk Of A Broken Hip

No one can deny that partisan politics is dividing the nation. The "us against them" mentality seems to be stronger than ever.

Yard signs touting politicians running for office are springing up like mushrooms after a rain, and there are always those who will swipe the signs of the opponent to make a point. The bigger the crop of signs, the more likely neighbors will think Candidate A is the way to go since half the people on the block are in support. Good enough reason for followers of Candidate B to get rid of the things.

Then there's the good citizen who simply will not allow those wily political operatives to get away with placing signs on public property. Why, it's illegal, and someone has to do it because the police can't be bothered with such petty crime.

An 85-year-old man was walking along Sheridan Road in Wilmette, Illinois when he spotted a sign promoting Bob Dold, Republican, for Congress. Outraged, the gentleman shuffled over with his walker and yanked the offending sign out of the ground.

The owner of the property, who lives next door with his daughter, saw what was going on and ran to the rescue of his civil rights. Ran slowly, one would suspect. The man is 92, not exactly spry.

Mr. 85-years-of-age-with-a-walker took to yelling at his elder. Needless to say, the property owner's daughter jumped in to protect her father, and the man with the walker proceeded to beat her about the head and shoulders with the sign as she tried to wrestle it away.

You just know that the sign vigilante fell during the struggle, but it's better to risk a broken hip than allow signs to be posted on the public right of way.

Except that it was private property and the old fool had no business removing the signs. When so informed by a policeman, the old man took offense and called the peace officer an idiot and a liar.

The instigator in the fight was spirited away to the hospital by his wife. No charges will be filed. The signs have been restored to their proper place and the Republicans continue to lead in the polls.

My Child Is Exceptional

Friends in the teaching professions tell me they hear it all the time. Parents insist that their offspring are "exceptional" and should be in the accelerated program.

Most often, the kids aren't. They're average.

The parents put their little darlings into training at an early age, looking to the distant future when it's time for college and who wouldn't like to boast that their child was accepted at Harvard or Dartmouth or Sarah Lawrence?

Hence, the demise of the picture book.

You won't get into an elite Ivy League school if you spend your childhood looking at pictures. Reading is where it's at, and recent studies claim that parents are pushing their kids to read at an early age. Publishers like Simon & Schuster have noticed the drop-off in sales of picture books for the young.

By the time kindergarten comes around, parents expect their children to be able to handle chapter books. Wandering around in imaginary worlds of vivid colors and images, in that case, is a complete waste of time.

The publishers will respond to what they see as diminished demand and diminish their output. That's bad news for children's book authors and illustrators, but it's worse news for the kids.

A picture tells one thousand words, but if a well-meaning parent deprives their child of the opportunity to develop the skill to interpret those words, the child misses out. It isn't all about printed words. The brain has two sides, and overloading one won't strengthen the other.

Critical thinking skills come into play with picture books. It's a different situation with reading words, where a parent can hear the progress as little Johnny reads aloud. Figuring out what's going on in a picture, and making sense of the world, are internal actions that cannot be monitored.

So there will be a generation of little Einsteins, skilled at memorization and rote and able to get good grades that will lead to acceptance at elite universities.

And there will be a generation lacking in imagination and creativity, incapable of drawing pictures in their minds because they never learned how. Who will be the architects and designers and engineers and writers and artists?

Second Time Around

You rarely get a do-over in the submission process, so I spent three months sweating out revisions before I approached the literary agent who offered to read the manuscript a second time.

The suggested revisions weren't highly specific because so much of storytelling is vague. That left me with the task of interpreting phrases designed to improve the flow of the narrative.

So I took some time and read.

How do other authors keep the tension from chapter to chapter? Where did I drop the ball with a particular subplot as compared to books that are already out there, doing what the literary agent wants me to do?

I developed my own interpretation of the suggestions. I says to myself, says I, that the reader needs a little reminder here and there about the issue that's driving the narrative. Sure the main character can go off and do what she does, but as the author I have to insert a sentence or two here and there to remind the reader that she's still got her problem on her mind.

A book on family conflicts doesn't have the siblings fighting on every page, but one or the other of the combatants might have an internal thought about the ongoing feud. By phrasing it the right way, the author plants a seed of curiosity in the reader's mind, to get that reader to keep going because they have to find out how the problem gets solved.

Did I figure it out, or was my study time all in vain? It's possible that I failed to properly analyze other works to see how a novel is constructed in a linear fashion. After the literary agent gets through the reading for the second time around, it will be either more revisions because I'm on the right track, or a rejection because I just don't get it.

Nothing left to be done but wait it out and see if I passed the test.

Living Out Of A Locked Suitcase

Finances being what they are, I rarely spend time in hotel rooms. I certainly don't attend designer trunk shows at trendy boutiques, either, but it never hurts to be prepared for any contingency.

Apparently, if you bring clothing with you on a trip that involves a hotel stay, you just might be putting on a trunk show of your personal wardrobe, and there's no telling who might show an interest in your fashion sense.

Dayanara Fernandez had packed for a wedding, so you would expect her suitcases to hold some elegant, dressy pieces of apparel.

Lingerie, of course, would be fancier than the day-to-day variety. If you're getting dressed up, you're dressing up through and through.

So imagine Ms. Fernandez's surprise when she walked into her room and found a Hyatt Hotel employee in the bathroom, trying on one of her outfits, complete with underwear and shoes.

Shocked? Probably. More like an extreme "eewwwww" moment.

The employee was a he, not a she, and either Ms. Fernandez has big feet or the gentleman in question is on the petite side for males.

Caught in the act, Mr. Hyatt Employee changed back into his own clothes and handed Ms. Fernandez back her garments. Being on the receiving end of your own panties that were just stripped off a strange man's derriere would be enough to send you to the nearest fire, to burn the thing.

The employee was arrested, since it's illegal for workers to act as if a hotel guest was doing a trunk show in their room and all were welcome to try on the fabulous outfits.

As for Ms. Fernandez, she wasn't satisfied with the settlement that the Hyatt chain was offering. Replacing the clothes isn't enough, not when the woman was traumatized by the event. She has filed suit seeking damages for emotional distress.

No word yet from Hyatt, but if their employee looked better in the outfit than Ms. Fernandez did, there's more emotional distress involved than they can handle. Especially if they're facing a female judge who would understand full well just how upset the victim was at the time.

There Are No Tudors Here

I came home from a weekend away to find a rejection waiting for me.

A rather complicated conspiracy, the agent says, and I'd have to agree that it was a most complicated conspiracy that was hatched in that bygone era. That would explain why the ringleaders and the real assassins were never found. Hence, my desire to put the facts in fictional form and lay out a case of injustice. I found it interesting and challenging but worth the effort to figure it out.

Alas, rejected. There were no Tudors in my tale.

From St. Martin's Press in my daily sampling of new releases I have a new work of historical fiction and who would have guessed that yet another book dealing with the Tudors has been published. Carolly Erickson had success with novels about Mary Queen of Scots and Henry VIII's last wife, so why not publish more?

Isn't the world in need of a story about Elizabeth I and her cousin Lettice Knollys?

You want complicated? Try following the many characters who appear in the courts of Henry VIII and his lovely daughters. The plots to put aside a queen weren't complicated? The devious doings that put Elizabeth I on her throne are simple and straightforward?

I've read novels that had to include an index of characters so that the reader had something to refer back to when things got complicated, but what is acceptable for the Tudors isn't allowed for other time periods that lack royalty.

You the reader might feel that the time period has been done to death and you're tired of stories about the British royals who made life a misery for the Irish and the Catholics, a misery that resounded down countless generations.

As a mere reader, of course, your interests don't resonate with publishers who see one blockbuster and assume that one subject will produce an endless string of financial successes. The literary agents respond to the publishers, not the readers, because there's no real way to know what readers want.

I know what I want as a reader, and I started writing novels to create something I'd like to read but have yet to find on the shelves of my local independent book seller.

Sorry, St. Martin's Press, but I'll take a pass on Rival To The Queen. I'm no Anglophile, I'll admit, but I'm really tired of the Tudors.

The Words Live On

You might dedicate your book to your spouse, your children, or someone of importance in your life. If you're a child of privilege and wealth, you compose your dedication in a way that's intended to draw more attention to yourself and underline your status as a spoiled brat with influential parents who bought you out of trouble.

The words that you wrote as a cocky douchebag don't go away as you mellow with the years and drift into obscurity. If you're Bill Ayres, former Weather Underground radical, you find that the dusty old words still carry their sting.

In spite of Mr. Ayres' past involvement in bombing government buildings, he was able to land a job as a professor at the University of Illinois's Circle Campus in Chicago. His daddy was a close personal friend of the first Mayor Daley, and Circle Campus was Daley's pet project.

Like anyone else with clout, Ayres got a job he otherwise wouldn't have gotten, and he behaved himself and taught education (Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.).

The time has come for retirement and Billy wants what he considers his due. Since his father ran Commonwealth Edison, that which he believes is his due is whatever he demands.

Christopher Kennedy sits on the University board that determines whether or not retiring faculty get emeritus status and therefore get to use the library. It was his father who was gunned down by Sirhan Sirhan, who just happened to be mentioned in the dedication of Bill Ayres old book from the 1970's.

Mr. Kennedy, it seems, didn't forget the insult to his father, to have a book dedicated to a murderer with the murderer labeled a political prisoner. No to emeritus status, he said. Mr. Ayres isn't deserving of the privilege.

Now the faculty's Senate Executive Committee at the Chicago campus are grumbling and asking the board to reconsider. It's a personal matter between Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Ayres, they believe, and should have no bearing on emeritus status. Why, it's a conflict of interest. Mr. Kennedy used an emotional cudgel to beat the board into submission and get a unanimous no.

The honorific is to be based on merit, after all.

And the point of the UIC Senate Executive Committee is?

There's Fiction And There's Reality

In my house, there's a little buzz on Sunday evenings when HBO's Big Love come on. At its core, it is pure soap opera and somewhat addictive.

It is, of course, pure fiction. There are elements in the plot that suggest the writers have watched the news and used real events to craft the conflict in a program that examines polygamy among some of Utah's Mormon community, but the show itself is fiction.

This is in contrast to a reality show, which involves a camera crew following real people as they go about their interesting or unusual day.

And like all reality, unpleasantness can ensue.

Polygamist Kody Brown may have been inspired by Big Love's success and put himself and his many families out there to show that there really are people like those in the make-believe world of HBO.

But in the real world, there are laws against polygamy and if a polygamist calls attention to himself, he is likely to face prosecution.

The issue of polygamy is a touchy one for Utah. The entire state is almost uniformly Mormon, and their religion's past history makes it tough for them to come out strongly against a practice that was once preached. However, the other forty-nine states aren't pleased to see one state turn its back on a law that was enacted by the Mormons so that Utah could join the United States.

With Mr. Brown appearing on television sets nationwide, it would be extremely difficult for Utah's Attorney General to sweep him and his multiple wives under the carpet. The rest of the nation is watching, to see if the legal team has the intestinal fortitude to do what must be done, to prosecute a law-breaker.

If Sister Wives doesn't get yanked by the network, you might want to tune in and listen very carefully to the women involved. Behind their cheery demeanor you'll hear the bad side of plural marriage, the part that torments women into believing that normal human behavior is sinful jealousy to be conquered, that the male of the species is dominant and they are there to be subservient.

Makes for a chilling hour.

A Public Case Of Sibling Rivalry

Brotherhood.

A band of brothers.

You'd think that two men related by birth would be closely aligned, given the perception of the bond between brothers.

Unless those brothers are in British politics.

David and Ed Miliband both wanted to be the leaders of the Labour Party, but there's only chief and more people liked Ed. Who'd want to be sitting around the family dinner table at Christmas after that bit of business? What's a poor mother to do, having to congratulate one son while commiserating with the other. Not a pleasant evening to be had.

Not satisfied with beating out his brother, Ed had to go and knife him in the back while giving his very first speech as Labour leader.

Labour was wrong to take Britain to war in 2003, little Eddie announced to much applause from the Labourites in Manchester.

And there was his brother in the audience, the former Foreign Secretary who pushed for Britain's entry into Iraq. Not clapping. Not smiling.

Rumors about David's departure from politics are swirling. He can't comfortably sit in the shadow cabinet behind his brother and save face, not after a public drubbing.


Colleagues in politics want him to stay on and stand for election, but others fear his presence would only encourage the journalists to report on every perceived flinch as another example of destructive sibling rivalry within Labour, and that at a time when Labour is struggling to return to power.


All eyes are on the Miliband brothers as the tabloid types hunt for cracks on the family foundation. One brother destroying another's career, making him irrelevant in politics when politics has been his life. That's the sort of sibling rivalry we're expecting to see in North Korea once Daddy passes away. Not very sporting of you, old man.

The View From The Ivory Tower

I was reading an article about authors and financial hardship in the Wall Street Journal, and a quote jumped off the page.

A graduate of the University of Georgia's English department was having a hard go of selling her debut novel, a work of literary fiction that the major publishing houses turned down. Much to the surprise of Jed Rasula,  a teacher in that very department, he was sure the manuscript would sell because it was "one of the most exemplary".

Or so the manuscript appeared from the pinnacle of the ivory tower.

There's a tendency these days to worship the MFA and the cookie-cutter format they follow to publishing success. The MFA knows how to use words and create lovely phrases and delve into the deep meanings of life and love and loss and all the rest.

Could it be that the major publishers are starting to realize that the reading public is sick to death of clever young things putting their navel gazings on paper and calling it art?

It's the denizens of the ivory tower who applauded Kirsten Kaschock's efforts, praising her from their perspective of how it should be done properly. The problem with all that lauding is that it doesn't translate to the real world.

The Wall Street Journal blames e-books for the suffering of the literary artists. The major publishers don't nurture the verbal seedlings as they once did in the days of Hemingway and Fitzgerald, so books go unpublished and the authors wither on the vine.

As anyone who's been to university knows, what the professors preach in a lecture rarely translates into the real world. It's all well and good to compose a technically splendid manuscript, but publishers know that the reading public is facing financial hardship, high unemployment and frightening uncertainty.

They aren't about to put out books that ordinary, non-university denizens will not find appealing because they're not living in the ivory tower of academia and don't appreciate the exemplary in literature if it doesn't answer their questions about how they're to cope.

Look at the author bio on the backflap of literary fiction and you'll find a writer who also teaches writing. While that's a clear indication that one can't make a living with one's writing alone, it's also indicative of an incestuous relationship, and students of biology know that such inbreeding results in a lack of diversity which leads to a decline in the species.

What is truly sad about publishing today is the fact that only the bearer of the proper writing degree can be considered a literary writer, and who knows how many good books go unpublished because of a belief that creativity can be taught like chemistry.

It isn't the e-book that's lowering advances on literary fiction. It's the inability of someone fresh out of university, with precious little life experience, to craft a manuscript that's meaningful to a broad slice of the reading public. Publishers want books that sell and make them money. That which college professors find exemplary rarely shines so brightly beyond the confines of the classroom.

Drawing A Crowd With A Cod

By all accounts, Tim Robbins is a rather famous actor, and not just because of his association with Susan Sarandon. Who could forget The Shawshank Redemption?

The Law Society of University College Dublin wanted to recruit new members, and what better way than to host an intimate (only 600 seats at Astra Hall) gathering featuring Mr. Tim Robbins receiving an honorary life membership in the society.

Imagine the disappointment when Mr. Robbins failed to appear.

Imagine his shock at learning he was booked at a UCD event. According to the actor's manager, Mr. Robbins had no idea that he was supposed to be there.

All eyes are now on Kieran McCarthy, law society auditor and the man responsible for organizing the event.

At first, Mr. McCarthy claimed that the actor had to cancel on short notice, but it's since come out that he apologized to the law society and admitted that there never was an appearance scheduled. It was all, apparently, a cod.

The much-desired crowd showed up, so the scheme worked well on one front. The fact that the guest of honor wasn't there and never planned to be there might backfire, unfortunately. Lawyers have a less than savory reputation for truth and honesty, and Mr. McCarthy did the group no favors by promising an appearance that did not occur.

He can't help it, I suppose. How often does a solicitor or barrister claim that he's going to have Witness X testify and blow the whole case open, but come the trial, Witness X is nowhere to be seen?

It's a common enough ruse to get the other side to flinch or show their hand prematurely.

All things considered, then, more students should want to join the group. Imagine how much they'll learn, if this is the first lesson in smoke and legal mirrors.

We Don't Want Nobody Nobody Sent

On the Sobel Weber Associates website, there's instructions on how to send a query.

Pretty straightforward. Via US Mail, hard copy, to their address. They want exclusive submissions only.

So I failed to say that I was sending them a query and only them for the one month period they request. For that failure, it's a rejection.

Because of the recent influx of submissions, they write, from present clients and referrals from editors and other writers, they'll only consider material submitted on an exclusive basis.

Consequently, the rejection letter continues, they are unable to afford proper consideration to unsolicited or multiple submissions.

It isn't all about the exclusive or lack thereof.

Sobel Weber Associates don't want nobody nobody sent.

You want to query them? Someone has to let them know you're coming, that you're all right. You've been pre-approved by another author or editor who has the trust of Mr. Sobel.

Maybe you won't get that from reading their submission requirements. But now you know.

It's not what you know but who you know in the publishing world.

Or, it's just a way to reject a query without having to resort to any obscure prose that says thanks but no thanks, not for us, the list is full, etc. etc.

Unless you have connections, unless you have some clout, Sobel Weber doesn't want to hear from you.