Rodney Dodig

I sit at the keyboard on a daily basis. Some days the words flow like honey; golden, sweet, tempting and sticky. Then there are the other days. I call them my writer’s wasteland. On these days, I sit in the middle of a desert. There are no words. They hide in the sand, giving a clear view to the horizon with nothing to interrupt. The haze from the heat of frustration creates mirages, faint images of words that might be. I struggle to advance the small paragraph that stares back at me from the computer screen. It’s no use, hours pass; I dig deeper making pits in the desolation. A rare word appears and sometimes a miracle, a full sentence. That’s it though, so eventually I start wandering the maze of the internet. Searching for, I don’t know what. Then, shut down, power off, maybe a walk will help; it usually does.

For now, this is the struggle with book #2. The sentences come slowly, the paragraphs seem to take forever and the full chapter is at the end of that long and winding road. I’m still stuck on the rewrite of my query letter and getting it out to more agents. I’ve come to realize that this part of writing is not enjoyable. I need an assistant. One piece of good (or bad) news happened today depending on how you look at it. I received my first rejection notice. I’m now a member of a group of very famous writers whose works were rejected many times before being accepted. The “form” letter used a sentence that gave me hope, whether intentional or not. “We strongly encourage you to seek out other agents who would be able to take your work.” It’s the strongly encourage you part that made me feel good about the letter despite the fact that they were rejecting me.

Since the last entry, I had breakfast with Tim. He’s still struggling to find a job with a school here. A nine to five with benefits is what he needs. On Sunday, I met up with Amanda for lunch and afterwards gave her a tour of Barranco. We also enjoyed a few glasses of wine and I had a Pisco Sour or two. The second scariest taxi ride home in Peru followed. I suffered greatly the next day. Not from a hangover, just that tired I don’t want to do anything laziness that follows a day of fun. On Tuesday I met with Kathy. She was in San Borja getting a MRI done. She met me in Das Frutas, a small coffee/juice place on the corner from my house. She’s doing great and having a lot of fun with some new friends. On Thursday it was Katrina’s turn. We met for lunch at a small sandwich stand, they have great milkshakes. Afterwards we went to Starbucks for coffee and talked about our writing, Huanchaco and other mutual interests. Today was Larry’s turn again, our usual Friday coffee where we talk about our writing, politics and his family. It’s always a good couple of hours. He gave me the first chapter of his new book to look over. It’s very exciting. If he can get it done, it will be a good read. Amanda, Katrina and Larry all have family visiting this fall. They may call on my expertise as a guide. I need to break out my notes and polish up my talk.

Last, I watched a couple of movies this week. The first was “The Immortals.” It was OK. I actually enjoyed watching it but afterwards felt a little disappointed. It certainly wasn’t as good as “The 300.” I give it 3½ Llamas on my grading scale. Big screen would probably make it more enjoyable. I bought the DVD and watched it on TV. The next was “TinTin,” another good but not great movie. Big screen, not necessary as far as I’m concerned. I will give it 3½ Llamas also but simply for the great action scenes. Both of these were good for sitting at home, making your own popcorn and sipping a beer or nice cocktail.

That’s it, have a great weekend everyone. For those of you thinking about it, get creative. Write, paint, draw, quilt, arrange flowers, anything; exercise the brain and then go for a long walk.

The past week has been fraught with adventures in my writing life. I finally have a query letter with the first few pages of book one off to five agents. These five say they will have evaluated my letter and the pages from my book in anywhere from two to eight weeks. That is, the ones who said they would answer at all. Most said, “If you haven’t heard from us by (fill in the # of weeks) it means we’re not interested at this time.” I understand the time requirement. After all, if you are receiving hundreds of e-mails weekly with query letters and pages from books attached, it takes time to give them thought. I can’t understand why

1. They couldn’t at least send out an automated response saying they received your query.

Or

1. They couldn’t send out an automated response saying they weren’t interested.

If you don’t hear anything, you can only wonder if they ever received your query in the first place. Puzzles, puzzles, puzzles, I wonder how they would feel if they were in the writer’s position.

I’ve finally found a great example of a good query letter and plan to edit mine before sending it to more agents. I’ve gone through the Writer’s Market listings and selected another four. I’ll keep going until I get to fifty or so and then reevaluate my course of action. I will go to self publishing if I have to.

I’m progressing well on the second book. I’m a little puzzled about how much of book one I need to reference in this one. Especially as it concerns character development. I’ve read a few books done in series by authors and have noticed that the reader is almost expected to know about the main characters already. The books I read were all well into the series and I’m thinking that I need to get books one and two in a couple of series to see how these successful authors dealt with it. Book 2 (untitled at this point) finds my intrepid detective assigned to a antinarcotics unit in the jungles of Peru. They are trying to find the source of cocaine to one of the major dealers in Lima. They want to break up his organization.  The book will also touch on child soldiers and slavery somewhat but merely as a subplot to the main story. I’ve almost completed chapter 8 and hope to get started on chapter 9 today.

My adventures at the dentist continue. On Monday, his drill broke again. This time I was able to figure out what the problem was. The old crowns were not what he was dealing with. I had large fillings put in my back teeth when I was in the Navy. It’s anybody’s guess as to what kind of metal they were using at the time. One of my old Navy buddies commented on Facebook that it was probably an alien alloy with a microchip in the center. The CIA wanted to keep track of my comings and goings. LOL Anyway, Friday I showed up for another appointment and he had a new “super strong” drill and he managed to finish the job. Now, I have two more appointment. The first will measure the crowns to make sure they fit. Then, the crowns go back to the lab for the porcelain covering. Lastly, I go back in to have them permanently glued in. Finished! I am hoping that we will be completely finished by Friday of next week. Twenty six crowns with four bridges in one and a half months, not too shabby as far as I’m concerned.

I’m thinking of starting a column, “My weekly coffees with Expats.” I met Larry again yesterday (Friday) and had another lively discussion of things going on in our lives. Larry is working on building a webpage for himself, writing his weekly column for LiP, trying to find time to begin work on his new book and deal with all the stuff a man married to a Peruvian woman needs to deal with. We always wander from topic to topic without rhyme or reason. This meeting was no different. At one point he noticed an older woman wandering down the sidewalk in the park across the street. She had a large piece of cardboard with something written on it and would stop occasionally to read from it like she was preaching to the world. “I’ll bet she’s got an interesting story,” was Larry’s comment and I knew I would be seeing an essay on her one of these days in LiP. Considering the number of coffees I have with friends who are non-Peruvian, I might be able to create an interesting weekly column for out topics of discussion. What do you think?

Have a great weekend everyone!

Over the past few days, a couple of friends (Larry and Katrina) gave me their thoughts on my query letter. I took their suggestions to heart, made a few changes and sent the letter with the first page of my book to one of the agents on my list. Hitting that send key after I had structured the e-mail was a scary moment for me. I read in a blog by one of the many writers I follow that fear can be devastating to a writer and now I know what he meant. For some writers, the fear may come before they actually start a book, for others finishing what they’ve started and others still it’s putting it out there to be read and critiqued. I made it through all those stages without that gut wrenching feeling until that evening (Friday) when I sat with the mouse hovering over the send button. Fear can freeze you; I have no doubt of that. You have to find a way to move beyond it. From somewhere deep in my mind, a small voice said to me, “what have you got to lose?”

“Nothing!” was my answer. At that moment I realized I would not let my writing be defined by any number of rejections. I am a writer and what I do now is WRITE! I am based enough in reality to know that I am no literary master but I do think I can but words together well and tell a story. The more I do that, the better I will get. I am especially thankful that I have a group of very supportive friends. Some who write and some who might be considered professional readers. I respect all their opinions and insight. I hope the circle of people I create as a writer will grow and with that my skill as a writer. So for those of you who read my musings, whatever your goals, don’t let fear stop you from anything.

I met Kathy at the Patio on Thursday morning for coffee. We had a long rambling discussion about writing, health issues, travel plans and her divorce proceedings. They are things that always come up during our fairly regular weekly meetings. She’ll be heading back to the states soon to take care of some medical issues and get some financial stuff in order. Her big news was having finally received her Rentista Visa so she can stay in Peru after the divorce is finalized. The next day I met Larry. Our discussion revolved around books we have been reading, the writing we have or haven’t done, world problems (especially the Sol to Dollar exchange rate) and the stuff going on with Larry’s family. Today (Sunday), I met Lourdes and Tim for breakfast at Café Zeta. We had a good visit. They greatly admired my new dental work and we talked about Tim’s search for a steady job here in Peru and stuff going on with Lourdes’ family. It was another good morning. On the way back to San Borja I got to see part of the Dakar Rally pass down Javier Prado, a street only two blocks from my apartment. There were thousands and thousands of people lining the streets watching, it was quite exciting.

I went to the movies with Steve and Antonio again this week. We saw the new Sherlock Holmes movie. Lots of action, great acting, cool special effects; all in all it was a very good movie. I give it 4 ½ Llamas on my rating scale and recommend you see it. I think this one rates a special trip to the theater to see it on the big screen. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did.

Final note – my dentist has fixed the drill so I go back on Monday to start the final phase. I’m hoping it will all be done in a week. Till next time, have a great week and enjoy life. It’s far too short.

Somewhere deep inside me a writer cringes at the lack of work I have accomplished in the last week. It all started with the “query letter” I need when I submit the first book to agents. I thought it would be easy, the hook line, an interesting synopsis of the book and a little bit about myself. The number of hours I spent staring at a blank page trying to think up the perfect hook surprised me. Then the synopsis, how do you sum up in 500 words a book of 113,000 words? Do they want you to give the story away? Are they interested in who the main characters are? It’s all very confusing. I did a little research on-line trying to find examples of successful query letters. They are few and far between my friends. The ones I did find were short, very short. I would classify them as sweet and to the point, less than a page in length. I thought to myself, great, this should be easy but fear clutched at my breast. In the back of my mind that old saying, “you only have one chance to make a first impression,” keeps tossing doubts into the fray. I finally finished a first draft and sent it to a couple of writer friends for their opinion. Haven’t heard back so we’ll see what they have to say. After that I managed to complete chapter 4 of the new book and start in on chapter 5. I do like where the new book is going and it changes directions a little every time I add to it. The sooner I get my queries out to agents, the sooner I will be able to concentrate on the new book. Hopefully a couple will go out before the weekend.

On Sunday I met Tim and Lourdes for breakfast. They were full of news about their trip to Ica and Huacachina last week. They both tried sand boarding and went for rides in a dune buggy. Tim has also taken up surfing recently and is enjoying himself immensely. Lourdes is simply enjoying her time off from University and teaching. Despite the fact that it’s January, they are on summer vacation here in Peru. We talked about other things too. They were interested in my trip to Huanchaco, especially after I told Tim how good the waves were there. That reminds me, my article on the trip has been published by LiP. Here’s the link in case you’re interested.  http://www.peruthisweek.com/travel-229-Perus-Huanchaco-beach-Perfect-waves-and-ancient-ruins/

Ahh, the dentist! It’s been an interesting two days with him. I went in on Monday and had the lower crowns installed. They look great and I am very happy with them. Alex, the dentist, told me to come back on Tuesday and we would start on the last of the work. For those who haven’t been following this, it involves two upper and lower teeth on my left side that had to stay till the end to keep my bite intact while the crown were being installed. The upper two teeth are older crowns put in by my dentist in the US several years ago. The first of the two came out fairly easily but the other one proved to be very problematic. Apparently my US dentist used some super glue unknown to the rest of mankind to set it. After hammering away at it for 30 minutes or so, Alex figured it wasn’t going to come out using this tried and true method. So, he started up his drill and was going to remove the material much like they do a tooth. Unfortunately, the crown is also made of some mysterious super material and holds a microchip the CIA put in my mouth to keep track of me. Everyone knows I work for the CIA and travel from country to country causing problems. LOL The drill broke! Now I have to wait for his equipment to be repaired before we can complete my work. At least we got the molds done. Life is interesting here to say the least. Naturally updates will follow. Have a Happy Hump Day everyone.

I had just finished making the suggested edits that my friend Deb sent me and was formatting the first fifty pages of the book to send along with a query letter to agents when I noticed a big problem. As I read through those pages I discovered that edits I had made from my friend Tim’s in the past month were missing. I continued only to find that the first one hundred pages of edits and rewrites were gone. I spent two frustrating days searching through backup files and my flash drives to see if those changes had been saved there and I could recoup them. Unfortunately, all that came to no avail and I was forced to redo the edits and try to remember my chapter rewrites. Frustrated is a polite word for the feeling that coursed through me those two days. The only thing I can think of, I overwrote the newly edited book with an older version at one point and wiped out all my work. Fortunately, I have managed to reenter the edits and make the necessary changes to those two chapters that needed reworked. Now I need to go back in and reformat the book to suit the agent’s tastes. I want to get all this done so that I can get back to work on the second book.

I started my “Query Letter” this week. This is the letter that you send to agents that lets them know about your book. There are several on-line guides for writing them and they all pretty much say the same thing. You need to write a goof “hook” line. One that will make the agent want to read your synopsis. The synopsis is a 500 word or less description of your book. Think of those descriptions on the inside jackets of books. The ones you go to in the store to see if you might be interested in reading it. Then a little bit about the length of the book, something about your writing credits if you have any and attach the first 50 pages of your book and you have it. Sounds easy right? I thought so until I actually started writing it. So you can just pile up a little more frustration for me. I do hope to get through that this weekend and send it to a couple of friends for comment. Then, miracle of miracles, maybe I’ll find an interested agent who will take me on.

On Friday morning this past week I had coffee with my friend Larry. We talked about our writing, Larry’s successful quest to get his “Carnet” renewed, divorces, on-line presence for authors and a whole host of other topics. I always enjoy out get togethers. He’s started a new book also. I think I may have mentioned it in a previous post, a WWII spy thriller that will take place in Peru. He’s started on his first chapters and like me is struggling already. After that I met Kathy in Miraflores for a light lunch. We talked about writing and then a whole host of other subjects. Her divorce seems to be at a standstill, not uncommon for Peru. It will probably take a couple more years unless the husband comes to his senses and agrees to the Peruvian version of a quicky. The writers’ group didn’t meet this week and will not until the first Thursday in February. There are too many people missing, vacations and other business being taken care of.

I went to the movies twice this weekend. The first time we went to see Elite Assassins. There is an all-star cast in this movie and it’s very exciting. There are lots of explosions, people being shot and great fight scenes. It’s loosely based on a book written by an ex-SAS (British Secret Service) agent. If you have a big screen TV, I think you would enjoy it just as much watching it at home, I know I did. I give it 3½ Llamas. The second movie we saw was the Darkest Hour. It was a SciFi thriller based in Russia about an alien invasion that wipes out most of humanity. It was OK, definitely a buy or rent and watch it at home movie. I’m giving it 3 Llamas, but only because they surprised me somewhat. I don’t want to ruin it for all of you by telling you what that was for me. Hope you all are having a great weekend. Get out and enjoy life. It’s very short. You never know when an alien invasion will occur and take it all away from you.

While in Huanchaco I spent some time trying to get a few words onto paper. I managed to force my way through to the end of chapter 3. Ronin still has more of his story to tell but I’m going to stretch it out over several chapters and involve a couple other characters. I got a good start on Chapter 4. It takes place back in Lima. Eugenia is in the hospital visiting Fredo after his surgery. This chapter will pull in one of my sub plots for this book. This book isn’t coming into focus as quickly as book one did. That may have something to do with the fact that I’m writing this one alone or maybe not. I’m hoping that the further I get into the book, the quicker the words will come.  For the rest of this week, I’m going to go through the suggestions my friend Deb sent me. My little laptop is just too small for that work so I didn’t accomplish anything while on vacation. During that time I need to write a query letter, a synopsis of the book and format the first 50 pages to send to the agents I have selected in trying to get it published.  I hope to have all that accomplished by next Sunday. I can tell already I’m not going to enjoy the business end of writing. But, if I want to be successful at it, I don’t have a choice but to do it and do it well.

I enjoyed my time in Huanchaco immensely. I went with the idea of getting a lot of writing done but ended up spending most of my time relaxing, taking naps and thinking about where I was going to eat my next meal. The beach front was beautiful and the town is very quiet and relaxed. There are lots of people enjoying surfing there. They come from all over the world and Peru to ride the nearly perfect waves this beach has to offer. Everyone was friendly, with smiles, nods and verbal greetings as I walked around town. Vendors sold souvenirs, snacks, cold drinks and snow cones. You could watch jugglers, a tight rope walker or have your photo taken with a monkey or paso horse in full regalia. Most visitors chose to lie on the beach and worship the sun, rotating slowly to develop that perfect tan. You could rent a caballito del totora (a kayak like boat made of reeds) and paddle yourself around the bay. A large church sits atop the hill to the back of the town overlooking the bay. Named the Iglesia Virgen del Socorro and it is the second oldest church in Peru, built between 1535 and 1540. It’s worth the long climb up the stairs for a close up look and a visit to the cemetery that lies on the North side of the church. Landscaped terraces lead up to the church offering a beautiful photo opportunity. This town is just north of Trujillo where the archaeological sites of Chan Chan, the Huaca del Sol and Huaca de la Luna lay just on the outskirts. If you come to Peru this is another must see place. I wrote a travel article for LiP which should be published soon.

We made it back in to Lima at 9pm New Year’s Eve. I was exhausted from a lack of sleep the night before so I went to bed almost immediately. At midnight the fireworks started and went till at least 2am. It sounded like they were igniting large sticks of dynamite right outside my bedroom window. So another sleep deprived night meant I spent New Year’s Day exhausted. Top that off with every store in Lima (grocery stores) being closed and I was forced to eat at restaurants again. I did get my good night’s sleep last night though and am now caught up on food shopping and laundry, time to get back to the books in a serious way. I hope all of you have a magnificent New Year full of happiness, love, peace and prosperity. Pax Vobiscum!