Rodney Dodig

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.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 7th, 2012 at 9:10 am and is filed under Living in Lima, Peru. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.