Yesterday and the busiest bunny in the warren.

So having just finished my rewrite of “Division” only five minutes ago, I’m wondering what to do now?

Another short story perhaps or back to the MS I started in Spain?

I’m tending towards the Spain story actually. It would be nice to get into a big operation again, create my own little world where I make the rules, lay down the law, say what’s to be done, be the Big Cheese, the Numero Uno, the Number One, the Boss Man… because it’s all so far removed from my family life, believe me.

So that’s what I’m going to do.

Furthermore…

After a lot of surfing the net for information about illustrated stories, I have come to the conclusion that nobody prints them anymore. Children’s books and “How to fix things” type of books are a go; novels with pictures a no-no.
A graphic novel, A La Frank Miller style would probably be snapped up like a dead chicken in a Gulag but illustrated stories are not, “In”. Sadly.

If I, and it’s a very big IF here, if I were a famous author I could probably force the issue through to a publication on the strength of my name alone. However, seeing as I hold as much weight in the publishing world as I do in the United Nations, I guess I’ll have to pass on the idea.

Whatever, it’s a good story and I’ll simply send it off as a novelette and see what happens. Or perhaps Andreas would want to make a graphic novel out of it?

It’d be a lot of work though and I can’t see it somehow. Whatever, flexibility is my middle name, (OK, Rhys is my middle name but flexibility would be cool if it was).

I Facebooked a bit with my mate (Old Git) Joey yesterday too. A long time ago, after far too many drinks, we spoke about doing a project together. Joey is a photographer and the idea was that he takes some photos of Druidic type things, (yes, you read that right, we were FACED), Druidic type things and I write the text, and God help us maybe even try my hand at poetry.

We’d make it into a coffee table book and market it on Create Space, the Amazon Print on Demand firm.

So we’d have a nice book for Joey to show his customers, it’d be on Amazon for me to put on my CV and I’d get a free passport photo next time I need one… sounds fair to me, lol.

Anyway, the Druid idea, in the cold light of sobriety, doesn’t appeal to the Joester anymore, and neither does it to me. I mean I am sober for Tarby’s sake! However he wants to do something artistic with me and it doesn’t involve nudity or bodily fluids… hopefully. So let’s wait and see.

I’m up for it now that the illustrated story has all but fallen through with Andreas.

Also, yesterday, as I knew I would be finished with “Division” today and I’m a busy bunny, I sent out a query letter with the first 3 chapters and a synopsis to Severed Press. Their policy is that if I don’t hear from them in 20 days I can forget it.

What’s all that about, eh? I’d sooner have a rejection slip full of obscene reference to toilets, human waste and my talent than hear nothing. It’s like having a younger brother missing in action; there’s no closure on the issue.

Whatever happened to common courtesy?



Well, actually, I can understand it. The market is saturated nowadays with bored housewives, industrious pensioners, unemployed academics who all own a computer with MS Word on.

Anyone can write a book and send it off and a lot of people do. Hence the impersonal approach to rejection nowadays. It’s along the lines of supply and demand. If nobody wrote books then the author would be treated like royalty, however EVERYBODY’S writing and sending their work off so the author is reduced to the ranks of the Great Unwashed.

Well, that’s my take on it anyway, and that’s why I’m grateful for any minor literary triumph that stumbles over me.
Right, I’m off. We’re doing a barby today and I’m starving.

Reg :-)