Month: June 2024

Kate Capshaw in the 80s

So it’s 4:11 AM on Friday and I can’t sleep because of this cold and I’ve just finished drinking my tea with a little honey and a little lemon and a big dose of bourbon because I sound like Orson Welles after smoking a carton of Marlboros, and suddenly the floor falls away.

Although I’m sitting in the dark fog on the back patio, having just finished an email to my boss advising him that I’m calling in sick today, somehow I’m now at my desk at work.

And the floor falls away.

I zoom past the guys in Service Management on the first floor who look at me like, what are you doing here?

And then it’s down a black tunnel with the occasional lantern lights and the showers of the sparks from the wheels of the mine cart…

OMG I’m in the mine cart part of the that dreadful second Indiana Jones movie with the zombies and the trearing out of still-beating hearts!

Except there’s no kid screaming “Indy! Indy” who will someday grow up to be a fine actor and win an Academy Award for his excellent work in Everything Everywhere All at Once. Big Shorty, that was the character.

And there’s no Kate Capeshaw from the 80s wearing a diaphonous top screaming my name… rats…

Equally, there’s no guy in another mine cart roaring through the dark, looking like a cross between Lurch and the Last Airbender and shooting lightning beams or whatever the hell was going on in that movie.

Nope, it’s just me, in the metal cart, barreling down, down into the darkness.

Are you sure about that no Kate Capshaw in the 80’s part?

As the cart bashes along the rickety track through tunnels filled with spiders and stuff, you gotta think that ol’ Indy Jones had to be questioning his career choices. I mean, this track can’t end up in a sunny little valley with a retirement home and a cuppa tea, can it? Kate Capshaw from the 80s smiling saying g “yaay, you made it?”

How old was Inidana Jones, anyway? If he was 35 in, like, 1935, how come he was so old in the last movie? He should only have been, like, 70…

Down and down I’m roaring, all by myself in my little black mine cart. Surely this track dead-ends. Or maybe it leads to a cave stuck in a mountainside, like it did in that dreadful movie.

Maybe I’ll have to hang on to some jungle vines with Kate Capshaw from the 80s clinging desperately to me. That wouldn’t be so bad.

I feel like something huge is happening in my life. A life- changing something. And, while I can’t do anything to stop it, maybe I don’t want to stop it, because it’ll all be okay in the end.

Or maybe it’s just the bourbon.

Secret Query Intel

You gotta keep this on the down-low, the ixnay to anybody, you didn’t hear this from me.

But.

My wife heard from the lovely sister-in-law (she read Adventures of a Sawdust Man a loooong time ago, in case you haven’t kept up with The Saga of Me), who has been inspired to begin her own writing project.

Hello? I call that a win in anyone’s book. Not that I inspired her, but that she’s inspired!

Anyway, she confessed to my darling wife that she never sent her notes, for which I waited so many long, desperate weeks, because she didn’t have any! She felt it was ready to publish.

Funnily enough, you can find it published here.

So, Fred Flintstone and I have been having this confab, you see. My Wilma told me she still sees a million clams in the cards. Now comes this notice of non-notiness from the lovely sister.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Pinky?

So, back to how to write a successful query letter.

Step One: Select an agent in your genre.

Step Two: Find an author in your genre that writes somewhat similar so that the potential agent can see your book on the shelf.

Aha, says I. So I have to nail it down that way, does I?

Well, I guess my book is a fantasy, becuase it uses a lot of magic, and it’s historical because it uses a lot of Shakespeare, and it’s Young Adult because one of the protagonists is 17.

So, here’s something to do on a foggy afternoon: do a Google search on the best fantasy novels of 2023.

OMG I’ve never so many lost kingdoms, overrun kingdoms, hidden, secret, forgotten,  blah blah blah… not to denigrate the many authors, but it’s all so, so dark.

Finally, after much searching, I found my guy. Liked him right from the git-go. Can’t tell you his name or I’ll screw the pooch.

But, when you find your author, you find their publisher. Dig just a little deeper, and you can find their literary agency.

Yeah, I said it. Literary. Agency.

Boom. Pay dirt. Scroll through the list of agents, pick out that certain someone, pray to the gods of all things printed that they’re open to queries, and go pick up your million clams!

Nobody tells you this, or maybe they do and I’m too stubborn to read it, but, hey, there it is.

Enjoy your million clams!

Fred Flintstone Calling

I’ve got this great idea, see. All’s ya gotsta do is get everybody in Uruguay to visit your site just once – they don’t even need to linger. That’s over 3.4 million views! Man, you are gonna rake in the dough!

So, the deal with Fred Flintstone – if you’re too young to know – was that he was a caveman, see, the head of a modern stone-age family. His wife, Wilma, and his neighbors Betty and Barney Rubble, lived in the town of Bedrock. A town just like yours and mine, except made out of rock.

It was a Hanna-Barbera cartoon series made in the early 1960’s and it was dopey fun.

Fred was every man’s everyman. He was living the caveman equivalent of the American Dream – good job, house in the ‘burbs, picket fence, nice ped-powered car.

A regular Joe, except that he had a penchant for making outlandish, foolproof plans to make a million clams. He was gonna quit the quarry and live the life of a millionaire, just as soon as his ship sailed.

“Barney boy, by this time tomorrow, we are gonna be livin’ like kings!”

Of course he never quite succeeded – Dino the dinosaur dog ate the proceeds, it turned out the ptero-chickens were all ptero-roosters,  Ann Margarock had to be in Rock Vegas on the night of the big event, etc.

At the end of every episode, there was Wilma, reminding him that he already had everything he needed right there in his little family. And he always sheepishly admitted she was right. “Wilma, you are the greatest…”

If you’re reading this, and I imagine you are, you probably have an inner Fred Flintstone yourself.

You’re thinking there’s always a chance, a long shot maybe, but a chance that this one, this stupid crazy-ass scheme, this could be the one. One in a million chance, but, hey, somebody’s gonna make it… Ten bazillion books get published and read every year, why not mine?

So, I recently gave up on my inner Fred. I was a little depressed, maybe. A little tired. I dunno.

I decided that this is the dish, this life o’ mine: this is my someday. Someday I’ll have a nice house in the ‘burbs and a pretty wife and 2.5 kids and a good job with a decent salary. Hey, I have all of that, so this must be it.

All righty, then, Fred. It’s been fun. Good luck with your crazy schemes. I’m hanging up the bronto-phone now – I gotta go mow the lawn.

So, I go and tell my wife, the very love of my life, that I’m hanging up my bronto-spurs, and quote that line from All Things Great and Small where Herriot tells a fellow that someday he’ll be a millionaire, and the fellow replies with “Nah, it’s not in the cards. Was I to be a millionaire, well, I’d be one already, don’t you see?”

My darling wife replies “well, let’s not be too hasty about that.”

Whoa, whoa, hold on, there. That’s a Fred Flintstone line, not a Wilma line! YOU can’t say I’m gonna make a million clams, because YOU’RE the voice of REASON!

Like a bolt out of the blue, I was gobsmacked, thunderstruck, and over the moon in a tizzy of heaven for-fend, she, she, she believes in my crazy schemes!

To quote Goofy, “gorshk.”

So, I’m opening everything back up – Skippity Whistles, California Air Museums, even hauling The Book in for a rewrite.

Do I have a plan?

Heck no! I’m making it up as I go! Never quote me the odds!

My wonderful wife, she, she believes in me!

Wilma: “Oh, Fred.” (Sighs and exits)