Figure skating and bad news

I haven't figured out why when I have some novel news, I don't just post it. Maybe because in the throes of dealing with bad news, I don't much want to dwell on it. Anyway, I had sent On the Edge to Thompson/Gale's Five Star line on the recommendation of a published author friend of mine last summer. They read it mainly on her recommendation. And for the next three, she told me again and again how she was sure they would buy it. It was a good book. Gale is a library subscription publisher (rather than a bookstore trade publisher). They would buy it.

Yeah, right.

Thanks for your e-mail, and for submitting your novel On the Edge to us for consideration in the Five Star Expressions line. While we think that your novel is very well written, I'm afraid that it skews too much toward the YA-fiction genre, and therefore, I'm afraid that it is simply not right for our Expressions line, which skews toward a more adult tone and theme (I was hoping this might be the rare exception that could have fit into our line, but I'm afraid that wasn't the case). I thank you for your patience while we reviewed your novel, and wish you the best of luck in placing it elsewhere.

Thanks again, and please let me know if there is anything else we can do.

So, if I'd HAD any hope to begin with, I would have been crushed. As it was, I didn't dare hope, because I knew that I couldn't face another rejection. Losing my agent just about killed me. I couldn't face it again. I didn't hope and as such, I was less disappointed. But it's still a big bummer.

What does that mean? Well, basically, it means that On the Edge is dead. It's been queried to pretty much every possible agent in NY. It's been read by half of the people queried. It's been agented. It been shopped. It's been dumped. No, I'm not putting it out through Lulu or iUniverse. But I will be self-publishing it under the Private Ice imprint when I get around to making it happen. The question remains if I will then try to sell Desperate Times to NY or not. I suppose it depends. But if you love me, buy the book, okay?

~~~

Of course, with bad news, comes good news. For the first time in 2 years, my muse has come for a winter visit. Normally she just sends post cards from Tahiti. But I've been writing for three solid weeks now, and I strongly suspect that if I pace myself, she'll stay the winter. I've written about 25,000 words on The Barunian Incident, which brings the total to just 70 words under 40K. I am SEVENTY words from half done. I don't know whether to celebrate or run screaming through the neighborhood in frustration.

I'm sure, if the muse hangs out, you shall all be treated to the travails of trying to get The Barunian Incident published. I suspect this one might sell. It's sexy. The characters are sympathetic. It's got explosions and sword fighting (and a heroine who KICKS ASS). So far, both my husband and my 11 year old like it. Cross your fingers. The Barunian Incident has been in progress for nearly 5 years. I did the treatment based on a dream I had in 2001 and have worked on it sporadically since. I just want inspiration to hang around long enough to finish.

Oh, and it has NOTHING to do with figure skating.

~~~

On the professional front, I am now blogging for Ars Technica's Infinite Loop, a Macintosh blog. Things are things at Newsforge. I picked up a new client, Off the Record Research and that did nicely paying for Christmas. I'm also in negotiation with two new local clients, both of whom should mean regular income. We'll see. More on that when it happens.

~~~

And to feed my survey taking jones—because I watched return of the King THREE TIMES this weekend (more for boredom than enthusiasm, though the man candy is truly excellent)—here's which LOTR Hero I am:

Figure Skating through Halloween.

I really enjoy Judith Warner's blog Domestic Disturbances at the NY Times. She's so delightfully imperfect. I am far from the perfect parent. My kids always have dirty faces and the house is never just so. Normally, I am right there with her when she complains about over parenting, or overly perfect parenting. But on this particular day, I couldn't have disagreed with her more. Here's a comment that I posted on Judith's Hapless on Halloween entry. After I wrote it, I thought, "you know, I want to put this on my blog too." So I did. Skate America conflicts with Halloween almost every year and that's always a problem for me since Halloween is my favorite holiday. This year, I ditched skating for candy and blue dogs.

You know what? I LIKE Halloween. Okay, so my kids don’t have the greatest costumes–and when they do, my mom makes them. She’s retired, has time, and was always a fantastic costumer. But I carve the pumpkins–we always have the best ones in the neighborhood because I love carving pumpkins. I’m teaching my oldest to carve. She is decent enough with a knife not to cut herself, but very ambitious and oft comes to grief. I make sure they’re dressed and warm and then Daddy takes them from door to door.

And while they are trick or treating, I sit on my front lawn in a sling chair with our bichon frise Killer which we have dyed blue for the holiday (Blues Clues? Blue Dog Democrat, anyone?). And I sit there and remember all the great Halloweens from my past. The one where mom made my brother a frog head and he went as a frog prince. There was the year I was an alligator and won a year’s pass to the skating rink for best costume. There was the fun of running pell-mell from house to house in the cold, spooky dark, shrieking all the way–no matter what we were wearing.

When I fade back from memory into reality, there’s candy heaped high in an antique wooden bowl–the same one we used when I was a kid. It’s bliss to hand out handfuls to the ever dwindling clumps of children–there are fewer ever year.

And it breaks my heart.

Most kids who trick or treat in our neighborhood come up from the poor inner-city places, where drugs, crime, and hopelessness, lack of opportunity and yes, downright laziness, have made it too dangerous for a child to walk up to a house and say “trick or treat.” Too many tricks down there. Some people might say they don’t belong here. But they make no trouble and something in me wants to scream how these kids deserve just as much as mine to have fun on Halloween. They deserve to have fun running gleefully from house to house, parents trailing along behind. They deserve a handful of candy from someone who thinks Halloween isn’t a chore. They deserve to be children.

And for one night in October, so do I.

Figure Skating's Best Query Letter Writer

Years ago, when I was pitching On the Edge to agents, I got a gratifying, but ultimately disappointing reply. "Not my sort of thing, but what a fantastic query!"

And THAT is the story of my writing life.

I write fantastic queries. For those of you who are not writers, a query is a pitch letter written to a literary agent or editor to tempt them into reading your work. I get read more than pretty much any writer I know. Fully half of the agents I pitched On the Edge to read at least some part of it. A 50% request rate is most outrageously awesome for an "unpublished" writer.

So I was pretty disappointed when only two of the sixty letters I sent out for Nobody's Hero (my picture book about a dog who saves the life of a boy during the tsunami in India in 2004) came back with requests. But, I figured, "if you can only get two, then Houghton Mifflin and Arthur A Levine (Scholastic) are about the highest profile publishers one could possibly have interested." In short, not many nibbles but both from big fish from the biggest pond.

But, the industry is a sucky place. Response times vary from 2 to 8 months, so I never follow up until at least 2 months have passed. So, 2 months after submitting the story to Levine, as requested, I sent a follow up email. The response I got came from a different editor. Turns out, the editorial assistant who requested my manuscript had left at the end of the summer (to go back to grad school) without any action on Nobody's Hero. But the editor promised to have it read right away.

The rejection came roughly a week later with a two line criticism--"though this truly is a powerful story, I think it important that the emotional impact not rely too heavily on the real world tragedy." What the HELL does that mean?! I vaugely think that maybe the story was too emotionally intense... too scary. Cheese-n-rice, it's an adventure story about one point of light in a major world tragedy! Okay, I just don't get it. Maybe my terminal lack of touchy-feely-ness is going to be the death of me.

The reader--"Editorial Assistant"--had an unusual name, so I looked her up on the web... a 20-something grad student. I got a GFY from a freaking KID. Oh, NOW, I feel better. The rejection from Houghton Mifflin, with an even WORSE "this didn't fit our line," came two days later.

Another door slams.

I shed a few tears, told a couple of real life friends who were sympathetic, talked it over with my bud Natalie. I'm still bummed pretty bad. It just seems so hopeless. If I can't sell the story that kept the kindergardeners in my daughter's class absolutely spellbound, can I ever sell anything?

I sound depressed. I feel depressed. I have good reason to be depressed. My arthritis has been acting worse and worse. I'm in pain pretty much all the time no matter what I take for it. I don't feel like doing anything. So the housework and the writing are piling up around me making me feel even LESS like doing anything.

Eight years and two million words, give or take a hundred thousand or so. Someone tell my again, why am I doing this to myself?

Perl Poem Tribute to 9/11

Okay, so 99% of the people who come to this blog are only going to be able to read the English version, and have probably never heard of Perl Poetry. But... suffice it to say, I'm a software developer and one of the programming languages I know is Perl. People actually write poetry in Perl and it is considered to be an exceedingly difficult thing to do. It seemed like a fitting tribute ina whimsical sort of way. My poet friends are all writing poetry of surpassing beauty and heart-wringing emotion... but this morning, I was writing code. My friend Yemi, who a most incredible writer and poet, and a fine person said this. "Event follows event with the inevitability (in hindsight) of a program. What better metaphor?"

A Program for 9/11

warn ("Al Queda Determined to Strike US");
exec(0);
open(MYPETGOAT, "Story-Book") or die "11, 175, 93, 77"
while (<MYPETGOAT>){ exec(0);}
for (i=1; i==2752; i++) { if (!!ur==0) {kill; kill; kill;}}
$red = $white = $blue = "gray";
$together = $black + $white + $republican + $democrat + $young + $old;
goto (Afganistan);
if (!m/Osama Bin Laden/) { delete("Iraq"); }
split (/sectarian lines/, "$Iraq" . "$US");
if (!m/insurgency/) { our(soldiers) = $iraqicivilians = $civilliberties = 0)
exec(0);
exit("fail");

#it reads like this:
#
#Warning: Al Queda Determined to Strike US
#The President does nothing.
#Open My Pet Goat while death approaches for flights 11, 175, 93, and 77.
#While reading My Pet Goat, the President does nothing.
#And 2752 people die.
#And the red, white and blue turns gray.
#But all of us become one.
#
#We go to Afghanistan,
#but when we cant find Osama Bin Laden
#we attack Iraq.
#And we fall apart--the US and Iraq--splitting along sectarian lines
#while the insurgency rages,
#our soldiers die
#iraqi civilians die
#we give up our civil liberties
#The President does nothing.
#To exit is to fail

Birthdays (no figure skating parties, please)

Oh oh! Another silly piece of web trivia. This one wants your birthdate.

Last friday was my 36th birthday.

25 August 1970

Your date of conception was on or about 2 December 1969 which was a Tuesday.

You were born on a Tuesday under the astrological sign Virgo (me: actually on the cusp of Leo and Virgo. The signs have shifted since).
Your Life path number is 5.

Life Path Compatibility:
You are most compatible with those with the Life Path numbers 1, 5 & 7.
You should get along well with those with the Life Path numbers 3 & 9.
You may or may not get along well with those with the Life Path number 8.
You are least compatible with those with the Life Path numbers 2, 4, 6, 11 & 22. (note: My husband of 12 years is a 6)

The Julian calendar date of your birth is 2440823.5.
The golden number for 1970 is 14.
The epact number for 1970 is 22.
The year 1970 was not a leap year.

Your birthday falls into the Chinese year beginning 2/6/1970 and ending 1/26/1971.
You were born in the Chinese year of the Dog.

Your Native American Zodiac sign is Bear; your plant is Violets.

You were born in the Egyptian month of Paopy, the second month of the season of Poret (Emergence - Fertile soil).

Your date of birth on the Hebrew calendar is 23 Av 5730.

The date of Easter on your birth year was Sunday, 29 March 1970.
The date of Orthodox Easter on your birth year was Sunday, 26 April 1970.
The date of Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent) on your birth year was Wednesday 11 February 1970.
The date of Whitsun (Pentecost Sunday) in the year of your birth was Sunday 17 May 1970.
The date of Whisuntide in the year of your birth was Sunday 24 May 1970.
The date of Rosh Hashanah in the year of your birth was Thursday, 1 October 1970.
The date of Passover in the year of your birth was Tuesday, 21 April 1970.
The date of Mardi Gras on your birth year was Tuesday 10 February 1970.

As of 8/30/2006 2:59:21 PM EDT
You are 36 years old.
You are 432 months old.
You are 1,879 weeks old.
You are 13,154 days old.
You are 315,710 hours old.
You are 18,942,659 minutes old.
You are 1,136,559,561 seconds old.

Celebrities who share your birthday:

Kel Mitchell (1978)	Claudia Schiffer (1970)	Rachael Ray (1968)
Billy Ray Cyrus (1961)	Tim Burton (1958)	Elvis Costello (1954)
Willy DeVille (1950)	Gene Simmons (1949)	Rollie Fingers (1946)
Regis Philbin (1933)	Sean Connery (1930)	Monty Hall (1923)
Leonard Bernstein (1918)	Mel Ferrer (1917)	Van Johnson (1916)
Ruby Keeler (1909)	Clara Bow (1905)

Top songs of 1970

Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon & Garfunkel	I'll Be There by Jackson Five
Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head by B.J. Thomas	Close to You by Carpenters
My Sweet Lord by George Harrison	I Think I Love You by Partridge Family
Ain't No Mountain High Enough by Diana Ross	American Woman by Guess Who
War by Edwin Starr	Let It Be by Beatles

Your age is the equivalent of a dog that is 5.14833659491194 years old. (You're still chasing cats!)

There are 360 days till your next birthday
on which your cake will have 37 candles.

Those 37 candles produce 37 BTUs,
or 9,324 calories of heat (that's only 9.3240 food Calories!) .
You can boil 4.23 US ounces of water with that many candles.

In 1970 there were approximately 3.7 million births in the US.
In 1970 the US population was approximately 203,302,031 people, 57.4 persons per square mile.
In 1970 in the US there were approximately 2,158,802 marriages (10.6%) and 708,000 divorces (3.5%)
In 1970 in the US there were approximately 1,921,000 deaths (9.5 per 1000)
In the US a new person is born approximately every 8 seconds.
In the US one person dies approximately every 12 seconds.

In 1970 the population of Australia was approximately 12,663,469.
In 1970 there were approximately 257,516 births in Australia.
In 1970 in Australia there were approximately 116,066 marriages and 12,198 divorces.
In 1970 in Australia there were approximately 113,048 deaths.


Your birthstone is Peridot

The Mystical properties of Peridot

Peridot is used to help dreams become a reality.

Some lists consider these stones to be your birthstone. (Birthstone lists come from Jewelers, Tibet, Ayurvedic Indian medicine, and other sources)

Sardonyx, Diamond, Jade


Your birth tree is

Pine Tree, the Particularity

Loves agreeable company, very robust, knows how to make life comfortable, very active, natural, good companion, but seldom friendly, falls easily in love but its passion burns out quickly, gives up easily, many disappointments till it finds its ideal, trustworthy, practical.

There are 117 days till Christmas 2006!
There are 130 days till Orthodox Christmas!

The moon's phase on the day you were
born was waning crescent.

Incredible Country Music!

This morning, I was reading the New York Times—like I do every morning—and I read this article on the Music Row Democrats. This is a group of songwriters and record co executives who are saying "Country Music isn't just by and for conservatives." They're giving out this long album of country songs in return for a $20 donation.

So, being a country music fan, who knows very well that not ALL fans of country music are re-state conservatives, I wandered over. They have a FREE web feed for the music and It's FANTASIC. This isn't just pathetic, political hack music. It's great country. "Two Paper Town" gave me chills! "I'm Takin' My Country Back" is a great honky tonk two-step. I'm not a donater—though I've given more money to political causes in the last 2 years than ever before— But I HAD to have this album. It's GREAT. "Thou Shall not Kill," is giving me chills again.

Tha sad thing? This music will NEVER see the light of day on country radio. More than one of these songs could be number ones. They're that good... not just as politcal speech, but as damn good country music. This incredible music. Chilling music. Music for the heartland. Music for the angry. Music for the principled. Blue or red, go listen.

Oh, and get this... Toby Keith, Mr. Angry American himself—he's a DEMOCRAT.

If you got $20 and you love country music, and you buy ONE album this year, go "buy" this one.

Indulging my quiz taking jones...

In answer to the eternal question, "Which Superhero am I?"

Your results:
You are Hulk

Hulk 85% Spider-Man 80% The Flash 70% Batman 60% Superman 55% Green Lantern 50% Iron Man 50% Robin 40% Wonder Woman 40% Supergirl 40% Catwoman 25%

You are a wanderer with amazing strength.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

How DID they know I was that big?

Heroic Deeds having nothing to do with figure skating...

Apparently, sending queries for Nobody's Hero wasn't so futile at all. Houghton Mifflin has had the manuscript for about a month. I don't expect to hear from them for anywhere from 2 to 5 months since they have a 3-6 month reply window. Of course, truly, I don't expect to hear from them at all. I have great confidence in the publishing industry, ya know.

No, no, must not be bitter when things are going my way.

Things ARE going my way, it seems. Yesterday, I got the most incredible email from someone with scholastic.com in their email address (they didn't otherwise ID their imprint, but it later turned out to be Arthur Levine, which IIRC has already sent me a GFY/rejection). I nearly went through the roof. Here it is:

Dear Ms. Tyler,
Thank you for your query letter. If Nobody's Hero is not currently under consideration by another publisher, I invite you to send us the entire manuscript. Please remember that it can take up to six months for us to review and respond to submissions.
Best,
>name removed<
Editorial Assistant

Note the catch, though... "If Nobody's Hero is not currently under consideration by another publisher". So, of course, I panicked. That's relatively normal for me. After carefully considering the advice of some of my published author friends, I sent the following reply:

Dear >name removed<,

Nobody's Hero was requested by one other publisher, Houghton Mifflin.
However, they did not ask for an exclusive. If this is okay with you,
I'd be delighted to have Scholastic consider the manuscript too.

Sincerely,
Mary E Tyler

And Levine still wants to see it!!

Whooo hooo!

Okay, five minute celebration over. I need to get the packet out to Levine and then settle down to forget all about it. After all, it's going to be 6 months before I get an answer.

Figure Skating Coffeebreak

Just to prove that we rabid figure skating fans have actual lives, here are some picures of my gardens. I got them in early this year and as such, they are flourishing even as it starts to get quite hot out. The flower garden is looking a bit weedy, but oh well, you can't have everything. The vegatable garden, however, is looking HUGE. Tomatoes are about to take over everything. You can't even walk between the plants!

I planted blackberries 2 years ago and they've finally begun bearing (on 2 year wood of course)


Here's my front flower garden, taken from the shade. Most of the early season things have bloomed and the late season things have not begun to bloom yet. But it's still verdant, if a bit wild and out-at-the-heels.


The centerpiece of our front flower garden is a specimin lace-leaf Japanese maple. It's such a tiny thing that we call him, very affectionately, Charlie Brown Tree after the tiny Christmas tree in the Charlie Brown Christmas Special.


My petunias are growing like nobodys business. In early spring, the whole garden is dominated by wild, invasive, and exceptionally lovely pink shamrocks. In mid-summer, it's the petunias that rule. This year, we had such a mild winter that one petunia (back left) overwintered. It grew from a short 18" clump to a HUGE FOUR FOOT clump. We call it Petunia-zilla, of course. This year, like last year, I got a nice little clump of volunteer pumpkins (bottom right). I expect they are the little johnny style ones, but we'll see. That's the neat things about volunteers, never know what you're gonna get.


Around the side, my only southern exposure (and not even for the full day), is my vegi garden. This year, I only grew a few kinds of tomatoes and some slicing cucumbers. Of course, the watermelons from last year had different ideas! The tomatoes are frontmost with the cukes and melons low about 2/3 back. In the very back is a verdant mishmash of kitchen herbs and horseradish. Unfortunately, while the horseradish puts out HUGE foliage, the ground is too wet to make the roots grow. Fardles!


We are about to be inundated with tomatoes. I think that's JUST about my favorite time of year. Most of our maters don't even make it into the house. We eat them standing right in the garden. We've had a deluge of rain in the last few days, so the maters are cracking. Hope we don't get any blight in the cracks. Last year, they rotted before they ripened.


Here's a ripening cucumber, waiting for my middlest to pick it. She's been mad at me for days because littlest has picked and biggest has, but she has always been inside when it was picking time. Fresh cuke for supper salad! YUM!


And finally, here's a tiny new watermelon from the volunteer vine. It's only about as big as two fists of a man's hands. We didn't get any good melons last year. Grew bunches, but they never got sweet. Maybe this year I'll let em ripen longer.


Okay, back to your regularly scheduled program...

Yippee! New Toy, Better Gas Mileage.

Gas prices stink, don't they?

Ya, I figured you thought so too. For the last few years, we've owned a Honda Odyssey (a mini-van) and much as it's a nice mini-van, I hated the whole idea of driving a mini-van. It was just TOO soccer-momish—and I am NO soccer mom. I'm not even, truth be told, a skatemom. But, it was practical, so I thought, if we were going to have kids over (other than mine).

Except it never really turned out that way. I never seemed to drive anyone but my own family... occasionally with my mom or brother in tow. In the three years we had the van, there were a handful of times we actually NEEDED a vehicle that big. Okay, so it was roomy... it was also silver—I've had silver and gold cars pretty much every vehicle I've ever owned. I am SO sick of silver. It was nondescript. There were a zillion other silver Odysseys of that year. And the kids, despite my best efforts, had trashed it. It smelled more than a little from things they spilled. I think the worst part was that I couldn't easily reach into it to clean it, so it seldom got cleaned and when it did, it was always a huge production.

The killer was, it got a WHOPPING 18 mpg on average (city and hwy). Now, don't get me wrong. The year I bought it, the Odyssey had the highest mpg rating of any mini-van. These days, the ratings're only up to 26 mpg city for the best rated van. For what it was, it got pretty good mileage.

But, when I bought it, gas was also a LOT cheaper. It cost me $25 for the first fill up. During the school year, I tend to fill up about once per week, usually about 3/4 tank. Well, now, that tank of gas costs me $45 or more. My gas tab went from less than $100/mo to more like $180/mo. And that's if I only did the VERY basics of errands and such—if I NEVER went anywhere else but home, school, music lessons, and the bi-weekly trip to the commissary (military grocery store).

It got to where I was putting off trips for things I really needed. "Let me not go buy this OTC medicine I need really bad right now. I'll go buy it 4 days from now because I'll be going to the store anyway." Now, I sure that is exactly what the pundits have in mind when conserving gas, but when you need something, you NEED IT. You suffer without it sometimes. And I got to where I didn't really like the feeling that I simply COULDN'T make an incidental trip, even if I really needed it. More than the gas, I couldn't afford the extra $$ to buy that gas.

And then, there is the whole efficiency thing. I'm pretty strong on environmentalism, conservation, back to the land and what not. I always said that I would buy a high mileage car if they made one to fit my lifestyle. Well, this year, Toyota is making a hybrid Camry that gets 40 mpg (or so) city and hwy. Camry is a sedan, but not a small one like the Prius. You can actually get 5 people into a Camry.

I decided, "It will be a bit of a change for us... but we can change." And after a few months of waffling and thinking and agonizing, I traded my Odyssey in on a brandy, spanking, new 2007 Toyota Camry Hybrid. AND...

It's RED!



Yes, I am tickled with it being red. I am terribly tickled.

It's nice having a new car, and VERY neat having a hybrid. It handles well. It makes the Odyssey feel like a pregnant whale in the turns. I love the regenerative braking gear (kind of like braking by downshifting a manual trany). I love how the gas motor turns OFF at stop lights, using ZERO gas. I love how RED it is!

I love feeling like I can go to the store if I need something.