Confusing Confucius

[Donna H]

Once upon a time, there was a writer called Bob. Now Bob wasn't her real name of course, but it was the one palindrome that not even she could get wrong. You see Bob saw herself as the ultimate perfectionist: an individual who despised failure or weakness in anything and anyone, and never was that more obvious than in her goal for representation.

Her novel was a sure fire bestseller: a family of hideously ugly vampires who were allergic to blood and had bad teeth. It was full of angst and retainers and angst and flossing and angst and…well you get the idea because you’re grinding your teeth in anticipation already, aren’t you? Bo had started it as a NaNoWriMo project and was now ready to submit on the 1st December.

Now Boob carefully studied every agent/editor/publishing blog out there. She wanted her query to be flawless, sparkly and sublime; the one that stood out from the other 94,587 queries an agent would receive that day.

Alas this is where our heroine, Blob, came unstuck.

Writer, Nicola Morgan, said it was okay to query a submission if the agents had stated no submissions, yet Jessica at Bookends said don’t query a query.

Blobby was confused, and it got worse.

Snowbooks didn’t want a synopsis or even a covering letter, yet Janet Reid wanted an enticing two paragraphs. Cheryl Klein wanted a query letter + two chapters + synopsis – IN THAT ORDER - whilst Nelson Literary wanted a one page query, and to compound Blooby’s misery, Pub Rants wasn’t a den of iniquity where she could drown her sorrows with a glass of sherry – it was just a blog.

What kind of hideous industry was this?

Bippity-Boo continued to furiously click on links, but gave up when the Query Shark tried to eat her!

Our heroine was defeated. She looked at her two page mss and thought about ending it all with the delete key.

And then Confucius suddenly appeared, although to Bippity-Bobbity-Boo's untrained and bi-focal vision eyes, he held more than a passing resemblance to Albus Dumbledore.

“Why are you crying little one,” said Albus, er I mean Confucius.

“Because my book totally rocks, old dude,” replied B-B-Bob, “but I can’t get an agent. They all want different things.”

The old bearded dude held out a silk handkerchief. “May I offer a suggestion,” he whispered in a gentle voice. “CONCENTRATE ON WRITING, EDITING AND REVISING YOUR NOVEL, YOU MUPPET.”

Our heroine blinked. Had this crazy old man just compared her to a green fabric frog with crazy arms and bulbous white eyes?

“Little one, submission rules are not there to confuse you, annoy you or even send you spinning into a spiral of despair from which the only way out is two pounds of Cadbury chocolate,” offered Confubus Ciusdore. “They are designed to help you.”

With an elaborate twirl, the old man disappeared, although the melodic strains of “I’m finally out of the closet” could be heard whispering through the eaves for some time after.

Jim-Bob’s fingers hovered over her keyboard. Revising the novel seemed like such hard work. What was the point and didn't editors do that anyway?

“I wonder what Nathan Bransford has to say on the matter,” she muttered to herself.

[Susan Quinn]

Pub Rants = den of iniquity

LOL!

Nice.