Are you trying to publish something, too?

If you are, there's a great blog here at http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/.

Nathan runs contests and gives advice and info about publishing. He's fun to read and seems like a good guy. He also will consider your query and is very prompt at sending his rejection email back to you. I've been trying to develop a thicker skin to deal with all of these rejections. Apparently, a ton of publishers passed on the first Harry Potter. At least, that's what my husband says; I'm not sure that I believe him, unless the slush pile readers were evangelical Christians who saw the wizard theme as satanic.

But I digress.

My brother, who is a screenwriter, recommends becoming two people; one who writes the manuscript, and the other who sends out the queries. The second person can then choose not to tell the first when the rejection letters come flooding in. It's actually a pretty good idea; I've put myself into "marketing mode," rather than "writing mode." I now have a new job; my new job is to sell this book. I also have a written promotional plan, in anticipation of the next phase.

So, today is a two-fer. I gave you Nathan's link above, and here is your second fun-thing-for-the-day:

http://www.mrdeity.com/

This is a series of mini-episodes that is absolutely hilarious, especially if you (like me) are recovering from a conservative, religious upbringing and have a deep-seated distrust of religious dogma. You can also find these as iTunes podcasts and on YouTube (at least in countries that don't censor the internet). Enjoy!

My new favorite publisher

Woohoo! I got a request for my complete manuscript yesterday. Milkweed Editions is now going to consider it. It has been tough trying to sell Bagastana; the first few chapters are not really indicative of the rest of the book, much like the Kansas scenes in Wizard of Oz are not much like Oz. In any case, they are going to read the whole thing. I'm so relieved!

So, here's your cool-thing-of-a-day:

You can find this and a lot of other webcomics of "romance, sarcasm, math, and language" at: http://xkcd.com/74/. Try the "random" feature; I think you'll enjoy it.

For Sale-Manuscript

Yes, I am trying to publish my manuscript, a young adult/fantasy novel called Bagastana. It's in great condition; its previous owner was a little old lady who only used it to read to church on Sundays.

Seriously, it's a great story. Twelve-year-old twins, Mina and Darwin, find a box with their names on it among their adopted mother's things. When they open it, they find a pendant, and, when they hold it, they enter another world, a world full of magical creatures. There are communist ants, evangelizing fish, and redneck eagles who are waging a war on tree-orists. The twins need to find their way to a portal back to their own world, but the only one is guarded by the Maker, who will destroy them if he discovers who they really are...

So, now that I've plugged my book, let me give you the cool site link-of-the-day:

http://www.shorty.com/bonsaikitten/

The art of the Bonsai Kitten. SPCA members, relax; it's not real, OK?

Happy Randomness

Hello to the three potential readers of this post.

Why are you reading this? You probably don't know me (it would be weird if you did though; where did you go to high school?), but I want to use my English more, and when I write my Jersey accent doesn't show.

So, it's beautiful today in Istanbul,
where I live with my husband and the my three little kids (all under age three). No, I'm not a fundamentalist anything, and yes, I know how birth control works. Now.

The kids are destroying their room while I write this, but they aren't hitting, biting, or falling off anything, so I figure the damage is fixable.

Since you've read this far, I figure I should reward you. Here is your random fun site for the day:

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/

The uncyclopedia is like wikipedia, only blatantly wrong and funny. Enjoy!

If you have a funny site you want to share, please post to this thread. I'm going to try to give an entertaining website or cool photo or something in every post, so please feel free to blatantly promote your own site, if you think that it is something people would enjoy.

I don't want to see your angst-filled student film on YouTube, though. Not only do we all have enough angst in our lives without dealing with some 20-year-old's melodramatic thoughts about death, but I live in Turkey, and currently YouTube is blocked for the whole country. Before moving here, I had no idea that a website could be blocked for a nation like that. This is the third time this has happened since we moved here last year; some jerk posted a clip about Ataturk or Cyprus or the Kurds that was offensive to the government, and now I can't watch "Cute with Chris." What happened in Toronto? Will I ever know? When?

See what I mean about the angst?