The quest continues.

I love this time of year.

But this year, I kind of love it, and hate it at the same time. I hate it because a lot of the places that I actually have job experience at tend to slow to a crawl on hiring this time of year, so I’d be shocked if I have any dialogue with employers right now at all. Ciest la vie.

But come on. It’s christmas time! It’s completely awesome otherwise.

And as usual, I’m having my unofficial competition with myself to come up with awesome gifts for the people I love. It’s funny. When I was a kid, I was obsessed with what I would get for christmas. Nowadays, I’m just obsessed with how my victims will react when they see what I got for them. So I’ve been doing a lot of plotting, and I’m going big. Bigger than I expected, really, but that’s okay.

For my immediate family:

Dad: Dad loves to do 3 things, and 3 things only: watch things, read, and sleep. I buy him DVD sets for his birthday and christmas every year, it feels like, and he loves it every single time. He’s even said he’s easy to buy for, for that very reason.

So naturally, I’m not buying him any DVDs this year. He’s a pack rat. He has a shed in his backyard literally full of books, and shelves full of DVDs. I’m convinced one of these days, he’d qualify for an episode of Hoarders. My mom knows this too, and it drives her crazy.

So I’ve been trying to help curb this. I got him a Netflix account, so he can watch stuff, send it back, and get more on a regular basis. For the most part, this has worked out great. He gets to watch all the Doctor Who he wants, and my mom doesn’t have to have an aneurism every time he brings home another DVD, watches it once, and lets it collect dust.

So now, I’m taking the next step, albeit a very tricky one. I got him a Kindle. He’s very old fashioned, and prefers his books to be real. But if I don’t try to help curb this, eventually his house will be just full of books. He’ll have to sleep on them before long. Maybe I can be helpful with this.

….nonetheless, I have Mom’s assurance that if he ends up never using it, than she will pick it up. Contingencies are key when making buys like this.

Mom: Mom is always insanely hard to buy gifts for. I struck paydirt on her birthday a month ago when I got her an electric throw blanket that she can warm her feet with when she watches TV. But I’m usually hit or miss with her.

But this year… I’m approaching her from another angle. She’s told me her mornings usually start with old reruns of Leave it to Beaver and The Dick Van Dyke Show. When DirectTV had a spat with Viacom earlier this year, and Viacom took away her TV Land for a while, she was really, really annoyed that she didn’t get to see them anymore.

I was wracking my brain a while, and then inspiration struck while I was watching Conan. He had Dick Van Dyke on as a guest, and I wondered what in the world he was on the show promoting. And then, at the end, Conan showed what it was… a box set of the complete Dick Van Dyke show on DVD.

Boom. Instant win.

This is like a perfect contingency, too, because I know my Dad will love it too. Both of my parents will have a good christmas from me, one way or another.

Jeremy: Jeremy isn’t hard to buy for, since we have a lot of the same interests. I usually just buy him a rare game, or an animation cel, or something equally nerdy.

But this year, I wanted to send him a message. If you keep up with my scant posts on here, I wrote a while back about how he told me that his true passion is art, even though he is absolutely brilliant with computers in every way you can think of.

He knows a number of people in the industry on a first name basis, actually. He also likes inking, but he stunned me one day when he told me the anime-ish wallpaper on his laptop is something he drew himself.

So you know what? I bought him a Wacom Tablet.

Even if he doesn’t use it much, my message is sent. It says something like this: "Hey, I know what you really like to do, and what you like to do is important to me, because I know it’s the key to happiness. Here. This is me, investing in you being happy. Take it, and run with it."

My cousins: I have 8 kids I try to play santa for every year, and this one is no different. It’s actually kind of easy this year, though. 3 of them are getting a Playstation 3, and the other 5 are getting an X-Box 360.

If I know one thing, it’s games. I have a list I’m running through for them, but they will have at least one awesome game each this christmas. BET IT.

There are a few others I’m getting gifts for, but I know they read me on here. So no hints for you!

As for all these people getting me gifts…? Good luck. I know I’m really tough to get gifts for. Sorry for that. I’m just one of those people that when I see something I want, I go buy it like right away. Makes it hard for people to go get it for me later.

 

I got another rejection letter today in my quest to be a pro storyteller.

But. It was a surprisingly uplifting one. Most wannabe authors will tell you that the overwhelming majority of replies to query letters to agents begin with "Dear author…" and end with "Keep writing! Just because I didn’t like this doesn’t mean someone else won’t."

This one was different. This was from a guy who is in charge of a MAJOR Literary Agency. One that handles New York Times bestsellers, and a number of authors who I read loyally. Really, really good ones.

I’d queried him in February, and just now got a response.

Dear Joshua,

Thank you so much for your email, and my apologies for the uncustomary delay
in responding as I have dealt with a large backlog of queries. I appreciate
your patience as I have taken the time to read your material.

Unfortunately, I’m afraid I must pass. You have an intriguing premise, but
as the story continued, the line by line tension so necessary to keep me
glued to every page lagged.

Once again, my apologies for keeping you waiting. Thank you again for
thinking of me, and please accept my best wishes for your project’s success.

Sincerely,

*********

 

Am I excited over something like this? Yeah, and I’ll tell you why.

First of all, agents like this guy… if they’re not interested by the first two lines of your query… not your writing, just your query…. then they’ll just send you a "Dear author", and move on. They have a crazy number of queries to read, and don’t suffer fools.

But this guy, he actually read all of my preliminary stuff, and liked what he saw. He liked it enough to read through my query, my synopsis, and go all the way to my sample pages. A professional likes my premise, and doesn’t think it’s cliche at all. I already knew this, but it’s just another feather of validation to put in my cap as I keep going.

…and then said they lagged. Which of course is a matter of opinion, but I’m not going to get broken up on that, since well, it was literally the only fir

st 5 pages of my work.

I know what he means, and I can work on that. It was strictly a design choice, but all this tells me is that I need to make my first few pages even more snappy. I can do that. I can get over that last little hump.

I know I can.

But for now, the quest continues.