600 Plus

The next excerpt from Earthen Vessels appears below, in honor of my 600th view. Enjoy pages 15 and 16. As always, comments are more than welcome.

It had been a chilly fifteen degrees the morning Maggie bundled up and headed for Denver International. When she reached Dallas that afternoon, the temperature there was close to fifty. She mailed her coat back home the following morning from the Mexico City airport, where the temperature was almost eighty. The temperature here in Miraflores was higher yet, with the humidity thickening every minute.

“Look,” she sighed, rubbing her eyes. “It’s just that…just that it’s already hot as hell out, and I’ve had about … about six hours sleep in the last thirty-six. All I want…I just...”

Marc was giving her a quizzical look, which she, in response, returned. She realized then that he was looking over her shoulder, out the window. Turning her gaze in the same direction, Maggie saw that a jeep had pulled up alongside Marc’s plane, and a man in a striped shirt was climbing out of the driver’s seat. Marc’s eyes were fixed on the striped shirt as he spoke.

“Wait here,” he ordered, before he strode out to the plane. Maggie immediately began wracking her brain: how could she make Marc change his mind and fly her to the research station? She saw the two men speaking for a moment before Marc pointed her way. She heard them start to shout at each other, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. Then her head snapped toward the ominous thud of Hector locking up the hatch on his own plane. Once he took off, Maggie knew she really would be stranded out here.

Panicking, Maggie burst out the door in Marc’s direction. “I can pay cash,” she blurted out before she realized how desperate she sounded. Striped shirt gave her an angry glare and so did Marc. He took her elbow roughly and spun her back the way she’d come.

“I told you to wait inside.” He flung open the door and nearly flung Maggie through it. She hardly noticed.

“And I’m telling you. I’ve got the money right here.” And then, right in front of him, she bent over to rifle through her bag on the floor. Marc had to look away to keep his mind on the business at hand. She straightened up and turned to show him a sheaf of bills pulled from the bag.

A protective impulse kicked in for Marc, an instinct he didn’t think he had. He folded his hand over hers, over the bills, and was about to tell the stupid chick to put away her money. When his palm came in contact with the cash, though, the impulse passed. The words that came out of his mouth then were, “Payment up front or no deal.” 

 

Leaving Maggie with strict instructions to stay inside the office, Marc went back to exchange a few parting words with Mr. Striped Shirt. (For security reasons, Marc’s associates made a point of not knowing one another’s names.)

Just so that nothing was lost in translation and just for emphasis, Marc planted both hands possessively on the fuselage of the twin engine as he spoke. “See, you don’t own this plane-“

“You don’t own this plane,” Striped Shirt interjected, his face like a stone.

“Okay, okay. Technically, legally, I don’t,” Marc conceded. “But I was the one who took the initiative to steal it from the technical, legal owner. So I decide for myself if I have time to take on a passenger before I make your deliveries, and I-”

“They’re your deliveries.” The expression was even more granite than before. “I done my part and I won’t take the heat for you after you fuck this up.” Without another word, the striped shirt then turned to move his jeep clear of the plane’s take-off path, another hint that Marc had better get a move on.

Marc was determined to get in the last word, but was left with nothing to say. “You don’t own the plane,” he shouted after the driver. “And you don’t own me!”

Wanted: an agent... to find me an agent

The logic train behind that heading is leaving the station now: Hop on, won't you?

Writing is what I do. I'd like to keep doing it. I'd like it to be all I do. In order for this to happen, I have to have readers. In order to have readers, I have to promote my book. Promoting the book means taking time from what I really want to do, which, as I mentioned, is writing. (Next stop: Publishire)

Wouldn't be nice if there were people to do some of that promotion for me? There are such people: they are called publishers. They connect with retailers, produce promotional materials, issue press releases, and get the book reviewed, so that it finds its way to the readers. (Next stop: Agentown)

Wouldn't it be nice if there were people to help authors and publishers find each other? There are such people: They are called literary agents. The agent directs all that promotion to publishers, convincing them to get the work to the readers. Wow, great! So now all I need to do now is get an agent. (Next stop: Netville)

In this day and age, finding an agent - like everything else – is mostly done via the Internet. You log on to search engines that direct you to websites that list literary agents, possibly hundreds of them. You log on to those sites and sift through the listings to find which ones will consider unpublished authors in your format and your genre. You log on to their sites to learn their submission procedure. Finally you submit your work and you wait. (Next stop: Mt. Patience)

Wouldn't it be nice if there were people to help authors find agents? Wouldn't it? Are there such people? I don't know. All I know is I'm spending a lot of time trying to find an agent to find me a publisher to find me some readers. I'm not complaining – I'm glad for the opportunity. It's just that, well, it's time I'd rather spend writing. (We've come full circle and this is the end of the line. As you exit, mind the gap.)

500 and counting!

It's so exciting to see how quickly this blog is growing! One hundred visits in just the last ten days! In observance of this latest development, here are the next few pages from Earthen Vessels. I hope you enjoy it.

... I see that that letter grieved you, though only for a while.

2 Corinthians 7:8 (RSV)

Marc’s mind was suddenly racing: Could this woman be part of some vaguely remembered frat parties from two years ago? His memory was cloudy, and her yapping didn’t help.

"I'm Maggie Boyce,” she announced. Like he cared. "It's actually Mary Margaret, but almost nobody calls me..."

She wasn’t bad-looking, with platinum hair and bright green eyes. But she was a little old for him, Marc thought, pushing thirty for sure. And a bit too voluptuous for his taste. Then again, some nights it hadn’t mattered who the girl was. In any case, she couldn’t expect him to remember her name - could she? And this letter she mentioned - was he being sued? Destruction of private property. Breach of promise. Oh, God - paternity suit.

“Has a letter come in for me lately?” he asked Esteban urgently.

“¿Como?” Esteban yawned.

Hearing English again had thrown Marc off. “Una carta - ¿recibí una carta?”

Esteban lifted his arm limply toward Marc’s desk for a second before letting it fall against his leg. Marc saw just the girl, timidly pointing a finger at the desk behind him. Only now did he turn away from her, to rifle through the stacks of paper there.

“Actually,” she ventured, “it maybe doesn’t matter so...”

Then he came across an envelope he hadn’t noticed before. “¿Cuando lo llegó?” he shouted, studying the U.S. postmark. When did this arrive?

There was a pause and a sigh from the back room. “Mm ... una semana pasado - dos tal vez.”

“Two weeks ago?” Marc was raving as he ripped open the envelope. “Geez, if you don’t specifically ask, they don’t tell you...”

“It’s no big deal,” she tried again to interject. “It was just to sort of warn you I was coming.”

“...knows I don’t look through this junk ...” he mumbled as he pulled the paper out and unfolded it. Instead of reading it, he glanced up at her. This was not a legal notification of any kind - he knew, he’d seen enough of them. It was just a hand-written note from a - he flipped it over - from a Paul Schiffler.

“I got your name from Paul Schiffler,” the girl was saying. “He said you ran an air taxi down here, that you gave him a lift several months ago. You transported his research samples sometimes.”

At last Marc could breathe a sigh of relief. This ditzy chick had taken five minutes of his time just to say that she was a business referral. And what was she chattering about now?

“You see, I connected with Paul on the Internet and he said he'd been down here, and I said I wanted come too, and well, he mentioned your name." She paused here for a breath.

He looked at her blankly. "And..?"

She glared at him. “Okay, fine. This isn't a social call,” she said, finally getting down to business. “I need a lift into the interior right away,” she said, pulling out a map. “To a research station. It’s right on the map here.” She pointed, but he didn’t have to look.

“No can do,” he said flatly. He decided to take a load off and look over this letter after all. The handwriting was an effort to read, so he just scanned for key words. “...referring a client .... Maggie Boyce ...” Now why did that name sound familiar?

“You’d be back here in a matter of hours,” the girl was saying.

“I said I can’t,” he emphasized each word. “I got shipments to make. I’m out of here - north to Guatemala by tonight.” He went back to the letter. Frankly, not professionally qualified and emotionally ... if you can talk her out of it ...

"Oh, oh, I see,” her voice dripped with sarcasm. “Well, in that case, I guess I’ll just hang around here in the middle of nowhere doing nothing, until that cargo pilot comes back sometime this week or next...” He looked up again from the page. Was she still here? He was trying to enjoy the first letter he’d gotten in months. “...since it’s too damned inconvenient for you to help me out!”

Her voice rose a little with each word she spoke so that she ended with a shout. He looked a little surprised and let a smile escape one corner of his mouth. This woman, he could see, was not about to be talked out of anything.

In trying to finish the last paragraph, he reached the words that stopped even him cold. Mother ... six weeks ago ... now her sister ... cancer ...

And don't sweat the mushy stuff

(Gentlemen, you may want to change the channel)

 
A member of my local writing group has amazed us all with the suspense novel she is crafting. She is kind and quiet and a devoted Christian, but she writes so convincingly for the maniac killer in her story that we find ourselves eying her suspiciously. Recently she put out an e-mail call for help to critique her most recent efforts. I wondered if she had finally hit a block in the make-your-skin-crawl department. “This time it's really dicey,” she said. “This time it's ... the mushy stuff.”

Right away I knew exactly what she meant. Many a potential (female?) author gushes at the prospect of penning breath-taking love scenes. These are some of the most pleasurable scenarios of adult life, after all. To fabricate such fantasies in fiction ought to be nearly as good as the real thing. Right?

Wrong. I maintain that love scenes some of the more difficult aspects of fiction writing. You start with something that is, by nature, spontaneous, but you have to script it and choreograph it and then turn it back into something that you hope is spontaneous. Again. Real-life romance is all entertainment and emotion (with some physical thrown in if you get lucky). But writing romance is intellectual and it is work.

Then you worry: Will I embarrass my family? Will I shock my co-workers? (I work at a parochial school) And will I face the question, “Is this based on real life (wink-wink)?”

When the TV movie The Thornbirds came out, female viewers just melted over the steamy bits. However, Richard Chamberlain insisted in an interview that love scenes are difficult for actors as well, partly for the reasons I listed above. As an author, I'm glad that I at least don't have to worry about wig and costume malfunctions, and I don't have to personally, physically bring my story to life in front of a viewing audience.

The happy news is that with fictional romance, as with real world romance, when it's good, it's really good.