Agent X

I’ve spent the last few days putting together a letter and synopsis for ‘DarkFather’ which is to be sent out to potential agents. This has become an art form in its own right and one that I deliberately take time and effort over. It is also a job I find almost soul destroying. All the effort you put into a novel, the creation, the honing, the rewrites, is boiled down to a one page synopsis, a letter and a couple of chapters. From this you have to hope that your work is considered good enough by whoever picks up that days mail.
To make matters worse every agent has slightly different criteria for how they want the work presented, how they want to be approached and how long you have to wait for any kind of response. The worst is the fact that you can only approach one agent at a time and as most of them have an eight week turn around that means you can only approach six agents a year (not taking into account holidays etc).
I work within the system but I’m sure there must be a better way of doing things that doesn’t open the agents up to huge amount of rubbish material being sent to them while at the same time allowing potential authors to showcase their work to more than one agent at a time.

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The Kingsway tunnels are up for sale. Interesting article with pictures in The Independent.

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Seeing Neil Gaiman on Tuesday. I will report back with pictures.

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Apparently when I sign into Blogger this is post number 100, but when I count them on the side bar list I can only see 96 (this being number 97). I’ll wait for three more and then celebrate the 100 mark.

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I’ve been working on several book reviews this week for the BFS so I can’t tell you what I’ve been reading, however I did manage to get a couple of comics in as well.

Batman: The Cult is a good read showing the Caped Crusader starting his adventure on the back foot having been captured by a strange mystic called Deacon Joseph Blackfire; either a charlatan or else a long living Native American mystic. Weakened from lack of food, constant beatings and through the use of drugs the Batman is brainwashed into joining the Deacon’s gang of homeless people as they violently take over the streets of Gotham. It starts off as a clever mediation on power and corruption but unfortunately does not take this all the way to end.

Dark Victory is the better of the two Batman comics. Here Batman relies on his detective skills as he searches for a mysterious calendar killer over a year. It’s set in the early days of his career, not long after Harvey Dent has become the mentally and physically scarred Two Face. All the bad guys are present along with a mafia family and corrupt police force.
In the introduction by Tim Sale (the excellent artist of this book) he states he doesn’t like the character of Robin and never wanted to do a comic book with him in. I fully understand, I’ve always thought of him as a silly character that does nothing for the series. Thankfully, the story does not bring him in until the end but still he manages to be annoying in the small section he does appears in.

Read this week:

Batman: Dark Victory by Joseph Loeb and Tim Sale
Batman: The Cult by Starlin, Wrightson and Wray

Course Improvements

Spent the end of the week with several visits to Glasgow attending a course to improve my skills for the work place. Apart from the early start (from me) I quite enjoy these courses, the work all makes sense and you don't have any of the pressures on you of 'real' work.

Just finished writing a synopsis for 'The Missing', which is one of my least favourite parts of writing. Summing up a novel in as few a paragraphs as possible while still trying to make the book sound exciting. It's awkward and tiring work, but at least it's finished. Also have written three reviews which have been sent off to the BFS.

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We have a new member to our household (at least for the next week). Her name is Missy and she is currently hiding under the bed. I'll try and get a photo of her but she's a little bit shy.



She'll be staying with us until her owner returns from his holiday. Wish I hadn't bothered doing that as the Canon utility I'm using just kicked me out of Explorer resulting in a restart. When Madame Vin (previously Lady H but this is a much better moniker) and I are both using the wireless connection we have all sorts of adventures.

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Just finished reading the second Hellblazer. 'Dangerous Habits' is better than the first as it gives Constantine a more human aspect. He is dieing, and only in death does one get to understand the fragility of their lives. That something as mundane as cancer could kill a hero who has fought of the hordes of hell is one reason that these books work so well for me. Constantine is fragile and eventually even he cannot escape a force of nature. Only in playing the devil's advocate and perhaps putting his soul in even more danger that before can he possibly hope to beat something as deadly as the disease.

Read this week:

Hellblazer: Dangerous Habits by Garth Ennis

Deastock (proof copy) by Jeffrey Thomas