Perhaps not as poetic as Shakespeare would have ... could have eloquently written it ... but I ain't exactly William. The good lord knows I'm trying. Not to emulate William. To exemplify myself. I have no idea how many query letters this makes. How many rejection letters to counter our efforts. My wife is a driving force to be reckoned with and the labors of her hard work are merely squandered by the lack of empathy in this business. The business of writing. Writing for your life, if you will. Because when all is said and done ... that's what I'm really doing.

I must interrupt my thoughts for a moment to tell you all this. I'm online right now ... I was going to say ... write now, but I didn't want anyone to think I typoed without it being on purpose. Come on ... I have sperl chek. Anywell ... whilst online and deciding to write about this in my blog ... a familiar voice emitted from the speakers of the laptop announcing the fact that "I have mail." It not only broke my concentration and made me ponder why in hell I even attempted to write while I was online ... what was I thinking ... obviously, I wasn't! Hello ... how ya doin' nice to meet ya! Reluctantly, since my concentration was already broken, I opted to check the email and see who the hell had the gall to bother me while I was writing. Another agent query reply. Oh joy. Another rejection? Should I have just deleted it and saved myself the pain? I opened it ... because for crying out loud Jiminy Cricket ... you never frickin' know! I read it. What? I rubbed my eyes and read it again. Did she just say she was interested? Come on. I read it again. And again. I was just about to give up all hope and I'm sure I'm not even near surface of what some other writers have endured before getting accepted. It's just such a thankless industry. I read it again just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating from the heat index and the humidity. Gall darn ... it's in black and white. She said she's interested. Somebody pinch me. Ouch! You know ... I meant that figuratively ... not literally. That frickin' hurt! Let me read that one more time. OMG ... she is ... she really, really is. She wants me to snail mail her the stuff and I may have to wait several months. But ... she's interested.

What am I talking about? I assumed you understood. Sorry about that. I have written one book and appeared in two other anthologies. I want to be noticed by my peers as an author. I want to obtain the fruit of my labor. I don't want to get filthy, stinking rich. It's not like that. It's just a little notoriety I'm looking for. Someone to read me and say ... yeah ... that was alright. He's not bad. Maybe he's not Stephen King ... maybe he's not Edgar Allen Poe ... hell, I could use the opiates for something to write about lord knows, maybe he's not Grisham, Rice, Benchley, Hemingway, Lovecraft, O. Henry, Straub, Koontz ... but he's got something. Maybe even if it's a little something ... he has a gift to entertain his audience. He has something to captivate his audience and make them feel the plight of the characters he chooses to write about. He has something. I don't care how small it is. Do any of you watch the Sci-fi channel? No ... this is not true confessions. I don't really care for that matter. Truth is, I don't that much. I watch Ghost Hunters and some reruns of the X-Files because I was a fan of it when it was on syndicated television. I actually envisioned Gillian Anderson to play the part of Rhonda Lary in my manuscript if they ever made a movie of it. Of course, if you tell her this, I will deny it through my teeth. But ... anyway ... the movies they make on there. Is it me? Are there some people out there truly entertained by the movie Mansquito? Half man, half mosquito, all blood sucker. Are you serious? Just the trailer to this movie was bad! Is there someone out there in this world that actually watched that movie and are hoping for a sequel?

Really? People. I got some bad news for you. If you're one of the ones sitting at home that I just described ... half man and half mosquito shouldn't be sucking anything. First of all, female mosquitoes are the blood suckers of the species. So to be politically correct, the title of the movie should have been Womansquito, not mansquito. The male mosquito simply supplies the sperm to the females wh then require a meal of blood to develop the eggs. Male mosquitoes simply eat-slash-drink nectar from flowers. Ohhhh ... now that's scary! Maybe if I'm a frickin' tulip or a daisy! I didn't watch the movie. I saw the trailer and said to myself ... the only thing worse than them making a movie about something this stupid are the people that actually watch it and think it was kinda good. The ones that can't wait for "The Return of Mansquito." And then it wasn't long after this ... I saw the trailer for another movie on Sci-fi channel. Now wait a minute before you go accusing me of spending all my time on this channel to begin with. I don't and my wife will vow testament to that. I told you the shows I watch on there ... and they happen to have commercials ... but this trailer I actually saw on "The Best Week Ever" or "The Soup" and they made fun of this movie and exploited the fact that not only was it on the Sci-fi channel, but it was also written by the same guy that wrote ... yep ... you guessed it ... Mansquito. It was called Ice Spiders and it was about giant florescent green spiders that attacked a community of skiers on the slopes of a ski resort. Hey ... if this is what you people want ... I can write that stuff. I just happen to choose something that I think would be a little more ... shall we dare say ... entertaining to the mass populous.

So I write these stories and I write these blog entries and I feed-slash-suck off the nectar of my feedback from my friends and my family and I strive to become better at what I do. I belong to Internet writing-slash-author communities where we can all go on and review and rave and bash each others work and say it's because we want to be better at what we do ... and blah, blah, frickin' blah. No one wants to hear the story they just sat down and wrote sucks. No one. I don't care who the frig you are. On the flip side of that, people ... no one wants to hear that everything they write is "awesome" or "good" or "great." We all need areas of improvement and when you send out your material to only your friends and family ... because they're the only ones you don't seem to have to hold a gun to their heads to get to read it ... although I have to email them all every now and then and remind them that I have a web site and I'm a writer and I'd appreciate it if they'd read it or I'll go get my gun ... you're going to get a more partial and biased review than you are if you send it out for an unbiased and neutral community of self-proclaimed writers and authors to review. Some of them may feel challenged by your stuff. Some of them may offer some inspirational advice. Some of them may sabotage your work because they think they're better than you. Maybe they are. But that wasn't the reason I put it out there to be reviewed. Nor was that the reason they put their own work out there. It's just the way they are and maybe the fact that they were not breastfed as infants. I don't really know all about that nor do I care. I just want to write and be noticed. So instead of the self-publishing avenue this time, I have written a full length manuscript entitled Season of the Sand Devil and I think it's good enough to be made into a movie that Sci-fi channel could finally be proud to show on their network. I am seeking representation from an agent for this manuscript to get it published by a traditional publishing house.

Can I write? I don't know. I love to write. That's what I know. I can type fast like a son-of-a-gun and I don't even do it the right way and my wife is still envious of how fast I can type. She took all those classes and has worked in the administration field. My typing experience comes from one simple personal typing class in high school and writing on a typewriter, then word processor, and now a computer my whole life. I have a broken right hand for crying out loud and my fingers are a bit gnarled and I can still type pretty darn fast. Typing fast doesn't make you a good writer. I realize this. What comes from the typing defines whether you have the talent to entertain people or not. Most people that have read me ... friends, family, and even the Internet writing communities, all say that I inhibit this talent. Maybe I'm not the greatest. Maybe I'm not the worst. But to give this guy that not only wrote Mansquito another opportunity to go out and write Ice Spiders and then make movies of both his ideas has this insidious way of mocking me. I don't want to take anything away from this guy. But he's had two movies made of his writing. I'd give me eye teeth to see my stuff on any channel with the opportunity to finally get noticed for what I am striving to be. A writer. Should I write or should I go? If I write it could mean trouble ... if I don't ... it could be ... double. Don't sue me The Clash. I couldn't help myself and hey ... you just got some free advertising because anyone that knows that song of yours has it ringing in their head for the rest of the day, so bite me and you're welcome.

Is it a miracle that when I sat down to write this, my intention was to express my frustration in this industry, trying to get an agent to represent me to finally notice me ... and before I was done writing my first paragraph, I actually had one say via email ... they were interested? I don't know. What are the odds? I don't really believe in miracles. I believe in hard work and ethics paying dividends. Just because she said she was interested doesn't mean I'm in. I have a coupla other irons in the fire and lord knows we have a plethora of unreplied queries on the back burner simmering. Hopefully, anyway. If you know me and you love me ... clap you hands ... no wait ... that wasn't what I was going to say ... so much for that The Clash song tinkling around in my head ... I was going to say ... keep your fingers crossed for me. I need some inspiration in this industry right now. It does a body good. Maybe not a body, but a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Unless you're Edgar Allen Poe and can write under the influence of opiates and pull it off successfully. Now ... if you'd all excuse me ... I have to go plagiarize the sequel to Mansquito ... so I can get frickin' noticed!