Friday, July 06, 2007

The Snakecharmer

was accepted at Pulppusher. I am thrilled. It never gets old, does it?

I do miss writing short stories even though I am at page 190 in the novel. Sandra Scoppettone's blog today pretty much sent me to the liquor cabinet. So I am going to keep my hand in with the shorts because success with a novel seems iffy at best.

My friend at Detroit Police Hdqts suggested I watch a show on A & E called First 48 Hours, where they follow police investigating crimes early on. It was utterly depressing and I don't know how they do it. The teenagers that committed one of the crimes seemed completely apathetic that they had shot a fifteen year old girl who had nothing to do with any of it. All of the people seemed catatonic for that matter. Funny how few of them asked for an attorney. Wouldn't you do that first thing? Apparently not according to my son, the ADA. Most people think bing questioned is not the same as being suspected.

I really, really recommend The Dead Girl. The acting is sublime. Brittany Murphy, Toni Collette, Giovanni Ribisi and lots of others. Nice to see Mary Beth Hurt after so long.

7 comments:

Megan said...

That's one of the reasons I read Sandra Scoppettone's blog sparingly: good perspective, damn depressing. She does have a way of reaffirming my No-I-don't-want-to-write-full-time-to-pay-the-mortgage attitude (and makes it feel like an entirely prudent impulse entirely untainted by sour grapes).

pattinase (abbott) said...

I love her--so honest and smart. Cautionary words from someone who's been in the field for thirty years. Still, where is that gin and tonic? Wait, I hear my husband calling. Whoops. No, he said it needs to be chilled first.

Sandra Ruttan said...

Congratulations on the story Patti. That's awesome.

I saw Sandra's blog post. I think it can be dangerous to read too much about the business side of the equation, or we'd all just pack it in and clearly there are plenty of books getting published that don't fall in the mega-bestseller category. Just not by that publisher. Think of it this way: JK Rowling got rejection letters for Harry Potter, too.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Sandra-Congrats on your story in Pulppusher. You're a tough act to follow.

Sandra Scoppettone said...

Congrats on the story, Patti. Megan...just don't stop writing altogether. Sandra R. I hardly ever write about the business end. But I couldn't resist that paragraph. And I don't agree that it's only that publisher. They are all looking for Harry Potter or The Da Vinci Code. But as I said in my post there are choices.

Patti...don't get too drunk!

Sandra Ruttan said...

Thanks Patti, but you're more than capable of topping me.

Sandra, I should clarify that I wasn't just talking about your blog re: the business. And yes, there are other publishers who feel the same way. But as you said yourself, there are other options.

I just seem to have stumbled across a lot of 'down' posts on the industry lately, and I don't know about you guys, but I can find it paralyzing.

anne frasier said...

congratulations on snakecharmer!

yes, publishing is in a sad state. i don't think it does any good to pretend it isn't, which i think has been going on for the past several years with editors and agents as well as writers. now everybody knows it's not, and wasn't, a natural cycle -- which was what i was being told.