Moderately Adventurous - Query Letter

It is done. After putting off the act for what eventually turned into months I have sent out a wave of Query Letters for Moderately Adventurous. I feel relief from having finally perpetrated the act, it's done.

Now the wait, but even that is far more bearable than the feeling that another week had gone by without me even trying. We'll see how things go and in the mean time I can prepare my next project with some piece of mind. I'll give agencies two months to take an interest, after that it goes straight to Amazon Kindle and I'll try to organize whatever publicity I can.

So, the next project. I have a few ideas that have been waiting on my attention and now it's time to seriously consider each one in turn. I have to say I found writing non-fantasy interesting, operating with the many constraints of “reality” meant the story was forced down real world avenues always in some way close to my heart. Where a sequence in Redmond Reunion found me describing an oddity grasped somewhere in my imagination Moderately Adventurous had me reliving some part of my life or thinking of some mostly forgotten feature of my past.

For me, Redmond: Reunion was a book about me, purely about me. The world, people, places, everything a reflection of myself. Even the colour red, reflected on every surface in that world, a reflection of myself on myself.

Moderately Adventurous wasn't about me so much as it was about my world, the things I've seen and interacted with. My failures and faults of perception alongside the glimpses of real beauty purely external to anything I've ever nurtured within. It's a book about a human landing in an alien world really, finding himself exploring wonders far beyond himself that any native would find mundane.

The missing link between these is Tower. Still unfinished. I read it in it's entirety one day in Starbucks and it's, well, brilliant (yet again I was humbled by my own work) but deeply confused. The main character has infinite opportunity, genius and resources but is utterly chained to specific parts of his world. He pursues friendship and the destruction of his past, desiring to move on but ultimately, only new creations can free him, no matter how much he thinks he can change the past it stands unchanging, part of him now.

I really hope I find an agent this time but I'll continue writing in any case. With or without the Golden Yachts of Success.

Novel Completion

It's a fallacy to say a novel can be finished, it's far too large a thing to ever consider done. You can only say that it matches your expectation as a writer, that it achieves what you had wanted it to.

Can I say that about my latest novel, yes. Certainly. I am extremely happy with it. There are endless things I'd expand or add, rewrite and take away but right now it's got the content that I wanted it to have.

So it's at this point that I finalize some form of query letter and start trying to interest an agent. My query letter is included below, it's something that has itself gone through a number of revisions and at this point contains the content I wanted with at least some level of readability.

So, the dice will soon be thrown. I tend to obsess over the fact that this is my second time, people only told me how much they loved my first novel but in the end nobody showed it any interest. There are reasons, in the realm of macro-economics, why my previous attempt was doomed to failure from the beginning but it doesn't stop me from feeling a bruise there, in my ego.

But I will try again, of course. And if you're an agent reading this you should certainly consider the wealth and glory that will no doubt accompany any partnership with yours truly. As my brother would tell you, it's all golden yachts from here on in.

-- Query Letter --

Dear Agent

My novel, Moderately adventurous is a work of fiction set in contemporary Dublin, Ireland. The story is focused on the relationship of the protagonist, the highly awkward Dirk Voigt, with those around him as he attempts to fulfil the duties of an Acquisitor for the NDCTA.

The NDCTA, or National Department for the Control of Taxable Artefacts tasks him with hunting down Irish artefacts which are then ensconced deep within a converted wartime bunker. On a series of escapades he carries out his duties honestly, applying an adhesive salve composed of both persistence and best intentions as he tackles perturbed pub owners, melancholic musicians and the romantic approval of the German Special Forces member of his dreams.

Despite his better sense, Dirk is at certainly by his own admission at the very least, moderately adventurous.

I've attached a short synopsis and the first ten pages for your perusal. Please contact me if you would be interested in discussing the possibility of your representation.

Best regards,
Eoghan

Arby Quinn - The Scar Over Farmer Quinn's (No Relation) Left Eyebrow

It's one of that clown's favorite drinking stories. He'll find a corner in the pub with a few yobs willing to bear his drunken squawks and douse them in lies of the most disgusting, sticky, sort.

Arby, he says, that mighty man of the woods. I caught him chasing my sheep about and decided I'd had enough of his mischief. He tells them how he threw aside his shotgun and came after me armed only with his bare fists and the courage of fifty men. He tells them how I threw a rock at him as he hurtled towards me like a swooping hawk, grazing his face dishonourably before being felled by a single blow from his meteor fist.

Well, I'll tell you my side of the story. The true side of it. You see, Farmer Quinn had a sheep that can talk. Now, before you dismiss my story as fanciful before it's even begun allow me to remind you that Farmer Quinn is by no means a normal Farmer. Have you seen how curly his hair is? Even the way he walks, it's almost a trot! He hobbles about as though his shoes didn't quite fit.

I know it's a strange thing to read and yet it's true. Farmer Quinn is himself a sheep and there, among the balls of wool grazing on his silent meadows was his estranged son. He called to me one day as I was making my way to market, seeking my company. It emerged that not only was he Farmer Quinn's son but that he was kept there against his will, trapped among his less intelligent kind.

He only spoke a handful of words to me before Farmer Quinn himself arrived, intent on violence upon me in order to maintain the cruel imprisonment of his own blood. Well, his story goes that he threw his shotgun aside, the scars on my left arse cheek tell a different story. He must have fired five times, only catching me by pure luck when he stumbled in a pot hole in his poorly maintained field.

Well, needless to say when the pellets from his gun made contact with me I wasn't at all pleased but Farmer Quinn's son had fared even worse. When I looked to where my previous conversation partner stood I saw only a dead sheep. Farmer Quinn had killed his own son and there was only me left who could avenge him.

It's true, I did inflict the wound over his eyebrow with a stone. But it was a stone propelled not by a defensive reflex but by the very hand of justice. I took it up and threw it the full length of the field, outranging even Farmer Quinn's long barrelled shotgun and knocked him out cold. He fell backwards comically onto a pile of his brethren's dung, his shotgun landing limp beside him.

So, next time Farmer Quinn regales you with his fraudulent chronicling of non-existent exploits ask yourself this, can you trust a sheep who killed their own son with a shotgun? I didn't think so.

I wanted to make a Post

It's gone long enough without a post so I want to write a little about my exploits.

Work has been nasty lately, they've made half of the office redundant and the atmosphere has become utterly toxic. It's a trial but such is life.

Far more positive is my writing, is it hubris to be humbled by your own works? I was working through moderately adventurous in Starbucks and I am so sincerely happy with it I'm consistently surprised.

Book sales continue to trickle through on Amazon, each one a little pat on the back, a little reassurance.

It's the year of the Dragon, what great new worlds await me?

Following the Flow of the Amazon

When I put my book up on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing it was very much a last ditch effort, it represented my giving up on finding a publisher permanently. Putting it on kindle was in many ways simply a way of preserving it, so that it wouldn't fade away and at least be available somewhere as I moved onto other things. As the months went by without selling a single unit I was never really surprised, why would anybody buy it? The important thing was that it was there.

Selling one, or seven, but most importantly, one, made a difference. More than I would have expected. It's a sensation, I feel, completely tied with the knowledge that I've made a cent from my writing. Now, I have generated money from my blogs through advertising though it was never anything over a couple of Euro. That's different, that's somebody randomly happening across my blog (usually as a side effect of one of the images I use showing up in their google search) and clicking on an ad. When I sold a book on the kindle that was somebody browsing to my book, clicking add to cart and buying it. They were interested in my product, enough to throw three dollars down for the mere privilege of buying it. I take so much energy from that thought, especially as it's possible to preview the book on Amazon and read the first few chapters so it certainly wasn't a blind purchase.

They liked the first few chapters enough to be willing to pay to read on, that's amazing. To those who have either downloaded my book for free or, even more encouragingly, paid for it, I offer my sincere thanks. If you have any feedback at all you can leave a comment here or email me directly, I'd love to hear from you.

Of course, I mainly just hope that you felt the book was worth whatever effort or money you put into acquiring it. If there is ever enough interest to secure a sequel I'd love to write it.

An Ending

Well, finished it...

Book 2, bang, shot in the head like a collared outlaw. Like the final god fallen at ragnarok. Dead.

Only, it's not because now I'm going to re-write the ever loving hell out of it and press gang some proof readers.

Going to start sending out publishing packs in the latter half of the month.

Yes. It all starts again, 2 years on. There's something deeply, right, about that.

Theme song time.

did you doubt us from what came before?
were you not a believer?
here and now all your doubts are no more
this is redeemer

This is Super Dog

Hey, it's me, Super Dog. Hey, how you doin'? Welcome to the internet guy.

You good?

Right, well Eoghan can't be here right now you see. He gave me a tenner to post for him, gave me a message to give to you all, everybody reading this.

"Even the web crawlers, since they're where all your hits come from?" I asked upon receiving his orders. "ESPECIALLY, the web crawlers!" he said and returned to feverishly writing a ten page love letter to himself.

Well, somebody out there bought his book on kindle following a week of free promotion. Some punters seemed to not check their basket and ended up paying for the thing, talk about a waste of memory AND money. I'm waiting for the refunds to roll in personally.

Anyway, books currently sold for real money numbers 7. Well done Eoghan from all Super Dogs everywhere, may your book's sales one day pay for the electricity your laptop consumed while writing it.

Oh, and happy new year. Woof!