I have a novel ready, and another right behind it. I am accepting agent queries at this time. Please include your query in the body of the email, and list authors you represent and any awards you have won. Agents not listed in Writers Market [sic] should supply additional references. Publishers are encouraged to work through the agent channel. Email first: XXXXXXXXXXXXX.

Now, as you can guess, this is an unpublished author. I know I’ve never heard of the person. But maybe they’re a great writer. And maybe I don’t understand agents and publishers like I think I do. I’ve always thought that if agents or publishers seek any writer out, it’s from maybe reading a story of theirs in a magazine or journal. But who knows, maybe they do troll through author blogs, searching for a hot new talent. Let’s just hope if they come to this writer’s blog, they are listed in Writer’s Market, or at least supply the appropriate number of references. (Or is this writer being facetious? I honestly can’t tell.)

Awhile back I talked about what makes a professional writer, even one who hasn’t published anything yet, and something like this … well, I can just imagine that if agents or publishers did happen across this particular page, they might not stop laughing for quite a long time. I know I didn’t.

Oh, and what should a writer put instead? Just an e-mail address. If an agent or publisher is interested in your work, they will contact you.

Ah, yes, our seats were right beside the wing. Which isn’t the greatest feeling when you look outside and see the wing shaking up and down like it might snap off at any moment. But anyway, we landed safely, and there were of course slot machines in the terminal, but they weren’t nearly as interesting as one of the ads that greeted you as you went down the long corridor out of the airport.

Alas, we never did get around to shooting a real machine gun, but there’s always next time. And so from there we eventually made it to our hotel, which was Treasure Island, which, in case you’re planning to visit Las Vegas anytime soon, it should be noted charges a daily resort fee of $22.40, because apparently the regular high cost of the room isn’t enough.

Maybe the reason Treasure Island charges that daily resort fee is because people are stupid enough to pay it without complaining. I mean, people would have to be pretty stupid otherwise the hotel wouldn’t see the need to point out that the sprinkler system is not an ideal place to put hangers.

And for some reason I always thought drinks were relatively inexpensive in Vegas. I mean, they want you to gamble as much as possible, so cut people a break on beverages, right? Guess not, as at one casino that first night my wife and I ordered a Captain and Coke (me) and a Cosmopolitan (her) and the bill came to $23. Seriously!

The next day, Thursday, was the wedding day. The guys and girls split up and did their own thing. The bride’s brother came up with the idea of getting the guys tuxedo T-shirts which we wore around town. Walking through one casino, we passed a group of guys wearing suits, and one of the guys said, “Man, we should have done something like that.”

We took the monorail up the strip and stopped at a bar called Diablo’s for drinks. It wasn’t even noontime yet and we threw back Tequila and had Slurpee-type drinks mixed with heavy liquor. I hadn’t had breakfast yet and was feeling buzzed almost immediately (it also didn’t help that we were walking in the 100-degree temperature outside), so it was good that our next stop was for lunch at a place where a giant biker rode his hog through the wall.

Then it was a lot of wandering around, and we happened past this giant stripper. We did not venture any closer for fear that others of her size might be lurking inside.

Back to the hotel then, where I took a relaxing nap, and then it was wedding time. The ceremony was short but sweet, and it was recorded online for all the groom’s and bride’s family and friends back home to watch. Afterward, we went to dinner at the Venetian across the street.

Aren’t they a good-looking couple? Of course, my lovely wife was looking as beautiful as ever.

The next day was a free day. My wife and I had breakfast at Denny’s, then walked up and down the Strip. Caesars Palace, I must say, has the nicest casino around. It just isn’t about the games with them; the overall structure and decor is amazing. And yes, I will admit that I succumbed to the siren song of a few of the slot machines, but there were a few that I did stay away from.

Later that day I caught up and had drinks with Jeremy D. Brooks, where we talked about writing and publishing and all that good stuff. Later that night, my wife and I had dinner at Paris, right there on the patio overlooking the sidewalk and street. We had a pretty good view of the Bellagio despite the pesky trees, and watched five different sets of their famous fountain show.

That night everyone but the parents went clubbing — or, more accurately, we went to one of the clubs in our hotel, the kind that has a velvet rope that you have to wait behind. Yeah, it was that kind of classy. And … well, the night was kind of a blur, but we ended up outside on the deck and I do remember hearing police sirens but didn’t think about it much as, come on, it’s Vegas. But as it turns out, Paris Hilton was arrested that very night, across the street and less than a block away. Last time my wife and I were in Vegas, O. J. Simpson was arrested. Coincidence? Perhaps. Or maybe we’re just bad luck for celebrities. Watch out, Mel Gibson!

The next morning I managed to drag myself out of bed and meet the legendary David B. Silva for breakfast. Now if you’re a fan of horror or dark fiction, you should be reading Dave’s work. He’s one of my favorite horror short story writers. It was a pleasure and honor to meet with him and talk about writing and books and publishing and just about everything. One thing we talked about was the shifting price of e-books, something I hope to at some point bring up here on this blog. But then breakfast was cut short as we needed to check out and catch our shuttle to the airport. Which, I should add, has probably the strictest security in the world. Seriously, God forbid you forget to take a bottle of water out of your bag; you’d think a SWAT team was going to bust out of the walls. My wife wasn’t lucky with the metal detector, though, and got the extra pat-down.

Then it was a two-hour wait for the plane to arrive and take off. We saw what it probably the coolest T-shirt ever. In fact, we were almost tempted to buy it, but then we realized that this was one of those T-shirts that, while it’s awesome, is something you would never seriously wear in public. (It’s a Hangover reference, for those of you scratching your heads.)

And then, before we boarded the plane, one last goodbye to the Strip.

Now having returned home safe and sound, it’s time to dive back into this Y. A. novel. Talk to you all soon.

But wait — there’s more!

This whole shebang costs you only $149! (You could buy a new Kindle for less than that.) Of course, some of the e-books submitted will be reviewed. It’s not like you’re paying to have your stuff reviewed. PW would never lower themselves to that, would they?

We briefly considered charging for reviews, but in the end preferred to maintain our right to review what we deemed worthy. The processing fee that guarantees a listing and the chance to be reviewed accomplishes what we want: to inform the trade of what is happening in self-publishing and to present a PW selection of what has the most merit.

Ah, yes, well it’s good to see that they haven’t decided to sell out completely. After all, they are professional. Then again, this entire “supplement” is nothing more than a way to make self-published authors pay for ad space. And you know what that eerie voice in Kevin Costner’s corn field says: “If you build it, they will come.” (Yes, yes, the actual quote is “he will come,” but you get the idea.)

And, sadly, I guarantee self-published authors will come in droves with their wallets open.

* * *

In other news, I’ve added a new widget to the sidebar of upcoming appearances for the Hint Fiction anthology’s release. The Vroman’s and McNally Jackson events I’ve mentioned already, but there will also be an event at the Big Blue Marble Bookstore in Philadelphia on Friday, November 19. I have also been asked to speak at the Morgantown Poets gathering on Thursday, December 16; this is in Morgantown, West Virgina for anyone close by. And there will most likely be something around my area on Monday, November 1st, but nothing has been decided yet. Once I get a full list of anthology contributors attending each event, I’ll make an official announcement.

* * *

The Los Angeles Review’s fiction editor Stefanie Freele asked me to do a blog post for their website. I wrote a little something called “Our Best Work” and you can read it here.

* * *

You’re probably wondering why I’m blogging when I said I wouldn’t be for awhile. Well, that Publishers Weekly thing really ticked me off for starters. Work on the Y.A. book is coming along nicely, and I’m on the downswing, really getting momentum, so it would make sense that I would have to put off writing for a few days. This Wednesday I’ll be headed to Las Vegas; my brother-in-law is getting married so my wife and I will be there for a few days to attend, and I’m not about to take my laptop along with the intention of continuing to work on the book. I mean, I could take my laptop, but we all know I wouldn’t get any writing done.

So … yeah, that’s about it. Hope everyone’s doing well. I must now go rewatch The Hangover in anticipation for this week. I wonder if they have some kind of bus tour dedicated to the movie. It wouldn’t surprise me if they did.

That’s especially true in publishing.

Take me for instance. Ever since I was in middle school I wanted to be a writer. Through the years, I came up with a game plan that I did my best to follow. I wouldn’t settle for second best. I knew I wanted to be published and published big, so I searched for an agent. After years and years and writing different novels, I finally got an agent, and I knew — just knew — that I had made it. But the first book didn’t sell, as neither did the second. In the end I parted ways with my agent, and wrote another novel, and got a new agent. And I knew — just knew — that this was going to be the one. But the book he shopped around didn’t sell, as neither did the next book.

Then I write a little essay that isn’t supposed to be read by more than a dozen people and suddenly words gets around and a publisher contacts me and my agent about doing a book. (For those newer to this blog, details of what went down can be found here.)

Is this how I always envisioned myself entering into the wild and wacky world of publishing? Not at all. But it’s a start, and I’m more than happy to take it.

Most importantly, there was no way anyone could have ever predicted that would happen.

No way at all.

Just like with what happened recently with my friend Joe Schreiber. If you remember from a few blog posts back, he finally sold his young adult book Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick. Despite having been rejected by a number of other houses, Houghton Mifflin picked it up in a two-book deal. Great, right?

Well, earlier this week it was reported that Paramount won the movie rights in a very aggressive bidding war with Fox for a nice chunk of change. How friggin’ fantastic is that? I remember having lunch with Joe months and months ago, talking about an early draft of his manuscript, and never once did either of us ever imagine that something like that would happen. But it did, and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer and more deserving guy.

So predictability? You just can’t do it. You can want something to happen, but it certainly doesn’t mean it will.

The other day my agent called. He had just finished reading my new novel, a thriller. He liked it, but had one issue. He told me what that issue was. I said, “That’s a pretty major factor in the entire book.” He said, “Well, yes and no.” He gave me some ideas and then said that if I didn’t want to work more on it, he would be willing to go out with it as is.

I could have gone the easy route. The lazy route. I could have just told him that yeah, take it out as is. But doing that would have been extremely stupid of me, and I like to think I’m not a stupid person.

As writers, it’s important to understand one basic fundamental truth: we are not as good as we’d like to think we are. In fact, we will probably never be as good as we’d like to think we are. And we need to remind ourselves of that daily. Because when we start to believe we’re as good as we think we are, that’s when the true laziness sets in and our writing starts to fall apart. We should always be trying to make our work as good as we can make it, and then try to make it even better.

My novel? I understand my agent’s concern with it, and I plan to fix it. I think I even know how. But by doing so involves a pretty lengthy revision. Almost a rewrite. The story itself isn’t changing, but still many, many chapters need to be reworked. But it’s okay, because in the end I know it’ll be worth it.

Well, hopefully.

But as I mentioned before, I’m currently working on a Y.A. novel. I plan to finish that first, then start up the reworking on the thriller. Which means that it’ll be pretty quiet around this ol’ blog for awhile. Don’t expect many posts from me unless it’s purely promotional stuff for the anthology (and with the release date quickly approaching, there will be many). Maybe there will be a random post here and there, but for the most part, I want to concentrate more on these books. I’ll still be active on Twitter, of course, and somewhat active on Facebook, so hit me up there.

For now, though, I leave you with a different bit of unpredictability. In case you haven’t seen it yet, a woman went through the drive-thru of McDonald’s and wanted McNuggets. It was still breakfast time, and they told her sorry, no McNuggets. And this woman, she freaked. There’s no audio for the clip, so I also included a video of the McNugget rap. Play them both at the same time (or start the rap video around the 20 second mark of the first video for optimal enjoyment) and watch the crazy lady go crazy.

• 10-week writing workshop
• $100
• One-year subscription to The Writer
• Publication of your winning entry in Gotham’s Winter 2011 course catalog
• Bragging rights

Details here.

There’s a special mini issue of Hint Fiction live now at Wigleaf. It contains 10 original stories by 10 contributors of the anthology. I’d list their names here but figure there’s no point because of course you’re going to visit the site and read their stories. They are, as I say in my introduction, a literary appetizer of sorts. My deepest thanks to Scott Garson and all the anthology contributors who sent stories in for consideration. It was a thrill and honor to work with Scott on this project, and I’m very proud and excited about the finished project. Hopefully you enjoy it.

According to surveys by the Codex Group, a consultant to the publishing industry, 47 percent of 18- to 24-year-old women and 24 percent of same-aged men say most of the books they buy are classified as young adult. The percentage of female Y.A. fans between the ages of 25 and 44 has nearly doubled in the past four years. Today, nearly one in five 35- to 44-year-olds say they most frequently buy Y.A. books. For themselves.

— Pamela Paul, New York Times essay

Young Adult fiction is all the rage these days, it seems. Not only are the books read by “young adults,” but also by (gasp) “adults”! It seems that, like graphic novels, Y.A. fiction has branched out and become more accepted among mainstream readers (and really, just what does “mainstream” readers mean? That’s like using the term “average American”)

Which is great, because I’m currently halfway through writing a Y.A. novel of my own. The idea is one I’ve had for years but never did anything with. I was always too worried that it might be too similar to something else. But then I realized I wouldn’t know until I wrote it so I decided to write it. But it, like a solid majority of recent Y.A. fiction (as noted by Laura Miller’s New Yorker article), is somewhat dystopian both in tone and structure.

Actually, what am I talking about — it’s completely dystopian in every way imaginable. Which, on the one hand, can be a good thing, as that seems to be the hot ticket right now (see Suzanne Collins and others), but on the other hand it can be a bad thing, as sometimes there is too much of a good (or rather marketable) thing — like the upsurge of secret history novels after The Da Vinci Code’s wild success.

Of course, not all Y.A. has to be dystopian, as evidenced by my buddy Joe Schreiber’s recent sale of his YA thriller Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick to Houghton Mifflin. I’ve had the pleasure of reading an early draft of the novel, and it’s good. Really good. And, unlike the recent trend, it’s not futuristic or features overpowering governments bent on brainwashing its people.

But just what, exactly, makes Y.A. Y.A.?

Is it that it features a teenage protagonist? That it deals with issues relevant to young adults? Because if that’s the case, then it seems strange that more and more adults are reading them (though, let’s be honest here, the issues young adults face are pretty much the same as the issues adults face). But, as mentioned in the Pamela Paul essay, “A lot of adult literature is all art and no heart. But good Y.A. is like good television. There’s a freshness there; it’s engaging.”

Plus, as less and less adults read books (what is the average nowadays, a book a year?), it can also be more profitable. And that, my friends, is never a bad thing.