Work

Continues. When you don't see me here, that means I'm working on the sequel. Also no beach on the weekend because I'm trying to give my foot time to heal--I'm shooting for Wednesday if the weather holds. But in any case, summer is leaving us as the Autumnal Equinox approaches.
Two Saturdays in a row now, I've gotten a really good idea for the sequel. I'm also spot checking the first book here and there, as I wait for a reply.
I remember thinking when the first draft of the last book didn't get any offers, one of the possible reasons I was theorizing was that it really didn't look like anything else. People in publishing have this shorthand, where they'll say something is like so-and-so only a little more whatever. On the website of one of the agencies I submitted to, under their suggestions they remark this, but I honestly can't compare it to anything that I'm aware of.
Another possible problem was that the book was critical of American foreign policy and the bad guy in the book is the President of the United States, far in the future but still. I remember my agent sending me all these postcards telling me that this publisher still had it and this other press still hadn't said anything yet, because what happens is that the manuscript has to go higher and higher within the organization, as only the people at the top can say yes, and this takes time. Then 9/11 happened and that seemed the end of that.
The book is still critical of American foreign policy but this time all that is stuck in the middle of the book, not up front as previously had been the case. And this time I make it sound as if those are just the main character's politics--for whatever reason.
But this time around there are definitely fewer agents out there--and the ones that I was getting any kind of a reaction from now appear gone.
Publishing has gone through crises before, but this may be different. I spot checked a few stocks that the company that I was working for (Weiss Research) was picking and the bottom in the market that I could see seems to have been late March. Everything's been on it's way up since then, but still there's no sector leadership, which is a fancy way of saying that something has to come along to pull us out of this hole that we're in, or we'll be like either of those baby sea turtles I had been too late to save the other day. Maybe it's a misplaced analogy, as we're not going to keep mindlessly flailing our legs, but it is true that every time something like this has happened in the past, it's always been some technological innovation that has saved capitalism and thus mankind.
It rained earlier but now it's sunny out. Nothing but junk in the mail. Telephone's not ringing either, for some reason, but the central air still feels good. TTYL.