The First 25 Agents

So I call 5/13/2011 the completion date for "Mississippi Sizzling." Somehow my browser takes me to this site http://www.ebookcrossroads.com/agents.html I whittle the prospects down to 25, disqualifying only those agents who clearly are not interested in marketing grown up (as opposed to 'adult' and its racy connotation) fiction. I discarded those agents who want to write authors of children's books, encyclopedias, cook books and 12 step pamphlets. But I had a list of 25 and I was going to get published.

I first wrote to the agents located in Alaska and Canada, thinking they would not get as many queries. I think it is difficult for anyone from another country to represent Americans so I wasn't expecting a swift reply from the Canadians. When I went down this road before the Canadian agents sought Canadian writers. I have to get a response from any Canadian.

The email to the Alaskan agent was apparently invalid and it bounced back.

Next on the list was Doriss Michaels. They mentioned in their propaganda that they sought material that had "strong screen potential." I emphasized that "Mississippi Sizzling" was to be the first in a series and TV and movie producers seek a built-in audience above all else. Series of any kind are better than stand alones of any kind. They wrote me a prompt email that was not a formal rejection. They wanted to review andif they were interested they would contact me...I was hopeful.

I sent an email query to Jane Cheliut Literary Agency. Yes it said explicitly no science fiction. I made the point that this is near future sf and as such was not really sf. They wrote a polite reply that they don't handle science fiction.

Let's review the math...A list of 55 agents is initially trimmed to 25. Two are Canadian and do don respond. 23. The Alaskan is an invalid email. 22. Eight of those listed are "snail mail" only. I will address these in a minute. 15. Fourteen.

On May 29, June 5 and June 6 I send out eleven queries. Not sure how I got from fourteen to eleven. But that is how many I sent out. Eleven queries reaped eight rejections, one "we will review..." and two non-responses. Still batting zero, am I.

"Mississippi Sizzling" 1:2 Springtime

1:2 Bob Henderson at Quantico

Bob Henderson studied the large screen wall panel in the Charles Lidell Conference Room in Quantico, Virginia. “Texas again,” he said to himself. This was the fourth biological or chemical attack apparently directed at the criminal justice system. All of them had taken place in Texas. The first three were strictly biological attacks. This attack seemed to be strictly chemical.

The media had already concluded that the three biological attacks were the work of the Mexican Alliance but Quantico had her doubts. The Mexican Alliance were criminals, not terrorists. They are different species with different habits and different methods. This was the work of terrorists.

His cell purred like a kitten and he fought back a smile before answering. “Henderson,” he said in an official tone.

“Can you tear away from the set long enough for a debriefing?”

“Two minutes,” he said and flipped the cell back into his shirt pocket. “People” he yelled in a coachy tone. “Let me remind you that it is our job to tell Fox News what is happening. It is not Fox News's job to tell us what is happening. You are professionals. Get back to your stations and do something. Anything. Your country is under attack.”

With that Bob Henderson raced out of the stapled leather conference area and trotted the to his office at the end of the hall. “No interruptions, Stella” he barked at he darted past his secretary. He locked the door behind him.

From the bottom drawer in the tan Hohn file cabinet, Bob Henderson removed a laptop computer with a wireless transmitter. Technically, he could be disciplined for using an unauthorized computer and an unregistered crypt, but he was, after all, Bob Henderson. He set the screen and dialed Agent Judy Hunnsicker in Salt Lake City.

“Hi” Judy answered ever so perkily.

“Whatta ya got?” Bob Henderson begged, not even attempting to hide his enthusiasm.

“You remember the trifecta?”

“Hell yes!”

“You said the perfect scene was a young perpetrator receiving a long sentence, a sobbing mother and a blubbering girlfriend.”

“10-4.”

“Well get ready for the grand slam! This also has a weepy little sister!”

Bob Henderson was transfixed. Veritas had procured the sentencing of a 19 year old in Federal Court. They had somehow gotten three or four camera angles. It was a masterpiece.

As the judge asked the defendant to rise, Bob Henderson dropped his pants to his ankles and slipped his left hand inside his boxers. The dark eyes of the defendant contrasted nicely with his whitish face. And then the screen split and he also saw the perp's mother. She was gorgeous! Was she 13 when she had him? And that pair of mommy melons! Mmm.

The screen split into thirds and the sobbing girlfriend appeared. She was a cutie with light brown hair that hung down upon her firm breasts. And then an 18 year old girl who could have passed for 15 and was obviously the defendant's sister, filled the entire screen. She was so pretty and so scared and so anguished. Bob Henderson looked away and looked back. He rubbed harder and faster...She was so innocent!

Bob Henderson pointed his cannon at the rubber plant behind his desk and closed his eyes. He could still hear the judge yammering on and on as his pelvis spasmed and he moaned ever so quietly. He was at peace.

Reluctantly Bob Henderson came back to his life. He pulled up his pants and wiped his hands with a tissue. He surveyed the discharge as he worked bottled disinfectant into his hands. Most of it had fallen on the rubber tree. What had hit the carpet, he smeared with his shoe.
Bob Henderson thanked Judy Hunnsicker profusely and promised to call her that evening. He put the cell in his pocket and stowed the laptop in its hiding place. He sprayed the affected leaves of the rubber plant with lemon-scented water. He shot breath spray onto his tongue and poured a heap of breath mints into his mouth. At last, he dialed his voice mail.

His spirits would sink as the robot announced on this historic day when Quantico had become a beehive, a day where data transmission had surpassed all previous records, on this critical day in American history, Bob Henderson had received no voice mail.

"Mississippi Sizzling" 1:1

'Mississippi Sizzling" Part 1 Springtime
1:1 In the Beginning

Jim Garfield mechanically pumped dumbbell curls as he monitored the unfolding events on three separate walls. Each wall was set to a different news channel, two national, one local. From his vantage point on the Marscape fake suede love seat he watched the breaking story. A chemical attack on the Waller County Government Complex had wrought turmoil. It was a great news story and it would have intrigued Jim Garfield even if he had not orchestrated the event.

On his cradle table that sat next to the love seat one of his dozen cells chirped “Auld Lang Syne,” the tone he had selected for the mother of his second child, Mary Elizabeth Jones. “Hello” he said into the receiver that would convert his voice into a reasonable facsimile of Charlton Heston.

“How free are you?” Darth Vader bellowed.

Darth Vader!? Who the fuck was she to Darth Vader me! He planned to address her preferred voice but he first informed her, “It's cold in here.”

Cold was a code word for the word “code.” In other words, speak cryptically. “Are you watching the news?” Darth Vader intoned gently.

“Yes,” a Charlton Heston facsimile replied.

“It pains me to hear such awful news,” Darth Vader stated slowly and then produced a series of labored breaths.

That seemed to Jim Garfield like a neutral tag. She was stating the obvious in an effort to mimic real dialog. Filler and foley that was used to make their conversation sound innocent should anyone be monitoring. So he added, “I don't think anyone is happy about this.”

“I don't understand these terrorists” Darth Vader growled.

“I don't understand why you think you can Darth Vader me!” Jim Garfield screamed. He could not be sure how much inflection the machine would put into the Charlton Heston voice but he hoped it was a lot.

“I thought American criminals did not kill innocents, especially children. This is surely the work of terrorists.” More of the labored breathing followed her comments.

Jim Garfield cringed at the use of the word terrorist. “I'm not sure what you are talking about.”

“Channel 5 is reporting” and she paused for dramatic breathing that made Jim Garfield grind his teeth and grab his cell so hard that he it whimpered a slight beep. “That a mother and her two small children were taken to the ER.” More pronounced breathing.

“I wasn't aware of that” Jim Garfield said defensively. He didn't know how Charlton Heston would inflect the comment.

“Can you come by tonight. After dark?” More breathing.
Jim Garfield wanted to scream at the Darth Vader voice but he composed himself. “I'll be there at 8:30.”

“May the force be with you.”

Jim Garfield terminated the call and resisted the temptation to hurl the phone into a wall screen. Tiffanie Anckles, his 23 year old mistress had wiggled into the room. She immediately recited the litany. “It's one thing taking out the man, but those cocksuckers killed children.”

Jim Garfield resented the cocksucker reference but dared not show his disapproval. What went wrong? he asked himself as Tiffanie continued her commentary. The Fungus. He fucked this up. He said that deaths were unlikely. He fucked this up. That pus popper has some explaining to do.

He was brought out of his internal chatter by a comment delivered by Tiffanie Anckles as she settled herself next to him on the love seat. “Whoever did this should have their balls cut off.”

Jim Garfield diverted her glance and refocused his attention on the walls as he turned up the volume.

The helicopter shot panned the affected area on the local station displayed on Jim Garfield's main event wall. The conventional wisdom is that you can't go wrong with a helicopter shot but gas attacks just don't photograph very well. On Jim Garfield's right wall The Rescue Network solved that problem. They enhanced the video with computer effects that simulated gas. They had scooped their rivals on the method of attack.

According to the Rescue Channel the terrorists had parked four cars at strategic points around the xxx County complex. They left the engines running and the left the doors locked. The cars' exhaust systems served as the dispersal method. The analyst speculated that the terrorists had pumped the chlorine gas into the tail pipes after parking the vehicles. The attack probably took place during a mild thunder shower around 9 AM that decreased visibility and minimized suspicion.

“Damn!” Jim Garfield said under his breath. They called it perfectly.

Introducing Frank Lee Rio

I am fifty three years old. Thirty some odd years ago I started writing humor. When I learned just how wide was the monetary gulf between comedian and comic writer, I moved to the big city and honed my stand-up skills. Getting laughs was not that hard and I was comfortable in front of crowds. But it felt wrong.

I gave up the pursuit of comic success for two reasons. One, I see myself as an iconoclast and stand-up comedy is not the best forum for shattering those precious relics. It is always easier to get laughs when you echo the sympathies of the audience. To attract a larger audience is to parrot mainstream sentiments in matters political, matters domestic and matters trivial. There have been a few geniuses-- George Carlin and Andrew Dice Clay are two examples—who get laughs while challenging their audiences' sensibilities. But most comedians survive by charting a course of ever-decreasing resistance.

The other reason I did not stay with comedy is that I did not have a pathological need for attention. In comedy, as in pop music and other performing arts, the cream does not usually rise to the top. The compulsive attention seekers, with their heartfelt belief that they alone belong in the spotlight, perform Gresham's Law on the rest of the field. Entertainment as we know it is dominated by journeymen who share an uncommon talent for self-marketing. I thought writing would be a little bit different. It isn't.

In the early 90's I had my first negative experience with the publishing world. Prior to the Internet, there were a lot of publishing houses that dealt with obscure subjects, weirdness and money-making opportunities. Subjects that would now be covered at free websites or maybe low-priced e-books. At the time, I was partly supporting my writing habit through paid human experimentation. I compiled a book on the subject and called it “Have Blood, Will Travel.”

My motive for writing HBWT was to open doors. I wanted to become a published writer and this lofty status might land me lucrative editorial positions where I would live in relative luxury (compared to the life of a clinic-hopping guinea pig) while I penned a series of great American novels in my spare time. It wasn't to be.

Not only did I collect dozens of rejections and postage alone nearly sent me to the poor house (which would probably be a step up from a lot of clinics, let me tell you) further humiliation would ensue. Two of the publishers viewed my manuscripts, outlines, etc., and rejected my work but then released similar books a short time later.

There is much more to this sour saga that I will save for another time. One of the publishers kept my manuscript and later released a title I cannot currently recall (I have the book in storage and it seems to be out of print so I can't look up the title at the publisher's web site.) They would later make national news when the family of a murder victim claimed that one of their books educated the killer in performing homicide. The publisher would destroy all traces of credibility by their counterargument that Rex Feral was actually a woman whose “Hit Man” expertise was attained from watching TV crime shows and from reading detective novels. There was a made for TV movie about this event.

Feeling not warmly received by the publishing community, I decided to go in another direction. I would produce humorous and satirical audio productions and market them directly through the mail. Under the name Frank Tyro I produced “Dealey Plaza FunPark” (in convenient cassette format) “Frank Tyro Unplugged,” “Broadcasting Live From Dealey Plaza Funpark,” “Tyro IV” and “Frank Tyro's Greatest Hits.”

It was the wrong era for audio productions and besides, my technical expertise was limited. I did some good voices and recruited some good talent but a sound engineer I will never be. Oh, and marketing genius once more escaped my grasp. There were dozens of projects left on the drawing board. It was time to shift gears.

Inspired by “Infinite Jest” I was determined to write a long coming of age novel that takes place inside the head of a socially inept and highly delusional teenager. Each day would be a stand alone short story that weaves itself into a six month narrative. At six to seven pages per day times 180 days, I was going to have me a fat ass novel.

Hundreds of pages into the project, work raised its ugly head. Kind of like “Dilbert” but with longer hours, shorter wages and meaner people. Mean. Mean. Mean. And there was a marriage and a divorce and changes of address and broken dreams. Writing took a backseat to gloom.

When I once more found a creative spark, I decided to write, direct and star in a feature length digital movie. The movie never got started but preproduction consumed more time and money than I thought possible. Whenever I had the time, I would be short on cash. Whenever I had deeper pockets, I had less time. People changed their phone numbers. People changed addresses. Actors changed appearance. In my mind, I did not throw in the towel. The movie is slowly stewing on the back burner.

In 2006 I executed a bold maneuver. I quit my job and finished my coming of age novel on New Year's Day, 2007. I trimmed the six month novel down to seven weeks and later down to six weeks. Even in its sveltest form it still tipped the scales at 185, 395 words. This was a real book, baby.

Imagine running a marathon. You don't know exactly where you finished but you know that you were near the front of the pack. You are exhausted. Every part of your body aches. Muscles go on strike. Then you are told that if you want the judges to record your time, you have to perform the Hokey Pokey. Huh?

That is the publishing world. The judges don't care what kind of race you ran. They want to see you dance the Hokey Pokey. On the basis of your performance, your race will count or it will be discarded. You might win the gold medal or your race might be obliterated and forgotten.

You put your right foot in.
You put your right foot out.
You put your right foot in and you shake it all about.
You do the Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around
And that's what it's all about.

That's what it's all about. Getting published is dancing The Hokey Pokey at the end of a marathon. Query letters and submission guidelines and plot synopses and shots in the dark. Why is it easier for me to write a four hundred page novel than a one page query letter? I have written good copy in the past. It's not like I don't understand the rudiments of salesmanship. I do. But I will never excel at The Hokey Pokey. Never.

Fast forward. The coming of age novel was not published. I thought that it would garner enough cash for me to live on while I worked on the next novel. But it did not produce any cargo. I lived on credit cards for a while as I tried new business ventures. I licked my wounds and started a new novel. Figuring that I had been dismissed as a dilettante, I would write a second novel. Sure, dilettantes write one novel, but not two. At that point, the dilettante is declared a writer.

Yes, it would be different this time. Different in part because I would now be writing commercial fiction. Not a stand alone novel but a series of intricate stories with recurring characters. And this, the first of many in a series, would deal with commercially viable material that millions and millions of readers would want to purchase. No more one shots about goofy kids who struggle with mental illness. Well, yes, if you want to look at that one too...but let's talk about “Mississippi Sizzling,” the near future crime novel where gangsters discover the wonders of biochemical weaponry.

As I mentioned, I lived on credit cards for a while. The coming of age novel did not sell and the world economy tanked. It took me longer than expected to find work and when I did, it was for low wages and it featured a long, grueling commute. I tried to keep my business ventures alive much longer than I should have. Thus, it took me longer than expected to complete “Mississippi Sizzling.” May 13, 2011 is the official completion date but I have made minor repairs since that day.

I want to get “Mississippi Sizzling” published. When that happens, I will get started on the next book in the “Mississippi” series. Maybe I will also get the coming of age novel published. But that's another story for another time. For now, I want to bring “Mississippi Sizzling” to market. The Internet and social networking has changed the rules of just about everything. It's a whole new ball game.

Wish me luck.

Frank Lee Rio.