Novel in progress.

I'll have a look at it.

Make sure to get some basic copyright protection before you go handing it out. It's not so much that people will [i]steal[/i] from your ideas as people tend to internalize things they've read and have it pop-up much later with them thinking it's an original idea out of nowhere. (You know all this, right?)

[QUOTE=Tuffy the Dump Truck]I'll have a look at it.

Make sure to get some basic copyright protection before you go handing it out. It's not so much that people will [i]steal[/i] from your ideas as people tend to internalize things they've read and have it pop-up much later with them thinking it's an original idea out of nowhere. (You know all this, right?)[/QUOTE]

i do know that. you made good points. hopefully if other people will show interest i will look into more secure ways of letting people read. i really hope to get as many opinions as possible, so far all the comments/opinions have been amazing and very positive

if you are interested, please post a reply saying so and i will handle out something. i'll be editing all of it very soon as well and have the edited/revised copies of chapters 1-21 very soon.

i have chapters 1-21 up now, unedited so far but i will put the edited versions up with the typos corrected. if interested, you can reply to this post or contact me by email at this address: [email]Bassplayer0001@hotmail.com[/email]

would greatly appreciate any comments anyone can provide

When you're ready, let me know; I'll PM you contact info.

21 chapters - how many pages are we talking here?

[QUOTE=Tuffy the Dump Truck]When you're ready, let me know; I'll PM you contact info.

21 chapters - how many pages are we talking here?[/QUOTE]

up to chapter 21 is about 150 novel pages. that is, with a 4 inch margin, size 10 font in times new roman with 13 lines on the first page of each chapter with chapters always starting on the right side(meaning there will be empty pages in the book with no writing at all on the left side for the shorter or odd chapters.)

you can pm me contact info now, as soon as you read, i'm going to be posting the rest of the book onto a different location so the entire thing is not in a single place. the chapters after 21 are only going to be available to the people i get to know better or are close to, and i'm working on copyrighting the whole thing as soon as it's complete. most of the ending chapters won't be up till i'm completely done.

i'm on chapter 25 out of 35 right now, still need to edit.

Take what you have now & do the mail-it-to-yourself trick. That'll hold you until you've got a complete MS for registering copyright.

I'll PM you contact info now.

[QUOTE=Tuffy the Dump Truck]Take what you have now & do the mail-it-to-yourself trick. That'll hold you until you've got a complete MS for registering copyright.
[/QUOTE]

I've heard that the mail it to yourself trick doesn't actually hold up in court.
Considering it's so cheap and easy to get a copyright ($35 and a couple forms I think), you may as well just do that.

[QUOTE=BitOfAFinger]I've heard that the mail it to yourself trick doesn't actually hold up in court.
Considering it's so cheap and easy to get a copyright ($35 and a couple forms I think), you may as well just do that.[/QUOTE]

copyrights are 100 dollars plus a 30 dollar government fee...
for novels, at least. that's what it said on copyright.com anyway

i am looking into copyright.gov which is probably more official and truthful, and i'm looking into getting a copyright for the book in its entirity when it's finished.

[QUOTE=acontaminatedmind]hey guys, i'm pretty new to the cult, joined a couple of weeks ago to leave comments for some of the guys in the workshop with their stories up. i'm currently in the works of a novel, my first, titled "Contamination of the Mind" for now. basically, i've been reading chuck's books and he's by far my favorite author, i also enjoy a lot of the submissions from this site, and my style of writing i think is very similar to chuck's. also, there are a few direct techniques that chuck does that i attempt throughout the book.

i was wondering if anyone would be interested in reading what i have so far(i am on currently on chapter 19 out of around 36 with about 105 novel-sized pages so far) and i'd like to, if all goes well, try and get as many people as i can to read it, and i can't think of anyone better but the fans of chuck. a dream here would be to get the man himself to read it and have just a few sparing comments on really any of it, but for now, until it's finished, just wondering if anyone would be interested in an email or a link with the content i have so far?

a lot of it needs editing still, but i am going to be getting to that within the next few days, and i should have chapters 1-21 edited for a rough version by the end of the next week or so. please reply if you'd be interested, i need as much feedback as possible :)[/QUOTE]

Dude, that is what the Workshops are for. This is the best place you could be to get feedback to help you perfect your novel.

As far as copyright protection goes, I never worry about it in the context of the workshops. If I wrote something so good that a cultist ripped it off as their own and published it successfully, I'd know I had what it takes. Time to write a second novel. But even a good novel, I can't see it getting ripped off on the sight and passed off. And if someone abuses the trust to the extent of posting it to unrelated sights without your permission, maybe it will find a reader who can advance your career because yor book could advance his. They're called agents, and I don't think they probably troll the backwaters of the internet for material, but if you've got a marketable book, you never know. All kinds of freakish things have happened, people who seemed to be trying to avoid publication who successfully get published and sell well, people who beat themselves to death trying to get a sentence published to no avail, maybe to be posthumously published and adored. Faulkner had trouble selling "Sartoris," the first really great novel he ever wrote and the beginning of Yoknapatawpha County as a setting. He also started, after that, to write a novel he knew would NEVER get published, just for his own pleasure. It was called "The Sound and the Fury."

i had read someof the stuff submitted, and there were a few things that dissuaded me from trying to use the workshop.

1) the things i've seen in the workshop we're all short stories, not novels, and only a chapter of this book wouldn't be really considered a full short story, either.

2) none of them followed any specific assignment, such as 'submerging the i' or 'hiding the gun' or anything.

i'm not too worried about being ripped off, it's an issue though. i have it on a site and i've had people read it already from there. i'm going to copyright it very soon.

if there is a valid way of using the workshop, i would definitely love to use it and hear opinions on it. if not, i can send it individually to those who want it, as i do want some opinions on it. it'll be done with the written part in a few days, then it only needs editing, but i will hand out the unedited part as well for material/substance opinions if people can mind the few typos here and there.

[QUOTE=acontaminatedmind]i had read someof the stuff submitted, and there were a few things that dissuaded me from trying to use the workshop.

1) the things i've seen in the workshop we're all short stories, not novels, and only a chapter of this book wouldn't be really considered a full short story, either.

2) none of them followed any specific assignment, such as 'submerging the i' or 'hiding the gun' or anything.

i'm not too worried about being ripped off, it's an issue though. i have it on a site and i've had people read it already from there. i'm going to copyright it very soon.

if there is a valid way of using the workshop, i would definitely love to use it and hear opinions on it. if not, i can send it individually to those who want it, as i do want some opinions on it. it'll be done with the written part in a few days, then it only needs editing, but i will hand out the unedited part as well for material/substance opinions if people can mind the few typos here and there.[/QUOTE]
Up to you, but there are two Workshops, the original and the Chuck's Workshop. The original is where I submitted the first four chapters of my novel because I was late to the party and didn't get the first few distinction essays.

There are full length novels on the Workshop, I reviewed one that took me almost a week to critique. But It really works better in a lot of circumstances to put small portions up and get the feedback on them. THe feedback I got on my first four chapters has helped tremendously, and in fact, they aren't the first four chapters anymore.

Read Vigorous Puppy's 'if you want to be taken seriously...' thread, I think you'll find the Workshop is a welcoming place if you're serious about improving your writing. Doing the critiques helps too, because you'll find yourself saying that something doesn't work in someone else's story and then realize you've been doing the same thing yourself. It teaches you to smell your own. Then you put up your own stuff and find out all the stuff you still didn't smell.

i read an faq on the copyright.gov site, the copyright site. things are copyrighted as soon as they are created in this country, but the registration costs money. however, stuff doesn't need registration, only proof that you actually went through and created all of it.

ahh i'd really love to have fans of chuck give me comments and what they think, i may try that. thanks a lot

[QUOTE=acontaminatedmind]i read an faq on the copyright.gov site, the copyright site. things are copyrighted as soon as they are created in this country, but the registration costs money. however, stuff doesn't need registration, only proof that you actually went through and created all of it.

ahh i'd really love to have fans of chuck give me comments and what they think, i may try that. thanks a lot =)[/QUOTE]
Chuck's fans are a more diverse group than you might expect. Obviously, the vast majority of us have enjoyed at least a few of his books, but it's not like a crowd of wannabes. And the 'other stuff' that we read is all over the place, from H.P. Lovecraft to Thomas Pynchon, to PKD, to Elmore Leonard to Toni Morrison. There's also a big skill level variable and a pretty wide age spectrum.

I've said before that I consider the Workshop better than hanging with Willa Cather's Greenwich Village crew. A lot of major creative talents have been pooled together in isolated places in the past, but the internet changes everything. We don't have to agree on a place or a time, you've got a global writer's colony, each trying to develop their own thing.

Which is another thing, when you're trying to develop your voice, the last thing you want to do is rip off material. A lot of us have ambitions that include getting published, selling books, it's not like you can steal the answers to the final exam on something like that. You've got to grow your own, from the seed. Your peers in the Workshop will be brutally honest with suggestions as to how to prune it and feed it, but you have to do the work.

[QUOTE=Chixulub]Chuck's fans are a more diverse group than you might expect. Obviously, the vast majority of us have enjoyed at least a few of his books, but it's not like a crowd of wannabes. And the 'other stuff' that we read is all over the place, from H.P. Lovecraft to Thomas Pynchon, to PKD, to Elmore Leonard to Toni Morrison. There's also a big skill level variable and a pretty wide age spectrum.

I've said before that I consider the Workshop better than hanging with Willa Cather's Greenwich Village crew. A lot of major creative talents have been pooled together in isolated places in the past, but the internet changes everything. We don't have to agree on a place or a time, you've got a global writer's colony, each trying to develop their own thing.

Which is another thing, when you're trying to develop your voice, the last thing you want to do is rip off material. A lot of us have ambitions that include getting published, selling books, it's not like you can steal the answers to the final exam on something like that. You've got to grow your own, from the seed. Your peers in the Workshop will be brutally honest with suggestions as to how to prune it and feed it, but you have to do the work.[/QUOTE]

ahh. writing though can be driven by your own inspiration or by inspiration from other writers. really, there are many, many things that affect a writer's style, the voice being one. but, i do have a few chuck-like tribute type lines because well, chuck is some of the only stuff i read lately. what you read is bound to affect you when you go to write your own, just like if you play music and like certain bands you're bound to play something similar sometimes.

the ROUGH version of the novel is now completed, and i'm going to start ediitng it soon to make way for the final copy... it's probably going to be a little over 300 pages, i have to calculate it. the first 21 chapters are up on a journal, it IS copyrighted material as of now, and i will send full versions of the story in rough(and final when i finalize it) forms to email if contacted.

[QUOTE=acontaminatedmind]the ROUGH version of the novel is now completed, and i'm going to start ediitng it soon to make way for the final copy... it's probably going to be a little over 300 pages, i have to calculate it. the first 21 chapters are up on a journal, it IS copyrighted material as of now, and i will send full versions of the story in rough(and final when i finalize it) forms to email if contacted.[/QUOTE]
Sorry dude, I may end up eating these words if your shit is just awesome, but you seem more concerned with not getting ripped off than you are about improving your work.

A copyright on my early drafts would be like confederate bonds, the shit has changed that much before I ever found the Workshop(s). And based on the feedback, esp. Parkaboy's, that I've gotten on my first four chapters, my first four chapters aren't even the same fucking chapters.

There's nothing new under the sun, no one can steel your concept, you 'stole' it unknowingly from some 2000+-/year old greek thing at best. But why don't people read the Greeks? Because it's fucking BORING.

[QUOTE=acontaminatedmind]the ROUGH version of the novel is now completed, and i'm going to start ediitng it soon to make way for the final copy... it's probably going to be a little over 300 pages, i have to calculate it. the first 21 chapters are up on a journal, it IS copyrighted material as of now, and i will send full versions of the story in rough(and final when i finalize it) forms to email if contacted.[/QUOTE]
Sorry dude, I may end up eating these words if your shit is just awesome, but you seem more concerned with not getting ripped off than you are about improving your work.

A copyright on my early drafts would be like confederate bonds, the shit has changed that much before I ever found the Workshop(s). And based on the feedback, esp. Parkaboy's, that I've gotten on my first four chapters, my first four chapters aren't even the same fucking chapters.

There's nothing new under the sun, no one can steel your concept, you 'stole' it unknowingly from some 2000+-/year old greek thing at best. But why don't people read the Greeks? Because it's fucking BORING. Your job as an author is to present those same, tired ideas in a format that appeals to a contemporary reader.

You don't even have to be a minimalist like Chuck. Clive Cusller has a hundred million books in print, huge, unweildy monstrosities of language. It ain't chick-lit, so figure that at least 70 million dudes have bothered to at least buy his stuff as 'airplane' reading. The main thing should be, if you want ot write sprawling suspense novels, that you write the best sprawling suspense novels that YOU can write, and to do that you have to be open to constructive criticism.

[QUOTE=Chixulub]Sorry dude, I may end up eating these words if your shit is just awesome, but you seem more concerned with not getting ripped off than you are about improving your work.[/QUOTE]

as of right now, i'm just having people tell me what they think, i'm not even editing yet, so basically the work improving for this piece hasn't started yet(for those of you who say people're always improving). i'm not too worried about getting ripped off honestly, i had the first 21 chapters on a journal and i gave people i don't know the address and let them tell me what they think. if that was sex, i'd prolly have so many STDs i couldn't even name them all. sorry for that one.

if you'd like to read it and see where i'm coming from chix, you can pm me your email or something i can email you a rough copy.

[QUOTE=acontaminatedmind]as of right now, i'm just having people tell me what they think, i'm not even editing yet, so basically the work improving for this piece hasn't started yet(for those of you who say people're always improving). i'm not too worried about getting ripped off honestly, i had the first 21 chapters on a journal and i gave people i don't know the address and let them tell me what they think. if that was sex, i'd prolly have so many STDs i couldn't even name them all. sorry for that one.

if you'd like to read it and see where i'm coming from chix, you can pm me your email or something i can email you a rough copy.[/QUOTE]
It's cool if you're not ready to put the stuff on the Workshops. I've only put one short part of my own novel up because I feel like I haven't finished beating it up myself yet. But I am glad I put what I did up because it's helping me with the third draft, stuff that others saw that I was missing.

Here's a dilemna: What does a Chuck P. do once he's gotten all famous and N.Y. Times Bestsellery? Anyone knowing he's a bestselling author would have to consider borrowing from him. More so with someone like a Stephen King who's made mega-millions. How could he put his stuff on an internet forum to be critiqued? Plus, any feedback he would get would probably be utterly unobjective, either jealous writers trying to sabotage him or awe-struck fans sucking his ass.

No wonder some writers get to recycling their own shit. What choice do they have if they don't have? Yeah, there's the editor, but I don't know if a single editor can really help you hone your craft and improve as much as a group of peers.

[QUOTE=Chixulub]
Here's a dilemna: What does a Chuck P. do once he's gotten all famous and N.Y. Times Bestsellery? Anyone knowing he's a bestselling author would have to consider borrowing from him. More so with someone like a Stephen King who's made mega-millions. How could he put his stuff on an internet forum to be critiqued? Plus, any feedback he would get would probably be utterly unobjective, either jealous writers trying to sabotage him or awe-struck fans sucking his ass.
[/QUOTE]

Chuck still has his writers workshop, but they're his friends and it's a real-live kind of thing. I assume he trusts them with his work.

Plus, even is someone did "borrow" or even outright steal one of Chuck's pieces that was yet to be published, it's not like that individual would get it published before Chuck anyhow. It would be sort of interesting to see if it got rejected, without the man's name.

I bet the person who stole whatever would get all kinds of criticisms back from any editors or agents that actually cared to reply before he got a yes. Just by the law of numbers, that would be funny.

"Sorry, too transgressive for us Mr. X. And the nihilism is just too tough a sell. Good luck in your pursuits."

Of course Chuck has said you can't sell transgressive anymore as well, but I suspect that isn't the case anymore or soon won't be.

Good points, I think what I was getting at is this:

Toni Morrison started out in a writer's group. Now she's a Nobel winner, it narrows the pool of who she can trust with a manuscript.

And Stephen King talks about the rage of people who believe they should be where you are, the stalkers and what-not.

In the case of Morrison, she either has good editors or has learned to smell her own shit, because she's still turning out strong stuff.

Pat Conroy, on the other hand, has had definite peaks and valleys. He's no minimalist, but The Water is Wide, Lords of Discipline, these were good books. Havent' read The Great Santini, so I can't comment on it, but the other stuff I've read of his, Prince of Tides, Beach Music, etc., he's become self-derivative. But who's reading his stuff saying, 'Pat, you wrote that before?'

I guess it varies from person to person. Read an interview with Lethem, and he apparently started a writer's group when he moved back to Brooklyn, but never shows anyone his own stuff. Go figure.

Lethem is probably waiting until technological advances allow him to ressurect Phillip K. Dick, Dashiell Hammet and William S. Burroughs to form his writer's group.

I don't see the point of starting a writer's group and not share unless he's teaching it like, Spandauer did, or Chuck is.

Editors are certainly important, very much so, and after a while you can "smell your own shit" too. Some of it anyway.

I bet all of them bounce things off more than one person, especially non-writers as they have an insight free of all that "training" and nit-picking that can get in the way sometimes.

Like on Triggerstreet? Anyone go there? MAn, those people are seriously hung up on screenplay 101. Robert McKee zombies proliferate there. It's a very specific audience in a strange way.

Having a variety is good, I suppose. The fellow writers, the editors who can be more objective and people you respect who aren't involved in the biz directly who serve as a kind of test-demographic of what your actually audience might be.

Jesus, I certainly hope it isn't all frustrated screenwriters, paranoid novelists and overworked editors trying to get to the next Dan Brown. That would really be depressing....

Oh, wait, that's exactly who reads your manuscript when you send it off in the mail...

I need a drink or ten.

[QUOTE=Parkaboy]Lethem is probably waiting until technological advances allow him to ressurect Phillip K. Dick, Dashiell Hammet and William S. Burroughs to form his writer's group.

I don't see the point of starting a writer's group and not share unless he's teaching it like, Spandauer did, or Chuck is.

Editors are certainly important, very much so, and after a while you can "smell your own shit" too. Some of it anyway.

I bet all of them bounce things off more than one person, especially non-writers as they have an insight free of all that "training" and nit-picking that can get in the way sometimes.

Like on Triggerstreet? Anyone go there? MAn, those people are seriously hung up on screenplay 101. Robert McKee zombies proliferate there. It's a very specific audience in a strange way.

Having a variety is good, I suppose. The fellow writers, the editors who can be more objective and people you respect who aren't involved in the biz directly who serve as a kind of test-demographic of what your actually audience might be.

Jesus, I certainly hope it isn't all frustrated screenwriters, paranoid novelists and overworked editors trying to get to the next Dan Brown. That would really be depressing....

Oh, wait, that's exactly who reads your manuscript when you send it off in the mail...

I need a drink or ten.[/QUOTE]
I'll buy. You like bourbon or single malt?

I gave up on having my wife read my stuff, she knows me too well and is WAY too considerate of my feelings. Also when I have a narrator who's marriage is on the rocks, she wants to know if that's really how I feel.

How I felt one time when I was really pissed off, yeah. Wrong answer, sleep on the couch.

I guess I'll just have a wet dream where I'm commercially viable as a ficiton writer and can't find a good critique group. It's pleasant enough, has conflict, and I get to wake up in my own wetness...

Single malt is good.

Stephen King has his wife read his stuff, he's said she's his most important reader and her opinion changes a lot.

I always thought the scenario you describe to be the more likely.

I try and find people who aren't going to hold back, if I can get them to read it. See, the people who may not be as considerate are probably that way because they are considerate--of themselves--and thus won't actually read anything you give them. I have some friends like that.

But, I have a couple who aren't. It's hard. I really want a professional opinion at this stage. It's too bad access to those voices is difficult.

I hear some will write you back a little advice is they pass but feel whatever has promise, so I guess that's something.

The novel I have in circulation was gone over by "professionals" professaors at my alma matter one who two who have published but neither had the kind of connection to move me forward. Neither had an agent or what not. Though the one will proabaly get one once he writes a longer piece. Still... That's the closest to a thumbs up I've got so far...

Alas.

[QUOTE=Parkaboy]Single malt is good.

Stephen King has his wife read his stuff, he's said she's his most important reader and her opinion changes a lot.

I always thought the scenario you describe to be the more likely.

I try and find people who aren't going to hold back, if I can get them to read it. See, the people who may not be as considerate are probably that way because they are considerate--of themselves--and thus won't actually read anything you give them. I have some friends like that.

But, I have a couple who aren't. It's hard. I really want a professional opinion at this stage. It's too bad access to those voices is difficult.

I hear some will write you back a little advice is they pass but feel whatever has promise, so I guess that's something.

The novel I have in circulation was gone over by "professionals" professaors at my alma matter one who two who have published but neither had the kind of connection to move me forward. Neither had an agent or what not. Though the one will proabaly get one once he writes a longer piece. Still... That's the closest to a thumbs up I've got so far...

Alas.[/QUOTE]
Bartender, a double Sheep Dip for me and Parkaboy, neat, water on the side.

You're actually the next up on my list of guys to critique in the Workshop largely because the review you gave my first four chapters gave me so much cause to reconsider my whole book.

Friends and family are too nice. They can't help it.

But take heart, when Faulkner submitted his fourth novel, which ultimately emerged as Sartoris, he was told it was utterly unpublishable. A lot of its material was later brought in in the Snopes novels and Light in August, but here's the kicker:

After settling wth an editor on a draft of Sartoris, he set down to write a book for his own pleasure, one he was sure would NEVER be published by anyone...

The Sound and the Fury.

[QUOTE=Chixulub]Bartender, a double Sheep Dip for me and Parkaboy, neat, water on the side.

You're actually the next up on my list of guys to critique in the Workshop largely because the review you gave my first four chapters gave me so much cause to reconsider my whole book.

Friends and family are too nice. They can't help it.

But take heart, when Faulkner submitted his fourth novel, which ultimately emerged as Sartoris, he was told it was utterly unpublishable. A lot of its material was later brought in in the Snopes novels and Light in August, but here's the kicker:

After settling wth an editor on a draft of Sartoris, he set down to write a book for his own pleasure, one he was sure would NEVER be published by anyone...

The Sound and the Fury.[/QUOTE]

You might want to read the one in Chuckshop instead of the one in Writer's Workshop, based on your tastes, I think you'd be more into. But, I could be wrong.

I think the Faulkner anecdote is important. Chuck, in that Poop Shoot interview I think, brought up again how FC was written without regard to what was publishable. And that's key, you have to write what you want to write. It has to come from something vaguely central to your being if it's going to hit the reader. Otherwise just churn out another Dean Kootz/Stephen King meets Jackie Collinsy meets Dan Brown at the end of a Mitch Album trip to heaven bestseller darling.

Come to think of it, if one could write a story with all that, that might be a hell of a thing. If it was satire and deconstructed those phenoms.

And all the aforementioned authors got abducted by aliens at the end.

i doubt anyone will want to publish my work, mainly due to the fact it's in a similar style to chuck's, but i don't think i rip him off. the character is very well spoken in the narrative, and there's a lot of use of Big Voice, which might be a bad thing, but it has said to flow pretty well so far form the people who've read it, so we'll see.

i'm somewhat worried about getting it published, but not going to let it hinder my writing or decide exactly what i write about. i'm already starting my second book, without the first one published or really even close to published. my stories aren't mainly driven by sex though, the opinions presented are really controversial though to many people...

ultimately, i'm writing because it's fun. but, i just hope others enjoy reading it as well, including the publishers.

also, i have no idea what publishers i would be sending my books too. most the ones i've seen really love historical fiction, children books...

You should post your first three chapters in the Writer's Workshop if you haven't already done so. I don't remember seeing your screename , but I'm mostly in Chuckshop. Trying to make it over to the other one now. If it sounds too Chuck, you'll be made aware.

As for publishers, well, I suggest trying to get an agent more than a publisher. An agent will get you submitted to bigger publishers and can negotiate for more money than you yourself will be able to.

You want to look at The Novel and Short Story Writer's Market 2004 and Jeff Herman's Guide to Agents and Editors.

These two books will give you specifics on agents, publishers and other markets. You want to try and find an agent who will look at the sort of thing you write. You say you write like Chuck, so, according to the premise, you'd query Edward Hibbard, Chuck's agent. But he isn't looking for any more Chuck's, I know, I talked to another one of his clients.

So you check for authors with a vaguely similar bent and find their agents, or just go through the books and mark ones that seem promising.

That's what I did, now I'm waiting to hear back and writing new stuff.

You might want to get a book that covers the marketing process of peddling your efforts as well.

The Novel Writer's Tool-Kit is alright and recommended by Chucky P.

The mArshall Guide to getting your book published is the one I use most frequently as he is an agent and really just gives you the need-to-know facts.

Good luck with that whole contaminated mind deal.

..and the book.

[QUOTE=Parkaboy]Good luck with that whole contaminated mind deal.

..and the book.[/QUOTE]

haha. thanks a lot, for the advice as well. i have yet to really go into hardcore agent/publisher searching, but i also need to save a lot of money for it as well, seeing how i have next to nothing.

i just submitted the first 3 chapters of the book to be okayed by an admin to be posted. if anyone could check 'em out, would be very awesome i'm thinking i might post some other chapters that aren't in chronological order to get the more humorous parts out there to get more interested as well.

[QUOTE=Chixulub]I gave up on having my wife read my stuff, she knows me too well and is WAY too considerate of my feelings. [b]Also when I have a narrator who's marriage is on the rocks, she wants to know if that's really how I feel.

How I felt one time when I was really pissed off, yeah. Wrong answer, sleep on the couch. [/b][/QUOTE]
I never show writing (-in-progress, at least) to anyone I'm in a relationship with. For the same reason. It's destroyed too many relationships.

[QUOTE=Tuffy the Dump Truck]I never show writing (-in-progress, at least) to anyone I'm in a relationship with. For the same reason. It's destroyed too many relationships.[/QUOTE]
I have a couple friends who are cops, and a character who's a cop. I have a friend who's a firefighter, and a character who's a firefighter. I'm sure, if I ever get published, they'll be looking for themselves in the story, but really, I just wanted a cop and a firefighter to be two of the three bank robbers/arsonists because of how sainted those professions are. Especially in a post-9/11 world, but even before, people just lube up their hands to stroke the cock and balls of anyone in that line of work.

But the best arsonists are firefighters, and the best crooks are cops. Not to say the inverse applies, it's just that an intimate knowledge of the system is a building block to successfully breaking the rules.

My third guy is an artist, another category that gets over-idealized. In fact, of the three professions, I'll take the cops and firefighters over the artists, though if someone was going to squeeze me into one of the three, I'm the artist...

The English historian Paul Johnson talks about 19th Century intellectuals who wished for a government of artists, and got it. The Third Reich. Hitler was a painter, and everyone in his immediate circle of power was a poet, writer, painter, playwrite, etc.

Because while my novel has many themes, the underlying overall idea, the central conceit, is the thin veneer of self-enforcement of the rules that is required for civilization to function. Having two friends who are cops and many others who are gun nuts, I've been in many rooms with people who are armed to the teeth, but never nervous. But what's to stop someone from getting irritated with me, finding me inconvenient and performing a 9mm retroactive abortion on my ass?

Yeah, there's the body, but c'mon, take away the generally rule-abiding nature of people and we're all in Bubble Creek waiting for the meat packers to harvest the sludge and turn it into lard.