day 3 - pitch fest turns to bitch fest

This pitch fest is like trying to make the cheerleader squad.

When the group leader was giving feedback from the morning pitch she said nice things to everyone about what the editor said.

I was sitting in a corner sending my earlier blog post. A woman I've been talking to was like "what did she say about Franki?" and the group leader was like "Oh, um, Franki, if you want to know what she said I can tell you later."

I was so pissed, like why don't you just tell me now? I don't really give a fuck if she hated my book. She doesn't even publish my genre.

Then an unexpected shit storm started  because some of us have been pitching to editors that have nothing to do with our genres. And the conference guy told a woman with a story about a lawyer that she had been asked to write by the lawyer "there isn't an editor here that would be interested in your story so there's no point in you doing any more pitches".



In the afternoon I pitched to an editor who was
1. sick
2. 8 hours into her day of listening to book pitches (I was the 30th person to pitch her)
3. not someone who works in my genre (she does women's literary fiction, i.e. eat pray love and every other book like that which I will never read)

I was so over this conference that I rewrote my pitch, didn't bother to read it over before I printed it, and didn't bother to practice it before I met with her.

Surprisingly, she seemed interested. But, I chalked that up to the pictures on my pitch. Also, at one point she was looking at me and smiling, and I didn't know what to do, so I said "I guess I'll leave now" (normally they say "thanks!" when they want you to leave). Ech. She was the only editor that shook my hand.

Later, I was at a conference happy hour, and my group leader came up and said "how do you think that went?" and I was like "I have no idea." She was like "do you think she was interested in your book?" and I said "no, I think she just was curious about the shark picture because she was bored (I have a pic I took of a great white on my pitch sheet) and so she was like 'tell me about the shark and then get the fuck out of my face'." (explaining my rather awkward exit).

Then the group leader was like "Oh. Because I think she was interested. You'll find out next week."

I'm probably jinxing myself even writing that on my blog.


Every one was like "stay out and party with us!" But I had a client issue and had to go back to the hotel to take care of it because the fuck wit install engineer who was supposed to get my software installed for my Monday engagement decided instead to not do his fucking job.

Ech.

I should write a fiction book about desperate women trying to get their books published.

really? is this a sick joke?

So I got here this morning at 9 am to practice my pitch. The group leader reviewed it and suggested I change it back to the version I had yesterday with a few word changes. Ech. So I ran back to my hotel and rewrote my pitch and had to kick a middle eastern guy off the hotel computer so I could print it. I got back to the morning pitch fest with 2 minutes to spare.

The editor I pitched to has done 4 books in 10 years. She does nothing with my genre. The only things she said to me are "I'm afraid of sharks" and "I hate swimming".

I ran back to the hotel after my pitch and rewrote my pitch  again.

What the fuck am I doing?

day 3 - coming out of my corner swinging

I only got 4 hours of sleep last night but I managed to finish another rewrite of my pitch. I did some research on the pitches that won last year and revised mine accordingly. It's not what the book is about, but they can find that out when they read it.

now I know why I don't read much fiction - day 2

So today everyone pitched their stories to an editor. I knew I was screwed when, after the first woman did her pitch, the editor said "Oh, I like anything with the word daughter in it!" and then started talking about her daughter. The book was about a Canadian family who decide to spend a year driving around in an RV car schooling their 7 year old.

A woman in my group, who is a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, pitched her book which is about a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills who agrees to star in a reality TV show because she has so much school debt. I think it's a great pitch. The editor said "that's a little too edgy for me."

Um, what? Nip/Tuck and Dr. Beverly Hills 90210 are two of the most popular shows ever (okay, I know that because the doctor told me that, but I looked it up and it's true). Her book shows the inside story on what happens with plastic surgery. And this was not of interest to an editor that does women's fiction?

I don't know why I even bothered to pitch her because she doesn't do my genre. She said I should focus more on myself than what I did for adventures. Then the group tore my pitch apart. They were like "what is your book about?" I was like "what the pitch said, not letting an injury prevent me from being an athlete" and they were like "but we don't get that from your pitch". Ech.

And then one of the women said "you say your book is funny but you are just trying to mask your pain." No. I laugh about my situation because there's nothing I can do about it. So then she said "why don't you just take drugs?"

Then one of the other women said "Her book is about having a void in her life." I guess she found it unbelievable that I might enjoy ice climbing.


The person I feel the worst for is a woman who's a lawyer that wrote a story about defending her brother against a controversial law in Kentucky that says teachers can't have sex with anyone under 17 (the legal age for consensual sex for everyone but teachers is 16). Her brother, who is a teacher, had sex with a 17 year old who wasn't his student (that's how he ended up getting off from the charges). It's obviously a very emotional topic (the point of the book is that she became close to her estranged brother defending him even though she thought what he did was wrong). A bunch of the women in the group were like "I just find it hard to believe you would defend him even though he is your brother. It's seems like you need more motivation than that."

I got invited out for a drink but instead I'm going to work on my pitch again. I'm just so annoyed and frustrated right now.

And, I wasn't a finalist in that kid's book contest. However, The Adventures of Poo Boy was, as well as The Kissy Momster.

What the fuck...

pitchfest - day 1 - I'm depressed

So I did my first day of the pitchfest. 

Today was kind of depressing. We are in groups according to genres, and my "genre" is women's fiction and memoir. So, picture me in a room full of 14 women. They've already given me a nickname: the human crash test dummy. BTW, none of the other women were given nicknames.

Everyone has a really strong pitch. I think they didn't know what to do with mine. There was a stunned silence when I finished reading it and then the woman running the group said "Well. That wasn't what I was expecting." I tried to explain the difference between coordination and athleticism. They didn't seem to get it. They kept saying "If you were a competitive runner why would ice climbing be so hard for you?" Ech.

And I revised my pitch. AGAIN.

It's pretty high school the way things go down. Pitches start tomorrow. Every day we pitch to an agent or an editor. 

You go in to a room with just the agent or editor and the person running your group, make your pitch, and then the agent or editor decides which books they want to take a look at. Then we're all called back into the room and the group leader announces whose books made the cut. And the group leader keeps counseling us not to cry during our pitches and not to cry afterward if our book is rejected because "it's all subjective".

Okay, it's not like high school. It's like kindergarten. I'm fucking over 40. I don't need someone to tell me not to cry during a business meeting.

 Fuck. I should have come here with my kid book.

And it's humid so my hair looks insane. I don't know if that's a plus or minus. Also, we were apparently supposed to dress in business attire. Oops. I guess I didn't read that memo. An agent can't seriously expect me to wear a suit. What's the point of being a writer if I have to be professional? I might as well stay a consultant.

from snake-tacular to muons

Since I have to spend the weekend in Rhode Island next weekend I was trying to convince a friend of mine, who is a double amputee, to go to the aquarium with me to check out some sea dragons and so I could stand in front of the snake cages and work on my snake phobia.

Unfortunately he's out of town, but he mentioned he is also afraid of snakes and didn't want to hang out around snake cages.

So I made the following suggestion:

You should put something in your legs that would electrocute snakes if they try to bite you. And maybe the electric current could also cook the snake and then you and your friends could eat it.

Or, maybe more humane, play annoying music that only snakes can hear so they won't come near you. Like Van Halen's 1984 album. All the snakes would be like "let's get out of here before Jump comes on!"

He didn't think it was a great idea (as in "too stupid to even respond to"). And, after doing some research, it turns out he was right:

I've been doing research over the course of the day (lots of boring call in meetings, no one can see what I'm doing).

Apparently certain noises agitate snakes and make them more likely to strike. Van Halen would probably agitate them. So don't listen to my suggestion in the last email.

BTW, I found an awesome snake trap. On the lid it says "WARNING! Live Snake May Be Inside!"

I also found some snake repellent. It's made out of mongoose urine. Gross.

Did you know snakes don't like to slither over sisal rope? Apparently it hurts their underbelly.

And then I followed the wikipedia links to other pages and eventually ended up on a page about muons. If I were a muon I would wear a shirt all the time that said "electrons, I will crush you".

Because, muons are like 200 times bigger than electrons.


And I sent a fan letter to this guy who runs my new favorite (okay, I didn't have an old favorite) snake web site. You can see a snake pooping. Their poop is really gross because they pee out the same hole and they don't have, according to the web site, enough plant fiber in their diet. 

There's also, I just want to mention, a glue trap for snakes. The glue breaks down over time so the snake could get away, in theory. But it usually starves to death first. But, then you can pull it out of the glue trap and throw it away as opposed to having to throw the glue trap away while the snake is still attached.


The web site dude hasn't responded back yet. That's okay. He's probably catching snakes. Which is a good thing.
 

escape to new york

Well, I'm in the city and in my hotel room, which is a lot bigger than I expected it to be. It's almost a regular sized room.

It wasn't easy getting here. My flight was delayed an hour because there was fog in NYC and they wouldn't allow planes to land. Then the traffic controllers got all mixed up. First they told us we were clear to take off so everyone got on the plane. Then while we were taxiing down the runway (boy, that's a weird word, taxiing, I like it) they said we weren't cleared to take off. So we sat on the run way for about 40 minutes. The baby behind me was crying. I hate that.

I guess it was a good thing we were delayed because a shit show storm was brewing for my engagement next week, all because the install engineer doesn't do his fucking job. This is the third engagement I've done with him where he failed to get the software installed and operational before I showed up. Oh, and the engagement manager forgot to order the training material for a class I'm giving Monday.

I'm glad I get to do everyone else's job, and my own.

Oh, and a blog posting I put up yesterday on my work blog went viral. Kind of cool.

Well, into the void tomorrow. I wonder if I'm going to have to pitch to an agent tomorrow or if we're just working with editors...it would be cool if something finally happens for my book but I'm trying to not get my hopes up.

new york, new york

So tomorrow I leave for the pitch conference to see if I can get an agent for my book. The fun starts Thursday at 9 am and goes to Sunday 4 pm. Though, I'll be leaving at 2 PM to take a train to my customer engagement next week.

I keep rewriting my first five pages. I need to stop doing that.

I read a really depressing statistic. Most agents get 10,000 queries a year. They usually pick 2 to publish. That's even worse odds than when I applied to Johns Hopkins. Ech.

perhaps I've taken fake smoking too far

So, I'm taking my anti-smoking medication so I can stop smoking my fake cigarettes. Is that weird? My dad thinks it is.

Also, I just found out on wikipedia today that nicotine ISN'T bad for you. Me, I mean.

So I spent an hour filling all my zero nicotine cartridges for my fake cigarette with nicotine liquid so they'll have nicotine in them.

my hair is my glory and, is that santa claus?

So, without going into too much detail about it, I got a jacked up hair cut about 5 weeks ago. That was bad, but what was worse is that my hairdresser also straightened my hair WITHOUT ASKING ME.

ANNOYING!

Because I LIKE being called Medusa (with blond hair instead of snakes, because you know I don't like snakes). I ended up getting this amazing hair mask and my hair is slowly getting back to normal.

So last night I was having a drink with my friend Jessie. She has really long black hair and it's curly like mine. She was commiserating with me about my still a little jacked up hair. She's small but she gets loud after a few drinks. Anyway, a black woman in the bar (it's a bar where homeless people hang out some times, but I wanted to go there because it's right down my street) came up to me and said "Your hair is your glory! Grow your glory!"

I didn't know what to do so I said "Okay, um, I won't get it cut for a long time."

But the woman wouldn't stop going on about my hair. And then a guy walked in with this weird pointy beard. He was super short and looked like one of those guys that starts a cult and then kills all the members.

So we decided to go to another local bar (it's so local they check your ID to make sure you're from the hood before they serve you a drink). Jessie wondered, loudly, why people on crack like me so much (I'm often approached on the street by homeless crack heads - they don't ask me for money - they just want to talk to me). People started sneak looking at me. Then I told her a story and she started laughing so hard everyone in the bar turned around to look at her and this time she noticed a white haired guy sitting at the end of the bar.

She was like "Oh my god! Is that santa claus?"

At which point I decided it was time to walk her home. While we were waiting at a stop light I checked my crackberry and saw I had a text from my brother so I said "Oh, I got a text from Bob." And Jessie said "That's your brother's name? That's what I named my vibrator!"

She laughed about that the whole walk home.

I'm not so sure about this "socializing" stuff.

why researchers need to hire a stand up comedian

I just read an article on NPR about how researchers managed to send a message through 787 feet of stone using a beam of neutrinos.

A quote from another article said:

For the first time, scientists have used neutrinos — the exotic fundamental particles that routinely pass right through Earth — to send a message through the ground.

Guess what message they sent? Remembering that neutrinos are exotic and that this was a ground breaking experiment with potential to change, if nothing else, the way we communicate (at&t will have to kiss all those gov dollars for maintaining phone lines bye bye for starters). And that, if CERN figures out whether or not a neutrino did travel faster than the speed of light that we could send messages back in time. And that this wasn't an overnight experiment, surely it was years in the making and all the scientists had to be thinking about what message to send...

They sent one word: neutrino.

Um, what? Are you fucking KIDDING???????????

Why not "Rosebud was his sled", "first neutrino spam message", "my neutrino went through the center of the earth and all I got was this lousy t-shirt", "neutrinos are particles too", "I've been shot!", "neutrinos do it faster"...

And those are just stupid things that I thought up in one minute.

It's a happy day for science, and a sad day for creativity

Reminds me of my dream where I was allowed to look through a telescope to see the secrets of the universe...

the gift that keeps on giving me shit

I should have known not to get too excited about my new laptop.

I turned it on yesterday late afternoon so I could start migrating stuff off this old dying dog.

BUT -

My name is spelled wrong on my account so I wasn't able to connect to the network; also, it took me a while to figure out where the spelling error was (they replaced the "a" in my last name with a "u" - interesting).

They sent me the wrong passwords for both my Admin and user accounts. Luckily I was able to guess them both.

They sent the laptop loaded with nothing but windows 7 and some other crap. Seriously? Like, they couldn't take the FIVE FUCKING SECONDS to load MS Office so instead I wasted 5 hours downloading it off a server that's probably in fucking India.

The instructions for the set up were completely wrong. Like wrong at step 2. How fucking incompetent do you have to be that in a 4 page 20 step document EVERYTHING is wrong after step 1 (which was "log on"). I just started winging it (I know, for YOU set up of a laptop is not hard - but I am in an INSANE corporate environment and have to do shit like encrypt my hard drive, add passwords to disks, link up to a security site that checks my laptop once a week for sensitive information compliance and I had to also figure out what fucking server my mail is on - WHO KNOWS THAT??????).

I probably would not be so pissed if I hadn't been up in the Boulder office where they load up the laptops and seen most of the staff there talking or playing solitaire. I think one guy was working on a laptop. No, better to have me waste my time doing this shit than someone who IS GETTING PAID TO BE IT SUPPORT.

Don't worry. I have a job interview on Friday.

the squeaky wheel gets the biggest laptop ever

My new laptop arrived. It's a lot bigger than my old one and weighs as much as I do.

It fucking better be faster and more stable.

Can't wait to lug that power supply around. I thought batteries were getting smaller.

We are a high tech company.

the wifesitter

My writing buddy Kevin just made a trailer for a tv show called The Wifesitter. Check it out. He plays the husband.

a strange underwear drawer of their own

Generally, it's hard to be friends with mathematicians. Sure they occasionally provide some useful information. But for the most part, they're smart asses. Like this mathematician I know that I was trying to get to help me think of a practical use for the Goldbach Conjecture should it ever be proved (I like to stress myself out by thinking about problems that can't be solved but that don't involve Pakistan):

I wrote:

I've been taking tests for an hour to see if I pick the golden rectangle out of a series of rectangles and I can't do it. Like, 90% of the population can do it. I'm so depressed.

I've been reading a book about chaos and numbers. Discovered a neat card trick, which is how to suspend a card completely off of a table using only four cards and no glue. And have been caught up in wondering about a practical use for the Goldbach Conjecture.

And, ha ha:

There are three types of people: those who count precisely and those who don't.

I'm bored. When are you getting home?

He wrote:

I'm home. I’m remembering that one time during the week I had an insight about chaos theory, but I’m too rushed right now to articulate it. Remind me later.

The original interest in Goldbach’s Conjecture was to use it as a gravel screen in the search for prime numbers I would assume. But that has probably gone by the boards these days, with modern machine searching algorithms.

I wrote (to be a smart ass):

It's this:

Every even integer greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two primes

So the multiplication of 2 primes can be used to encrypt data because it's so hard to figure out what the two original primes were, I was thinking about, if Goldbach's conjecture could be proven to be true is there a practical application.

He wrote:

I know/knew what Goldbach’s conjecture is, and was merely speculating on its usefulness myself. But think of your encryption proposal this way – it will only be useful if the GC remains unproven, just because any proof of the GC is liable to include a calculation engine that will determine the primes involved that sum to a particular value. In other words, you would only have a trustworthy, computable code if the GC were proven. But, if the GC were proven, then its proof could be applied in the deciphering of your encryption. Zero sum game.

Best place to hide stuff is still across the borders of adjacent second order mathematical languages – i.e. book codes and the like, that are generated anew for each message and user.

Though, your underwear drawer can work pretty good, too. No one ever stole my credit card numbers from there.

And since he said "your underwear drawer" (people are normally good at math or english, and, he's a mathematician) I wrote:

Why are you hiding your credit card numbers in my underwear drawer?

You're right. No one looks in there.

It should be noted I don't have an underwear drawer.

He wrote (because he can't admit he's made even an english mistake):

Think of your underwear drawer as my personal version of cloud computing, except that your underwear drawer won’t be subject to repetitive hacking attempts.

Okay. Denial of service attacks, maybe.

Anyway. Everyone should have one. You know... they could arrange a strange underwear drawer of their own.

 Um, what?????

Though, I did laugh about the cloud comment. Reminded me of the obnoxious consultant sitting in his own personal cloud.

it turns out, I'm not a dinosaur

I just took a quiz on fake science to find out what kind of dinosaur I am.

Be...normal?

more on mittens

I was just reading an article about Khodorkovsky, the Russian billionaire wrongly jailed by Putin. While he was awaiting trial he was forced to work in the prison colony's mitten factory.


Interesting tie in with my cringle crisp story since, for punishment, the croco-diamond and the kangawrong have to knit mittens as punishment for trying to steal the ton-o-tap full of cringle crisps. And to think someone told me that was a "ridiculous" punishment.

rooting my xoom

My brother Steve sends me links to stuff all the time, probably in the hopes that someday I won't be such a fucking idiot. But half the time I don't understand what he's sending me.

For example, on Wednesday he sent me an email titled: root your xoom. I didn't open it for a few days because I thought his email might have gotten hacked. Then curiosity got the best of me and I opened it. It said:

http://cornea.site40.net/

 

I had to re-root my xoom, this program is much easier than the way I did it the first time.

I was like, um, what? So I sent him an email back:

Not to be totally stupid, but what does rooting do?

I didn't mention I had no idea what a xoom was.

It turns out xoom is the new tablet I just bought. For those of you with tablets that are curious, here's what, according to Steve, rooting your xoom will do (besides invalidating your warranty):

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Root-Your-Android-Phone,review-1688.html

I rooted my xoom so I can back it up and so I can make the external sdcard read/write. But at the end of the day I bought the device, it is mine, I should have control over it, not the other way around.

I need to write up an article on the must have droid apps for new users, but here is a short list for you (root or not):
- es file explorer (manage your files, connect to remote, I use every day)
- airdroid (manage your device and file with easy transfer from your computer, excellent app)
- mx player (plays most videos)
- dolphin hd (best web browser, add-ons capable)
- mobo player (plays most videos)
- hacker's keyboard with english (keyboard replacement, I alternate with smart keyboard but smart is $)
- Amazon app store (new free app every day)
- Skype (xooms are awesome skype devices)

 As if I would ever skype anyone. I hate the idea of my computer listening in on my conversations.

And now I'm going to go around asking people if they've rooted their xooms so I can feel intellectually superior.

 

shop rock

I was in safeway today buying garlic powder (I just learned how to make a kick ass Greek salad dressing - I will never buy pre-made dressing again - why does store bought salad dressing taste so bad?) and, as I was trying to figure out which aisle might have garlic powder, I noticed that van halen's hot for teacher was playing.

Way, way back in the day I remember that song being banned from my elementary school because van halen was considered at the time to be obscene. Ha. And now they're playing at the grocery store?

I'm also not a fan of listening to top 40 music when I'm in a hotel lobby. Every hotel I've stayed in the past year has had some kind of top forty music playing in the lobby.

I miss the good old days when they played classical music. Or even jazz. I'm not sad that they aren't playing muzak anymore. I just don't want to listen to van halen while I'm trying to decide which grapes to buy. I don't like talking over the fray when I'm trying to check into my hotel.

when not fighting dark forces I fight myself

My friend Arthur sent me this email:

Franki,

This made me think of you.  Remember the time when you went from blond to black and did not recognize yourself in the mirror …

 

 

All because one night in Las Cruces, NM, we were getting drunk at a bar called the double eagle. I was drinking top shelf margaritas. I think it was my going away party.

 

Anyway, I had just dyed my hair black and in the course of getting drunk forgot. At some point in the evening I had to walk across a dance floor to get to the ladies. One wall of the dance floor was a mirror. I saw the reflection of the hallway to the bathroom in the mirror and tried to walk down it. When I bumped into the mirror I looked up and thought I had bumped into this bitch with black hair.

 

I said "You go that way and I'll go this way."

 

Bitch bumped into me again. I said "Stop bumping into me" and tried to walk down the hallway. 

 

Finally I started screaming and threatening to hit her. The bouncer came over and pointed out I was walking into a mirror.

 

Tres embarrassing.

 

Same night, I got up on the table and gave a speech about something.

 

Next day at work I was massively hung over and Arthur tried to get me to eat a piece of key lime pie.

 

Ick.

 

I still love key lime pie but haven't had a margarita since.