You've heard of Scientology, but now there's GTA-ology.

A book which, according to author Ty Liquido, explores ways to turn your life into a GTA-styled, MISSION GALORE adventure.

On the GTA-ology website, Ty says:

"'What if life can be as fun as GTA?' The question is answered when I allow my life to be filled with what I call 'GTA vision'.... All that's happening around me is GTA-associated. It's literally a 'live game' and I've been injected with a massive dose of fun in everything I do since then!

"I began treating life as a series of missions... not unlike all the GTA missions I indulge in playing."

"Things that needed to be done everyday became missions. Problems that surface in the process became challenging mini-games. I invite you to explore this type of world for yourself, especially if you've played the game many times already."

"See for yourself if putting 'GTA vision' over your eyes helps you in your daily activities. Observe if your life gets blasted with more energetic colors."

All very reasonable, I'm sure.

But Ty, buddy, while I applaud your enthusiasm and entrepreneurial vision, I think you need to be careful here.

Has Rockstar given you permission to use that logo on your book cover (you know, the one you've copied from the Grand Theft Auto box)? I'll go out on a limb here and presume that they haven't. Which means your publisher might be setting itself up for a whole world of trouble.

Most of the guys at Rockstar are pretty cool (they were cool enough to let me put my "squeaky-car-suspension-down-an-alley-with-a-hooker" sequence into GTA 3, which a few folk liked and several more didn't), but I don't honestly see how they can sanction this book. I'm no lawyer, but what would happen if your book encouraged someone to, oh... I don't know... crash a car into a bank or something in an attempt to "turn [their] life into a GTA-styled, MISSION GALORE adventure"?

Who would be liable? Booksurge, the print-on-demand publisher currently facing an 11 million dollar lawsuit?

Or would Rockstar foot the bill? Isn't it their registered trademark on the cover of your book?

It's interesting to note that another POD publisher was successfully sued recently. Authorhouse has been forced to pay $230,000 in actual damages to a bestselling romance novelist after publishing a book full of libellous nonsense penned by her ex-husband and his new wife. The book sold 3 copies.

If Rockstar are behind Booksurge on this one, mate, then I'm sure you'll be fine. Rockstar have deep pockets.

But if not... Booksurge must have vetted your manuscript before they agreed to publish it, right? I'm sure they wouldn't want another lawsuit from a disgruntled author.

The New York Literary Agency

"Yesterday upon the stair
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
I wish that man would go away."

Hughes Mearns (1895-1965)

The strange case of the literary agent who might -- or might not -- actually be there.

One group which has been the subject of much controversy is The New York Literary Agency. Some people claim the NYLA are not interested in selling the books of those writers they represent. This agency allegedly makes money by referring writers to a sister company who charge for critiques, editing, and whatever else they can think of.

Yet the NYLA website insists:

"We DO NOT charge fees."
"We mainly look for COMMERCIAL VIABILITY"

There's a FAQ on the website which states:

Q) How does the process work?
A) First, please read our submission guidelines and fill out our query form. After that is received and reviewed positively we will request that you email us some portion of your work.

They ask would-be clients to submit the title of their novel, a brief synopsis, the author's bio, and a bunch of other stuff. They will, they claim, review each query before asking to see more.

So they're selective, right?

To see just how selective they are, I gave myself a pseudonym and contrived a query for Sherry Fine, the V.P. of Acquisitions, to review. Using their online form, I submitted this:

The Title of Your Work: Deadly Sparking Diamonds

Synopsis: Deadly Sparlking Diamonds is a work of fiction concerning housewife Sue Neems who is actully a secret agent in G.A.S.H! (God's American Soldiers of Hope!) She has advenutres with her dog Nibble, dodging a wicked gypsy called Doctor Smiley who wants her DEAD! Except she beats Doctor Smiley in the end and her and Nibble ends up saving these orphan kids from a burning factry. At the very end they go on a criuse.

Your Bio: Vicky Neems was born in Staines. She is happly married to her husband Dennis and they have seven children and twelve grandchildren. She has been writting since an early age and has completed many poems although this is her first novel. She lives in Staines.

To be fair, I didn't hold out much hope of obtaining a positive review. How could Ms Fine express interest in an author who had incorrectly spelled the title of her own book, twice, who had named the protagonist after herself, and who was probably illiterate? However, a few days later the following email arrived:

Thank you for your query to the New York Literary Agency. Based on your query form information we would like to see more.

Okay. Ms Fine, who claims to review each submission, apparently thought Deadly Sparking Diamonds had potential. But then again, maybe I was being too harsh. Perhaps there's a demand for the "advenutres" of secret-agent housewives. Manuscripts can be edited, after all.

So what would the NYLA refuse? Illiteracy didn't seem to bother them much. How about something potentially libellous? I tried again.

The Title of Your Work: The Orlandinator

Synopsis: A comedy / thriller / action novel with a superb twist. Orlando Bloom plays a crazed cyborg from the future who is sent back in time to kill the real Orlando Bloom just as he starts work on Pirates of the Caribbean. Mayhem ensues! I think New Line Cinema will be very interested in this, but I'd like to put it out as a book first.

Your Bio: For a start, I'm a huge Orlando Bloom fan! But seriously, I've been writing "Bloom" short stories seriously for about two years. I've not had a huge amount of success with my "Bloom Fiction", or my longer tales, the "Bloomellas", but the fan base is certainly there. Millions of fans across the world are waiting for this stuff and can't find it in bookshops. It's an untapped market! This is my first "Blook", as I like to call it, but I'm hoping to write more.

I really thought I'd gone too far with this one. It appears to be to be a weird hybrid of a book and a movie. I don't care how well written this "blook" is, no publisher, from sea to shining sea, would touch it (well, perhaps there's one, but that's another story). About two days later, an email arrived.

Thank you for your query to the New York Literary Agency. Based on your query form information we would like to see more.

Yep. The NYLA thinks they might be able to sell The Orlandinator. Good news, but not for Orlando. At this point a thought struck me.

Was anyone actually reading these queries?

What if... No, the idea was ridiculous. And yet, I couldn't think of another explanation for what had happened. What if the NYLA's query review process was automated? Did every writer who submitted a synopsis get the same positive feedback? Was there no selection process at all?

Was Ms Fine actually there?

It seemed important to find out.

For my final submission, I enlisted the help of a good friend. Tess is a newcomer to writing fiction, so I helped her with the title, but the synopsis and biography are all her own work. For these she came up with:

Synopsis: zduhfayd7yflm
,lmkjhkhn
u8uekjiudeakulswdeaqluiko
kd,l.kjd

Bio:dckksdilreiisjf
c,,cnmddpw3k,d
ldmdm ddmk,jcl. dlmdlmdl,s;s
ssksjm

Sadly, there's nowhere on the NYLA site to upload an author's picture, so I'll post it here instead.







The agency automaton got back to us with the speed and professionalism I'd come to expect.

Thank you for your query to the New York Literary Agency. Based on your query form information we would like to see more.

Tess is, of course, delighted. She'll be starting her first novel as soon as she gets back from walkies.

Arooga

Some exciting news (exciting for me, anyhoo).

BCA have ordered 1,500 of Scar Night to sell in their SF & Fantasy club this summer. My novel has been chosen to be one of the Cosmic Five debut titles for the year.

Groovy. News like this really brightens up a dull wet Scottish day.

BCA also plan to feature a chapter on their website.

Highlights from the BaoTian BT125T-9 User Manual.

Attention!

"The Running-in make the surface of parks polished mutually that accomplish gear joggle smoothly. A new motorcycle move stably over a staid and bovine running-in."



Safety tips:

"wear staring clothes."

"not be closed to other antomotor and be sure of that every other driver see you."

"Avoid driving on the scraggy road."



Some warnings to think about:













(Presumably this also applies for any type of fluid which you were thinking of shooting at the luggage box.)



And always remember:

Cheers

My sincere thanks and appreciation to Hal Duncan, Sarah Ash, and Sharon Shinn, three authors who have been kind enough to read Scar Night and to give me some great advance blurbs. Their comments are up on the Random House site, which can be reached via a link in the sidebar.

How to get your book published?

Waiting for your first book to come out is a surreal experience. At the Tor party during Eastercon last month, I felt pleased, and more than a little awkward, to be asked by various people to sign the samplers which were in circulation. I was also vaguely alarmed so see complete strangers picking up copies and actually reading them. How weird is that?

I should talk about the process involved in getting a book published, at least from my perspective. If anyone reading this has a similar ambition, then I hope this will be of some use to you.

Ok, so how do you get your book into print? I don't know of any magic formula except following one.

1: Write the book.

Obvious, right? Apparently not. I've heard more than one person say, 'I have a great idea for a book. I'm going to start looking for an agent.' Such an approach might work if you're writing non-fiction or you've just won Big Brother, but the rest of us need a completed manuscript.

Publishers and agents are inundated with manuscripts, and I've heard from more than one source that the majority of these are truly awful. This is a shame, because I believe that anyone can become a competent writer if they work hard enough at it. But perhaps it's also a good thing. It means that the manuscript you've spent all that time rewriting and polishing will stand out.

2: Edit your book.

To improve your craft it's often said that you need to read a lot and write a lot, but a couple of books which might help along the way are: The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White, and Stein on Writing by Sol Stein.

Some people find writers' groups useful, although this depends on the group. You don't want to be part of a circle who will meet once a month just to stroke each other's egos. Well maybe you do, but it's not going to help you become a better writer. I'm lucky enough to belong to a group who focus on writing for publication. Most of the members have been published several times. One of them has won a major literary award. If I write something that stinks, I can be sure that the other members will tell me.

So... you've finished your novel and listened to feedback from people who know what they're talking about and actually want to help you get this book out into the real world; you've gone away and hacked out all that passive prose, plucked out all those adverbs (or as many as you can bear), given your characters some motivation and, erm, character, then polished each sentence until it shines. Now you need an agent.

3: Find an agent.

There's a myth going around that agents (and publishers) will not look at manuscripts from unpublished writers. The word to describe this statement begins with B and ends in ollocks. If agents and publishers refused to look at unpublished writers, then every shelf in every bookshop would be empty. Even Stephen King once fretted over a pile of rejection slips (I recommend his book On Writing for an inspirational story and some good solid advice for aspiring novelists).

If your agent asks for money up front, run away. If she refers you to an 'independent' company who attempt to charge you for editing and/or a critique, then run away. A real, honest, agent makes money after he's sold your book.

You can find a list of literary agents in the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook. A good agent will make all the difference. He will get your book into the hands of editors ahead of all those submissions waiting in the slush piles. He will negotiate the best contract for you. And if he asks you to tweak your manuscript before he submits it to publishers, listen to him; he's a very clever fellow who knows what he's talking about.

If you try those agents who accept your genre, and nobody bites, then at least you'll have an idea why they think your book won't sell. It could be that your story is not right for the current market (you've written a thriller in which carrier pigeons laden with Semtex are heading for the nation's capital; sadly, some terrorists used this same tactic last week), or it could be that you need to go back and work on your writing some more (you inadvertently forgot to put in a plot, or perhaps a second person narrative wasn't the best choice for your tale about a schoolboy and his magic owl).

4: Your book sells.

You've been waiting for a couple of weeks, keeping your fingers crossed, hardly able to concentrate on anything, then you get the call from your agent.

Several years ago, a friend and I bought a couple of motorcycles in Goa, India, and drove them to the Himalayan foothills. My 1972 Enfield Bullet was a 350cc, one-cylinder thumper with a heavy crank, a squeaky seat, and roughly the same amount of horsepower you'd find in a lawnmower.

India is big. You can ride all day under a scalding sun, breathing diesel fumes and dodging traffic or monkeys, and if you're lucky you'll cover 200 miles. This can be frustrating when there's a place you really want to visit, but there happens to be a thousand miles of parched scrubland and bleak industrial cities in your way. Our road took us through Surat, a town which became infamous after an outbreak of bubonic plague a few years earlier, and close to Bhopal, where a methyl isocyanate gas leak from the Union Carbide plant killed more than 20,000 people in 1984. Neither place had been on our to-do list. We just wanted to reach Rajasthan and see some nice temples.

Roads in India are not great for motorcycles. Tarmac softens in the relentless heat and then furrows under the wheels of traffic. The road surface is often cracked or worn or has been completely washed away by floods during the rainy season. If there's a Highway Code, then it's clearly open to interpretation by individual drivers. The poor roads, slow pace, noise, heat and pollution all help to turn a long distance bike ride across India into an ordeal.

But by small increments we neared our goal. Exhaust fumes would turn the sunblock on our faces black by evening. The temperature made a watery haze of the horizon. A drive through a city meant jostling for position with a billion scooters, cars, cows, rickshaws and camels. Our clothes, now ingrained with sweat and grease and oil, were beyond saving. One night, lying awake in our beds at 3 am in a hot damp cockroach-infested hotel in Gandhinagar, we decided to load up the bikes right then and make one final push.

I'll never forget the sunrise that morning, and the feeling of utter joy as we drove into Rajasthan. The air was cool and the road looped and dipped between lush green hills as though it had been designed with bikers in mind.

That was a good day.

When my agent, Simon, called to tell me that MacMillan had bought Scar Night, that was a good day too.

Google's new search trends feature is very interesting.
You can find out which countries are:

searching for love

searching for peace

searching for weapons of mass destruction

searching for big guns

searching for how to make a bomb

searching for mail order brides

Great fun.

But which country is most interested in William Shatner ?

Anything to avoid work.

I have been playing with a great free program called Chaoscope, which renders images like this:



And another one called Apophysis which produces images like this:



The first one looks like it belongs on the cover of a book I probably wouldn't understand. But that second picture is just crying out for a spaceship to be emblazoned across the front of it.

Someone has come up with the idea of printing text sideways in books. These "bed books" are designed to be read while lying on your side.

Bedbooks

From their site:

"An Invention Born of Necessity

It came to me while on a motor home vacation, when I just didn’t have the head room to sit up in bed. There was literally no comfortable position to be in – and that’s when it hit me! If the book was printed so that I could lie on my side, I could read for hours!"

Um, or you could just turn the book sideways?

This made me laugh today:

Fantasy Novelist's Exam