onyxhawke

"...Enge's clever writing really came to the fore as the novel moved on and turned it into something that was truly fantastic (::groan::). It's old school and new school, dark without ever being oppressive and yet somehow managed to keep an almost constant smile on my face. It's one of those novel that leaves you a bit crestfallen that it's over, not because the ending was disappointing (it wasn't!) but because you have to stop living in the world it crafted. The second book The Crooked Way looks like it'll be out in October and I for one can't wait to read more."

Great review, full of spoilers though so be careful.

Now, back to that contest.

I've decided to call it the Lunchpail Review Contest.
To enter:

• Write a review of The Blood of Ambrose somewhere online
• email the review, a link to it, and your contact info to: lunchpail@onyxhawke.com
• Entries must be received by 7pm ET May 21st 2009

The masterful James Enge was interviewed by the incomparable Sara M. Harvey for SFScope. You can see the interview here, and keep up with both of their exploits: jamesenge & saraphina_marie  assuming of course that you aren't already reading both of them.

ramblin_phyl

The other thing I did was talk to a writers group. Somehow they managed to put up with me for two hours of talking and still invited me to Friendly's for soda and ice cream afterwards. I had fun, they were a great audience attentive, inquisitive and they even laughed at my jokes. It was a fun day, but seven hours out of the house did cut into how much attention I could pay to the world. If the world ended, we were invated by aliens or anything like that please tell me.

Colleen_Lindsay: Remember, if you’re participating in #Queryfail Day to a.) use the #queryfail tag, and

b.) NO PERSONAL IDENTIFIERS from queries. #queryfail

Were their direct quotes used? Of course there were, they make the best examples, and of course the only people who might be able to identify the writer of any particular query by a one sentence quote are: 1) The writer, 2) other professionals that have seen the query and 3) anyone the writer may have bounced their query off before dispatching it to the Stygian depths of an agent/editors inbox. So how is this public humiliation? It isn't. The agents and editors who might have or might in the future see it will probably reject it or have for the same reason(s). Your friends or family members are either not using a large enough cluebat, or you're just not asking the right questions to get the answers and or help you need.

What Queryfail did was take not just the people who are actively seeking improvement and hold them up as an example, but take some things from a bit further down the food chain. Most of the people who take part in activities like Ms Snark once ran, are close to being at the right level, and that makes it harder (at least for me) to see the difference between right and almost right. I've learned more about good writing from reading bad, bad writing than from reading the cream of the crop. Not because there isn't stuff to learn in the great writing but because the bad stuff is usually disjointed enough to stick out where as good writing is nearly invisible.