Querying Non-Fiction Magazines

Oh I am sure she’s not really dead or anything, but she did stop blogging (with an actual ending statement which is nice) She was giving great advice and making fun of the most ridiculous queries. If I remember correctly, she was an editor for a magazine in New York. You can find her on blogspot, too. Apparently she’s the originator of the crapometer, and I highly recommend you spend a few hours poring over her 2 years worth of posts, and all their accompanying comments. It’s all good reading, she’s amazing. She’s another example of a blogger who did a great job using the comments as a tool for interactive-ness. I totally fail at that. Not here, I doubt I’d ever get comments here, this is all mostly crap but on my personal blog, I read the comments, feel a million times special because someone spoke to me and then- nothing. I should stop doing that.

Maybe it’s a morbid fascination, but I’m definitely not the only one fascinated to read editors making fun of things they’ve rejected. Sometimes I read it and think “Hmmm, I think it sounds allright” and then I have to pay very close attention to the reasons it’s been rejected. Each editor has their own quirks, but there seem to be a lot of them blogging the more profound rejections. One I was reading today was a blogspot blog called Literary rejections on display. There’s actually quite a fascinating conversation going on between her commenters and the author, which is a fantastic feature. In several of her posts she quotes a comment, much like Jenny the Bloggess does. It’s good because it makes you read the comments, and the o0riginal post, and it creates a little web of stickiness that bloggers find irresistible.

I think Fran is absolutely divine. I love that she’s a writer and a painter. I love to paint. Also, I wanted to actually name one of my daughters Francis, I always thought it was a beautiful name, but I wasn’t really allowed to; Frances was the name of the birth-mother who abandoned someone in my husband’s family, so it seemed like I’d be honoring someone who wasn’t so honorable. Either way, Fran’s blog is FRANTASTIC. Surely she’d knock me off my block for making up a word like that. Anyways, she’s entertaining, intelligent and she’s a writer and editor. Her new novel sounds fantastic, she uses the blog as an accountability tool (don’t we all have our own methods)

On Blogspot, there’s a blog called Mike’s Writing Workshop. I love it when men have their profile picture in a suit. Especially when the job they’re doing is one that can be done in the buff. I wonder how often he really wears that. I should have a profile picture taken in one of those Heather Locklear business suits. Not that I have the boobs for it, but it sure would make me look professional. I know it’s important to have a professional personal website, but I just never seem to devote the time or energy into it. I think I spend 90% of my days transporting kids from one activity to another. I should take more advantage of the time I spend in the car waiting in parking lots to work on my sites. By the time I turn the computer on, though it’s time to drive away again.

I’ve been subscribing to Writer’s Weekly for 7 years now. Angela is an awesome lady, and she compiles a fantastic resource for writers every single week. Her website has kept up with technology and she’s great about bringing in a personal touch. Over the years, we’ve seen her through funerals, births, weddings, vacations and all sorts of things. That’s my favorite thing about the internet, is feeling that I have friends all over the country. I can’t imagine having been a writer back in those solitary days of mailing an SASE all the time and working long hours alone at the typewriter (OMG- a typewriter, no copy & paste, no backspace) I’ll bet those old-time writers hate that someone like me could make a living as a writer these days. Whatever- I love it, it’s the perfect job for a mom.

Elana Johnson has a blog called Mindless Musings.  I think there’s another one, Melinda Zook if I’m not mistaken, with the same name.  Anyways she’s writing a series on Query letters, I just read part three and it’s very thorough.  She’s specializing in fiction and fantasy, and she is really entertaining to read. She takes a query letter and highlights each sentence and breaks it down into a formula. Querying nonfiction and fiction markets are entirely different activities and require totally different writing styles and techniques. Some elements are the same, but the entire letter needs to read differently. So if you’re thinking of writing a novel or something and need to learn how to write a fiction query letter and navigate the publishing world, that’s just what Elana is talking about.

I assume Poynter is someone’s name, but you should check out the poynter.org website because the guy who writes for it gives great advice. I just read one where a long-time newspaper writer was looking to break into freelancing. The columnist suggested that they look into magazines, not newspapers because newspapers rarely have budgets for freelance writers, and that his long-term experience will be a great asset when he’s looking in the right places. So I thought that was encouraging, that the magazine market was the best place to look. If I had a brain I’d be looking there myself. Instead, I am wasting my days away writing online when I should be querying magazines. Whatever, it’s mindless and with6 kids I don[’t have much of a mind left these days.

I called it a time bomb yesterday because the way the cord is rigged up, if one of them is disconnected, or gets bumped or jarred, it can short-circuit the entire disk. With any luck, the disk won’t be damaged, but there’s no guarantee. SO when this computer goes down (and it will, nothing can be rigged like this for long) it’s possible that ll my data could go bye-bye, too. I’ve been proactive, suing my internet hosting as a file backup. I should probably tell you how to do that, huh. It’s really a good idea to back things up. I sure wish my Dell had been backed up.

After all that whining and complaining yesterday about the stupid Acer, I just have to say that my Dell was awesome. I can’t talk about it too much or I get really sad and angry about the data that I no longer have access to because of the stupid crackheads who stole my laptop. I would definitely go with another Dell. I’d also go with an HP. My friend Astacia said that HP will buy back the laptop when you’re ready to upgrade, but in reality, I’d probably give it to my kids. I don’t know. I need a new laptop and that is a fact, I can’t keep sitting on this time bomb.

So Christmas is coming, what writer-ly gifts are you hoping to find under the tree? I wish I could get a new laptop, one that’s actually portable. This one is an Acer. NEVER EVER buy an acer. It’s a piece of shit. The power adapter jack is apparently only soldered down in 2 places, so every time you plug it in or unplug it, it teeter totters and ends up breaking off, which costs about $80 to repair. So last time it happened, I asked them to jimmy-rig the jack outside of the computer, and attach the cord forever, so that we wouldn’t have to plug and unplug it. So far it has lasted almost 2 months which is longer than ever before. Stupid Acer