Yes, folks, it’s that time again. A glimpse into Susan, herself. Myself. Whoever. Whatever.

Enjoy, and don’t forget to stop back to visit the Stiffs on a daily basis; they are one heck of a neat group of people.

While you’re looking around, please check out the fact that I’m now a Blogging Chick — see my sidebar for the details. I’m pretty psyched about this, but then, I love new places to explore.

(and if you haven’t discovered Trevor’s latest favorite thing, be sure to scroll down to the entry before this one! It’s a MUST NOT MISS.)

The Tour Manager found these at a craft show today. Perfect for Trevor, or just for when you’re in a cranky mood.

Now, if those aren’t perfect enough, as I was surfing the rest of the site, I realized that the woman behind Ella Studio used to work with the Tour Manager. So now I doubly endorse this woman’s business — when you place your order, be sure to tell her West of Mars sent you!

Thirteen ways that Mabel met her end Thanks to L^2 for the new graphic to replace the defunct original! Mitchell has this cheap acoustic named Mabel for those times when it’s not smart to whip out one of his good guitars just to fill his hands. Mabel’s become a legend within ShapeShifter because, being a cheap acoustic guitar, no one takes particularly good care of her. And so, she meets her end in many, many ways, each one memorable. 1. Stepped on (Mabel the first) 2. Broke her neck when she got in the way of Daniel and some girl, both too drunk to realize they weren’t climbing into a top bunk on the tour bus (Mabel the thirteenth, who conveniently left … uhh… guitar-string burn on Daniel’s … uhh… rear) 3. Stolen (two, ten, and sixteen) — although Mitchell wouldn’t put it past her to run off with someone. 4. Jumped out of a moving tour bus (Mabel the twelfth) 5. Decided to Stay in Omaha (Mabel the third, who visits the band every time they come through) 6. Lost her head during tuning (Mabel the sixth) 7. Given to a particularly grateful fan (Mabel the fourth and eleventh) 8. Jumped in the middle of a game of Naked Twister (Mabel the seventeenth) 9. Decided to take a soak in the hot tub (Mabel the ninth) 10. Took a dive down the stairwell from the hotel’s twelfth floor during a particularly boring party (Mabel the eighth) 11. Drowned her sorrows, and herself, in a bottle of JD (Mabel the fourteenth) 12. Got in the middle of a food fight (Mabel the seventh) 13. Tried to join a day off in the pool (Mabel the fifteenth) And, as an honorable mention because it hasn’t happened yet, broken over Mitchell’s head when Kerri gets angry with him. Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

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Just wanted to wish a public get-well to Jason Newsted, who has long been one of my musical heroes and who I will probably always think of as one of the world’s most photogenic men.

You can find the details in the last two paragraphs of the Blabbermouth article I’ve linked to in my headline.

Jason, as you recover, how about firing up the Chophouse again and exposing us to more brilliant stuff?

I know that lots of us are out there, looking for literary agents. I know that a lot of times, it feels like we’re competing against each other for the same person’s time and energy (not to mention attention and hand-holding).

But I firmly believe that we’re all in this together, folks. We all have our own slice of audience that’ll be completely unique to each of us.

And because I believe that, I think we need to stick together when the scammers raise their ugly heads.

This time, it’s in the form of the The International Independent Literary Agents Association (IILAA). I’m not going to post a link directly to them ’cause that’ll just give them one more link at places like Technorati, and who wants to help out a bunch of scammers? (My link goes to Victoria Strauss, who I’ll mention later on, so keep reading)

This is what steams me about them:
1. They claim that charging a reading fee is normal and good business practice. Yes, they sort-of have a point in that you often pay a lawyer a retainer.

BUT… not ALL lawyers ask for retainers. Many work the same way reputable agents do: They take a cut of what you win in court (granted, agents take a cut of what you earn, but you see my point). Many just send you a bill.

2. If this The International Independent Literary Agents Association (IILAA) is to be believed, there are ten agents they recommend. That’s fine. But… who’s number 10? They only list nine on their site.

Yes, counting to ten may be math, but it’s not higher math. My kids could both do it before they were two. Most of us have ten fingers and ten toes for the express purpose of using two of the four (YOU get my higher math, right?) appendages for counting to ten.

3. They make a BIG STINK of denouncing Preditors and Editors, Writer Beware, Miss Snark, and other sites that many of us rely on for information.

4. As they denounce these people, they can’t be bothered to spell some of these places properly. Hello? You’re a LITERARY agency. A little show of your own LITERATE capabilities would be nice. (And let’s not get into how nice it was of them, in their literary worldliness, to point out that a group called The International Independent Literary Agents Association is composed of Independent agents.)

Yeah, yeah. We all make typos. See my own post from yesterday, which invites you to capitalize on one I made. But c’mon, folks. If you’re going to cut someone down, do it the right way. Those last two examples aren’t even as amusing as “be a retainer,” which also appears on their site, in the bit about why fees are acceptable.

If all those sites are so disreputable, why do so many of us hold what they say to be canonical? Because we’re stupid? Or because we’re smart enough to do the research that backs us up. Look at some blogging agents. My favorites are Agent Kristin, Lit Soup, The Rejecter, and Dystel and Goderich Literary Management. Miss Snark goes without saying.

What do these agents have in common?
1. They support the efforts of Ann, Victoria, and all the rest who are out there, keeping us abreast and warned of the scammers.
2. They’re NOT on Writer Beware’s list of 20 Worst Agents.
3. They don’t charge fees.
4. They are careful about their typos and the way they present themselves. That many mistakes… c’mon. Would you want THEM to represent you? What would happen if they offered you a contract for a book you didn’t write? You wrote Under a Blood Red Sky, not Over a Bloody Die. That doesn’t even make sense, unless you play craps!

Think about it. An agent represents you. They are your face to the publishing world, at least initially. They are your advocate, your business partner.

Do your research before you commit to any agent, even the ones I listed here as the blogging agents I particularly like. This is your career, people. I’ve already had one bad agent in my life. I can tell you, firsthand, what a frustrating time-suck it is. And he wasn’t even a fee charger. He didn’t ask me to BE a retainer.

Be smart, folks. Writing is a craft, an art form, yes. But there’s also a business end to it. Please don’t ignore that.

/rant over

(by the way, if I’ve offended you and you want me to take this post down, you’ll have to go through my lawyer to get me to do so. Don’t say you weren’t warned.)

Karen! found a typo in my previous post, so now I’m going to show my appreciation to my loyal groupies by letting you raise your voice.

Is the magazine named Guitar God or Guitar Gods, with an s?

One god, or many? (and no, don’t turn this into a religious rant. I’m Jewish. There’s only one God. And if you want to go all Kabbalistic, God is everything and everything is God, and that’s just how it is, so deal)

Trevor’s Song is back on the market again.

Just thought I’d let you all know… cross your fingers, wish me luck, keep on stopping in, and tell your friends to do the same.

Look for some content changes at the website coming soon. Nothing major. Some streamlining, the new query letter, and changes to the Cast of Character pages that I think you’ll like.

I’m always open to suggestions to how to make the website better. And yes, a new picture of me is in the works. But I just had my hair cut and so far, I’m not liking it. 🙁

My book club tonight is going to discuss Jacqueline Park’s The Secret Book of Grazia Dei Rossi, a historical fiction (that’s utterly fascinating) based on two letters Ms. Park found about a woman named Pacienza Pontremoli and her love for a Catholic man.

Ms. Park was 72 when she published this book, her debut.

I’m not 72 yet. Many of you aspiring authors, like myself, who read this blog aren’t 72 yet.

There’s still time for us.

(an interesting aside — in reading Naomi Ragen’s The Ghost of Hannah Mendes, we came across a character named Grazia Dei Rossi. I haven’t had time to reasearch this, but was there an actual Grazia? What’s going on, that two fictional women who are very different bear the same name?)

Check out Working Stiffs today for a bit of a personal blog about me…

And while you’re there, bookmark it and come back often. This is quite the interesting collection of people!

Check out this book! It was just published on the first of October; how’s this for timely?

The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGBs: A Secret History of Jewish Punk, by Steven Lee Beeber.

I’ve got to get my hands on this puppy!

(added note: apologies to Steven, whose name was apparently misspelled in the source I’d found it in.)

If you’re in the Pittsburgh area come Friday night — yep, the thirteenth — you might want to stop by the beautiful Southside Works and, in particular, Joseph Beth Books, where my new friend Rebecca Drake will be doing a reading in support of her new book, Don’t Be Afraid.

Buy a copy. Have her autograph it. Take a picture with it, her, and you. Send me said picture and when I recover from BAFAB, maybe I’ll send you a goodie.

If you’re not in Pittsburgh, well, maybe you should reconsider that fact. Or at the very least, keep an eye on Rebecca’s website and maybe she’ll be doing a signing near you. She’s cool. It’ll be time worth spent and crowds well worth pushing through.

Btw, you should also be keeping an eye on Working Stiffs. If you go to Rebecca’s readings along the way and tell her you’re a Working Stiffs reader, she just might have a goodie for you.

Hey, it’s October. This month is all about goodies, especially with the Steelers and Pens not giving us many. Yet.

I heard today that Sunday the fifteeenth will end the 33-year-run of the legendary bar known as CBGB. Having been inside, myself, I join thousands upon thousands who mourn the loss of this iconic, narrow, skanky joint.

The owner says he’ll reopen in Vegas with as much of the original stuff as possible but sorry. It can’t be the same.

Whew. What a week, properly accompanied by an inordinate amount of running around, chaos, heartbreak, and hopes.

Before we close out Buy a Friend a Book Week, let me say the following things…

1. I had a blast reading all of your entries and the things you had to say about music. I hope you’ll invite your friends over here to hang with us and get to know my fictional crew. Not just because it’ll sell more books when Trevor’s Song comes out, but because I do this — write books, blog, create fiction non-stop — so that I can share it with people. While I dream of a huge publishing deal, I think I’d be happy with anything that would allow me to share my world with you.

2. I’ve made friends with some of the other BAFAB contest hosts. Be sure to check them out; I’ll leave the links up at the bottom of this page for a bit. Tell them you proudly come from West of Mars.

3. Even though my friend Penina never sent an official entry, she’s done so much for me over the years, in so many ways, that I picked up a second copy of This Monster Lives just for her. So while she’s not an official winner and I can’t tell you how I will never forget her story of trying really hard not to yell the now-defunct and perhaps forgotten refrain of “Die, Die, Die” during Metallica’s Creeping Death during her VERY observant Passover seder, I bought her a book, anyway.

And when you get down to it, that’s the spirit of BAFAB week.

We’ll do it again in a few months. In the meantime, stay tuned. I have planned a fun fall outtake from the newly introduced Chelle LaFleur for your reading pleasure. Once I get back from the post office, expect to see it…

Once again, thanks for making my first BAFAB contest so successful. You guys are important around here.

Remember that, now.

Whoops. Been a long, unproductive day and tonight’s the home opener!!

Two winners posted tomorrow. Promise.

One week left to Buy a Friend a Book Week!, and that means that this week is your last chance to enter the West of Mars Buy a Groupie a Book Contest (if that link doesn’t work, check out the first post in the August archives).

What are you waiting for? Enter today! I’ve got good books to share!

We’re doing another historical swap over at Book Relay, and since I’m headed to bed, here are my moves, should they be needed:

Steal: The Italian Secretary
Steal: Brigid’s Charge

Don’t worry if anything gets revealed between now and a move I might need to make. I’ll deal with it later.

Happy swapping. And the rest of you… more fiction to come from me, as always.

Just taking two seconds here as the printer runs to say that I’ve finished this draft of Trevor’s Song and am mailing it out to one of my readers tomorrow, assuming I’ve got an envelope big enough for it. I cut a bunch of chapters and still managed to add 7,000 words, give or take.

Let’s see what she says, but if she gives me the go-ahead, we’ll be hitting the market again.

Not that there’s any pressure on her. *wink*

Two paragraphs I just cut out of Trevor… can YOU tell why I did it?

She was dying to fall into bed with Mitchell and screw him crazy. She hadn’t believed him when he’d said that it would feel like they’d been gone forever, especially because she’d actually been looking forward to a little bit of space while he was gone. She’d expected to just fall back into her life, the one she’d had before she’d met some shy musician type — so she’d thought — in the produce section of the grocery store.

But some of her friends had gotten weirded out by the fact that she was dating Mitchell Voss. An ambitious few had tried to shove their art under his nose and get themselves on the radar the easy way; Mitchell had been as gracious as anyone could be under those circumstances, but those friends had scrammed as soon as he’d given them the polite brush-off. And then there was the subset who were jealous of Kerri’s good fortune at finding herself a gravy train. “You’ll never have to pick up a brush again!” one of them had been dumb enough to say. As if she could ever put it down in the first place.

Yeah, it made ME groan, too, and I’m the one who wrote it. This is why they say writing is a craft, folks…

But reading isn’t, and if you’d like something free to read, check out the contest I’m hosting (just scroll on down for both my contest and the list of others). Yes, I’m asking you to write something, but I’m not judging you on the quality of the writing (I can’t! Not when I have to edit out drek like what’s above!), but on the content. Go for it; you never know when my LD will flare up and I’ll forget how to count to seven.

I just wanted to take a minute and wish condolences to Judy O’Connor and her family on the passing of Pittsburgh Mayor Bob O’Connor. I’m the rare Pittsburgher without ties to the Mayor, but that doesn’t mean I’m not sad for losing him, especially when he’d gotten off to such a great start with moving this city forward.

I hope that everyone in the city will support new Mayor Ravenstahl (and I hope I spelled that right) the same way they supported Mayor O’Connor. Ravenstahl may be young, but that doesn’t mean he can’t get the job done. Let’s give him a chance.