Messages in a bottle
Apr. 29th, 2009 04:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jack_babalonWhile reading up on various articles regarding the process of submitting query letters to wary publishers and agents, I often come across the metaphor of the author as a shipwrecked castaway. There they stand on some desert island, I'm told, desperately stuffing rescue messages in bottles and casting them out in the hopes of finding some charitable boat captain to come rescue them.
Of course if that was the case it'd be really shitting getting a return bottle with a form letter that read -
"Dear Sir,
We have received your note for immediate rescue from a giant-crab and howler monkey infested island. Unfortunately we have received many such requests and have decided that we aren't the right ship for you. We wish you all the best of luck in finding someone to help you escape your current predicament and to continue sending out messages in a bottle."
Meanwhile the howler monkeys have learned to ride on the backs of the giant-crabs and have begun sharpening broken branches into little spears whose tips they urinate on. At night they sing the great hunting songs of their people and paint the shells of the crabs in lavish tribal weaves out of crushed berries. At dawn they will emerge out of the underbrush and give a hearty chase to the author across the beach. There are few sounds more terrifying than the roar of a howler monkey's laughter over the din of snapping claws.
But not me!
I've decided to stuff my query letters into a series of slow burning molotov cocktails. At night I stand at the shore tossing them out towards passing barges and luxury liners alike. The flames dangling off the rags stuffed down the bottles cast strange shadows across the moon lit tide and are not doused by the sudden swell of a mere wave. There they go: a fleet of incendiary Japanese Lanterns that will explode across the eyes in a shrapnel splash of prose, plot and broken glass. Those who receive my bottles may not choose to rescue me... but they damn sure will remember who sent them!
And until that day I am rescued...?
Well, lets just say I've discovered a lot of unique recipes for Howler Monkey and giant-crab soup.
Of course if that was the case it'd be really shitting getting a return bottle with a form letter that read -
"Dear Sir,
We have received your note for immediate rescue from a giant-crab and howler monkey infested island. Unfortunately we have received many such requests and have decided that we aren't the right ship for you. We wish you all the best of luck in finding someone to help you escape your current predicament and to continue sending out messages in a bottle."
Meanwhile the howler monkeys have learned to ride on the backs of the giant-crabs and have begun sharpening broken branches into little spears whose tips they urinate on. At night they sing the great hunting songs of their people and paint the shells of the crabs in lavish tribal weaves out of crushed berries. At dawn they will emerge out of the underbrush and give a hearty chase to the author across the beach. There are few sounds more terrifying than the roar of a howler monkey's laughter over the din of snapping claws.
But not me!
I've decided to stuff my query letters into a series of slow burning molotov cocktails. At night I stand at the shore tossing them out towards passing barges and luxury liners alike. The flames dangling off the rags stuffed down the bottles cast strange shadows across the moon lit tide and are not doused by the sudden swell of a mere wave. There they go: a fleet of incendiary Japanese Lanterns that will explode across the eyes in a shrapnel splash of prose, plot and broken glass. Those who receive my bottles may not choose to rescue me... but they damn sure will remember who sent them!
And until that day I am rescued...?
Well, lets just say I've discovered a lot of unique recipes for Howler Monkey and giant-crab soup.
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no subject
on 2009-04-29 09:18 pm (UTC)Keep it up!
no subject
on 2009-04-29 09:24 pm (UTC)Thanks man, I appreciate it... and hey I have to keep it up, there's no more 'down' from where I'm standing:)
no subject
on 2009-04-29 10:29 pm (UTC)(but when I hear "Rutger Hauer", I think of him in a weird Euro movie I saw once but whose title I can no longer recall where he is naked except for a blanket clutched around him like a cape, and he is running around flapping the cape like bat wings, with a dubbed-in voice saying, "Ha ha, I'm the Bat-Man of love, what do you think about that, eh?")
no subject
on 2009-04-29 09:31 pm (UTC)and who doesn't love a good fiery cocktail time-to-time? ;-)
your last line made me lol irl, as the kids say.
Lolz, lost and lollipops
on 2009-04-29 09:44 pm (UTC)... and really I love watching Lost if for no other reason than to see how the writing team is going to tie all the loose ends up.
Always happy to provoke a hearty LOL whenever I can, ma'am.
*tips invisible cowboy hat*
Re: Lolz, lost and lollipops
on 2009-04-29 09:49 pm (UTC)oh, and richard alpert... rrraaaawwwwrrr...