Peter Adam Salomon Keyboard & Camera:

It’s odd to think that after the overwhelming success of Rio and their debut album, when Duran Duran released Seven & The Ragged Tiger in 1983 it was a definite letdown. It was a strange album, without the massive popularity of their first two albums, without the massive hits, which included close to every song on those albums. But it was still a Duran Duran album and well worth the money.

New Moon On Monday is probably the best song from the album, with The Reflex a distant second (it was a hit but not a great song by any stretch of the imagination). Shadows On Your Side was never even released as a single but it’s catchy and fun and worth listening to if only to remember what the early 80s sounded like on the non-MTV songs…

Oh. My. God. Zapped was absolutely terrible. Virtually no redeeming qualities. But it so perfectly encapsulates the era that it’s worth watching for the clothing alone. Add in the goofy cheeseball humor and the ridiculous premise and you have trashy movie nirvana.

Really, this is one of those ‘have to see it to believe it’ situations. In 1982, Zapped set the stage for all of the teen ‘sex’ comedies to come. Almost all of which were far better than Zapped. Still, a small tiny salute to the dynamic duo of Scott Baio and Willie Ames (truly the Batman and Robin of the 80s…).

Of course, to top it off, in 1990 they decided (for reasons known only to the same Hollywood executives who probably thought Manimal and Animal Practice were good ideas…) to make a sequel to this: Zapped Again! (yes, with that wonderful exclamation point) really had no redeeming qualities. I’m sure Zapped! The Musical can’t be that far behind, no?

This needs to be seen to be believed:

Erin Murphy was born and raised in Arizona, and founded EMLA, the Erin Murphy Literary Agency, in Flagstaff, AZ in 1999.  She began her career at Northland Publishing/Rising Moon Books for Young Readers, eventually becoming editor-in-chief, and was a member of the board of directors of PubWest, a professional development organization for small and mid-sized publishers in the West.

Erin represents writers and writer-illustrators of picture books, novels for middle-graders and young adults, and select nonfiction. She is especially drawn to strong characters and heart-centered stories. In her spare time she loves walking, baking, kayaking, knitting, traveling, reading (often audiobooks), and powering through her Netflix queue.

And, yes, I copied that from her EMLA bio (because I’m just that lazy, plus it’s helpful and informative so why mess with success?)

Erin was gracious enough to take time out of her busy schedule to answer some questions for me:

PAS: What did you want to be when you grew up? Are you there yet?

EM: I had lots of ideas, but many of them involved the rather opposite situations of working at a desk, with filing and paperwork and neato office supplies, or getting out in the world, traveling and meeting diverse people. Done and done.

PAS: If you could talk to the 15-year-old Erin for five minutes, what would you tell yourself?

EM: Keep trusting those instincts. They’re almost always right. Stay true to your sense of yourself. And you are most definitely NOT fat. (Sigh, to look at pictures of my 15-year-old self and think that I thought that! I’d like that body back, please!)

PAS: What words of wisdom would you give to students who want to enter the world of literary agents?

EM: Read like crazy. Learn your tastes and read especially deeply in those areas–but also try things you don’t think you like and make sure you’re right.

Follow some author blogs and learn how writers think. Consider whether you’re okay being a behind-the-scenes person; if you like to be the center of attention, this is probably not the job for you. Hone your ability to be the calm in the storm.

More concretely, you could get the free Publishers Lunch mailings every week and look through the deals, make note of which editors and which agents seem to work with projects that sound especially intriguing, and follow their careers. That would probably be good. Most of us, though, just kind of stumbled into this because of our love of books, and lo, here we are, literary agents! So let yourself love books.

A job in agenting often starts with an internship–it didn’t with me, but it does for many. Save up your pennies so you can work awhile for free to get your foot in the door. Make the most of any contacts you have, and don’t think they have to be people who work for agencies or publishing companies–booksellers, librarians, writers–it’s all one big publishing world.

And it probably wouldn’t hurt to take a seminar on publishing contracts. That’s the toughest nut for a lot of people to crack, and it’s awfully useful to be able to read a contract without your eyes crossing.

The interesting news this week, as the release date slowly approaches, was receiving the ‘final’ page proof for the book. I had answered all of the ‘Proof Queries’ last month and what arrived this week was the final version with all of the corrections I made with the queries. Plus three pages of new queries to answer. To be fair, these were VERY simple, mostly yes/no type questions to make sure I approved of the changes made in the queries last month.

Now I get to sit down, read the ‘book’ and try to find any typos or other errors that are hanging around. Thankfully, 1) I’m not the only person doing this and 2) the other people doing this are VERY good. Will there still be things in the final book that I’ll figure I want to change? Oh, most definitely I’d imagine. I’d assume that I’ll be reading the book in a few years and thinking ‘I wish I changed that…’ but that’s part of the process and, at this point, after all of these years of editing and revising this book it’s pretty much all over but the shouting! And the crying.

Ah, yes, the crying.

See, every time I read the book I end up in tears. I guess it’s a good thing that it still affects me that much. I hope it affects others as much.

The other interesting item in the final page proof that I received is this one, unlike the last one and the ARC, has the dedication and acknowledgements included. And, the acknowledgements need some work. So it’s back to drawing board for those, though I have a few weeks to tweak that.

I have been busy handing out postcards (and mailing them out to people who have graciously offered to help hand them out). If you’d like one (or a hundred) for yourself or to drop off at your local library or bookstore or school (or anywhere else you can think of), please let me know and I’ll be more than happy to mail them out to you. Either leave a comment or send me an email.

In other writing news, I’ve sent in a new picture book to my agent and am hopeful it’ll go out on submission soon. As for more YA fiction, a friend who has their debut novel coming out a month after mine is reading the first 30 pages of HTRASH to see if my revisions worked. I needed a completely new set of eyeballs on it, with no preconceived notions of the book. Hopefully it’ll work. The beginning of this book has definitely been the weakest part and if I can get it fixed the rest should, hopefully, fall into place.

In the meantime, 115 days until release…

A smile. An encouraging word. A thoughtful gesture. Each day people interact with us, help, and make our day a bit brighter and full. This is especially true in the Writing Community.

Take a second to think about writers you know, like the critique partner who works with you to improve your manuscript. The writing friend who listens, supports and keeps you strong when times are tough. The author who generously offers council, advice and inspiration when asked.

So many people take the time to make us feel special, don’t they? They comment on our blogs, re-tweet our posts, chat with us on forums and wish us Happy Birthday on Facebook.

Kindness ROCKS!

To commemorate the release of their book The Emotion Thesaurus, Becca and Angela at The Bookshelf Muse are hosting a TITANIC Random Act Of Kindness BLITZ. And because I think KINDNESS is contagious, I’m participating too!

I have chosen Ammi-Joan Paquette, my agent and friend who was an integral part of making my lifelong dream of being a published author come true. In addition to being a wonderful agent with the Erin Murphy Literary Agency, Joan is also an author, with her latest picture book just released. For my RAOK gift, I’m purchasing THE TIPTOE GUIDE TO TRACKING MERMAIDS and donating it to the Louise Hayem Manheim Nursery School of Congregation Gates of Prayer in Metairie, LA in Joan’s name! This is also, therefore, a Random Act Of Kindness for the wonderful director of the school, Melanie Blitz and her incredible staff!

Do you know someone special that you’d like to randomly acknowledge? Don’t be shy–come join us and celebrate! Send them an email, give them a shout out, or show your appreciation in another way.

Kindness makes the world go round.

Becca and Angela have a special RAOK gift waiting for you as well, so hop on over to The Bookshelf Muse to pick it up.

Have you ever participated in or been the recipient of a Random Act Of Kindness?  Let me know in the comments!

Yet again I have no clue what I was thinking when I wrote this. Probably a good thing…

Electricity and Language and Me

electrical currents
coursing through my veins
live wires
lighting up my heart

Aeneas was the first
I finish the task
trying to comprehend
meanings behind friendship

chemical equilibrium
nervous tensions
shock treatments
they decree innocent
something about insanity
mumbled jargon misunderstood

pleasure derived from pain
derived from power

screams explode
ignited electricity

sanity forced into me
Enluminaures et images populaires
languages fornicate…

between metal and ground
lies my body
between sanity and me
lies electricity
between the worlds
lie fences and walls
bars and guards
pleasure derived from power
derived from pain

electricity and language and me…

die…

Travelettes just posted on New York City’s Hidden Subway Station and the pictures are remarkable and stunning and really need to be seen to be believed. Apparently they built a palace of a subway station under the streets of New York City that ended up being unusable due to the size of the larger trains. This is the result:

Less than three weeks left in Louisiana (more alliteration there than I’d expected…) so here’s some local color:

There is a wonderful album from a number of years ago of Dennis DeYoung (original lead sing of Styx) covering Broadway songs. DeYoung has always had an affection for the genre and has written a musical (Hunchback of Notre Dame) so it wasn’t that much of a surprise. With only one exception (a brilliant twist on ‘The Street Where You Live’ from My Fair Lady) DeYoung handles the songs as they were originally intended to be heard.

Dee Does Broadway is something else all together.

The ‘Dee’ in today’s post title is Dee Snider (original lead singer of Twisted Sister)…yes, that Dee Snider.

And he’s not joking around. From the brilliant cover art to the incredible selection of duet partners, Dee Snider is seriously doing broadway.

Now, of course, it is still Dee Snider of Twisted Sister so these aren’t exactly the original orchestrations, no matter who he is or isn’t singing with. But even with the rock edge of Twisted Sister, the intrinsic melodies and harmonies and lyrical beauty of these songs is done serious justice to. And it’s always nice to have a new twist on this music.

For those unaware: Only FIVE more years before the time frame of The Running Man is here! And, to be fair, that means only three more years until the ‘economic collapse’ which lead to that society (which supposedly happened 2 years prior to the events of the movie), where everyone stood around watching violent reality shows on television as their only sources of entertainment…

um…

oh.

Based (sort of) on the novel by Stephen King (written in 1982 where he was kind of predicting reality television) The Running Man is Arnold at his Arnoldest. Fun, funny, irreverent, more American than all the Americans in the movie combined and absolutely cheer-worthy. Well, ok, except for the spandex. Even in 1989 when the movie was released Arnold really rather failed at carrying off the spandex. Then again, most everyone on the planet did.

There’s really no rational way to analyze the plot (betrayals and hidden satellite uplinks and societal revolutions oh my) other than to say: Arnold kills a lot of rejected Adam West era Batman villains with tongue planted firmly in cheek, both in styles of death and ‘bon mots’ after death. It’s a blast, in more ways than one. The bad guys are REALLY bad, with no redeeming qualities to make them more than one dimensional (they might even be flatter than one dimension. Maybe 0.8 dimensional). The good guys are REALLY good. So it’s easy to root and cheer and let the American Gladiator cheesiness carry you away. Sort of like Calgon (boy, there’s a dated pop culture reference). Well, if there were a couple tabs of something in the bath water…