Random thought: Thanks, Internet: Now I can’t take my girlfriend OR my wife to see Coldplay!

If you don’t get the reference, look it up. It’ll definitely be worth it (as long as you have time to go down the hilarious rabbit hole that’s sure to follow). This week’s tale comes courtesy of a prompt generously provided by Barbara S. If you know her, you understand why I’m not going to attempt to spell her last name. I never even pronounce it the same way twice.

And now on to the Story of the Week.

       From the County Fair to the E.R.

Marge’s hobby was bragging about her horrific luck.

“I could get a fatal disease from a lucky rabbit’s foot.”

“I doubt it,” her friend said. “So what happened?”

“I’m a loser.”

“No one thinks you’re a loser.”

“I was thrown from a carousel horse.”

“Those things don’t throw people.”

“This one did. Apparently, I broke my wrist crashing into the egg roll booth.”

“That’s just terrible luck. What about the finger burns?”

“I landed in the chicken fryer. Now I can’t even remember which came first: the chicken or the egg roll. I’m such a loser.”

“Well, maybe a tiny loser.”

Prompt: I can’t lose at everything

NOVEL NEWS & OTHER NOTES…

Since we last spoke, I need to bring you up to speed. Pardon the pun, but I had a killer time at the Mystery Writers Conference at the amazing Book Passage. It’s an awesome bookstore in Corte Madera ( Marin County). With somewhere around 100 attendees, it’s definitely not the biggest conference for mystery writers, but the people I met all said it’s probably the best one. I’m sure I got spoiled by the intimate vibe because I’ll be going to the grandaddy of the mystery writer conferences when I go to one called Bouchercon in New Orleans in September, where I’ll see between 1,500 and 2,000 writers, fans, and others somehow associated with the mystery world.

There were a lot of highlights at the Book Passage gig, among them a consultation session I had with an agent who liked me enough to refer me to another agent at her agency. I won’t bore you with our whole conversation, but it turned out I had much in common with the agent she referred me to, including the fact that her father was also a San Jose homicide detective (although he worked the unit several years before me).

During my Zoom meeting with the recommended agent a few days after the conference, we discussed a variety of things, including her side job as a freelance editor. The bottom line is that I found a great editor who (or is it whom? Guess I really do need an editor) I’ll be working with. I have no doubt she’ll help me get my latest draft to a place where I’ll be one solid step closer to getting it out into the world.

I’ll tell you more about it next time, but I’ll close by saying this. My latest draft (after I craftily did an edit and shaved the page count from 360 to 340) will be in her hands this week. I should receive her extensive notes in about a month. I know it’s going to be a ton of work, but based on other writers I met to at the conference, it’ll absolutely be worth it.

The beat goes on…

Scotty out

Want to catch up on all the stories you missed? Here’s the link: