Evil Editor is Five Today!

Well, his blog is anyway.

As a tribute to him I want to tell you how evil he is.

• He publishes writers' query letters for public derision so that when they send them to an agent all the kinks will have been worked out.
• He posts pictures for his minions to caption and then edits the captions to make them even funnier without taking any of the credit.
• He arranges bookchats with the authors present and then gets his minions to play nicely with them.
• He answers questions about the publishing industry.
• He makes us all laugh.

Can you get more evil than that?

There's a party going on with competitions and prizes in his honour. What are you waiting for?

Evil Editor Needs You

Evil Editor has a fun drinking game that he's setting up for New Year's Eve and he needs you to suggest titles for books about booze. Why not pop over there now and join in.

Minions in MonkeySpace

An

Neil, Whirl, Jane, Robin, Polenth, John

I'm not going to say that we met up "in real life" because online relationships are real too. Charles Stross in Halting State uses the phrase MonkeySpace for the place where we can see each other and hear each other and when we hug it's tee shirt to cardigan and not simply a kind thought.

It was wonderful to hear Whirl's amazing voice. He really does sound that good all the time! Polenth entertained us with tales of a pet cockroach, Robin made sure we got the best table in the place even though it meant moving three times, and Jane kept us laughing. My Beloved (Neil) and Robin's husband (John) performed essential support and paparazzi roles.

The minions: Robin, Whirl, Jane

Polenth, Gina (me)

EE

I had to leave early as usual (stupid CFS). I thought Jane was telling me she was legless when she said she couldn't stand up but she was simply wedged between the bench and the table. I can't guarantee no one was legless by the end of the day.

Those of you who couldn't make it: we missed you. Maybe another time?

Edited to add:
Whirl's hysterical account of the event is here.
Jane's more accurate recounting is here.
Evil Editor has posted another photo here.
And Robin has a photo here.

Minions meet again!

If you've been following Jane's blog then you may know that a few of Evil Editor's minions are thinking of meeting up again - or you may not, because we talked about it in the comments.

We're planning on meeting on 4th July at the South Bank, London, England. If you want to be in on it then why not let us know either here or over at Whittering On?

Last time we had a wonderful time and you can read about and see pictures here. I know that some of you can't make it because England is too far to come. We'll miss you.

Four years of evil: happy anniversary EE!

For Evil Editor today marks four years of taking the blue pencil to query letters, of providing amusement and fun for onlookers, of causing gnashing of teeth by writers whose work isn't quite ready yet, and of providing a community of wonderful minions.

EE is completely inclusive. All you have to do to be a minion is to come along and join in.

Some of his minions are throwing a party today over at The Fourth BlogEEversary. Maybe I'll see you there.

Bad Query Letter

Here is my voice post, in response to Robin's post. It's a version of the Bad Query Letter I sent to Evil Editor in response to an exercise.

Powered by Podbean.com

OneTwoFiver has grown

I haven't been using OneTwoFiver recently and when I popped back yesterday I found it had grown. You can edit your work and share it with other people. There was a recent competition, which I missed, but when the number of members goes up to 500 there will be another one. I don't intend to miss that one.

What sent me back there was looking through my short stories and ideas folder. The two largest sources of inspiration turned out to be Evil Editor and OneTwoFiver. Which is impressive as I only found it in January.

Evil Editor's minions meet

Jan, Robin, Gina (me), Neil, Jane, Sylvia

Place: Giraffe, outside Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank of the Thames.
Time: 12 noon Sunday 19th April 2009
Present: Robin, Sylvia, Peter, Jane and me (Gina) plus my Beloved (Neil) and Robin's sister-in-law (Jan).

Jan, Robin, Neil, Jane, Peter, Sylvia

Neil and I got there early due to his nagging encouragement and Jane found us shortly after. Robin and Jan took a table outside and after a few missed phone calls we found each other, then Peter arrived followed by Sylvia not too long afterwards.

It was wonderful meeting these people in the flesh when I feel that I know them so well already. There was a curious sense of, "So that's what you look like!" I felt comfortable with them straight away.

Robin

Terms of endearment were flung around. The waiters seemed quite happy to be called "sweetie" and there was talk about calling them "babycakes". There was lots of drinking and laughing. I knew I wouldn't have the stamina to stay for as long as the others so I was trying to get as much in as quickly as I could. It was fun.

I had to leave at 3.30 because I was flagging but the party went on a lot longer.

Sylvia

We did think about absent friends, so if you're wishing you could have been there, we missed you too.

Edited to add: If anyone doesn't like having their photo up here, please let me know and I'll take it down.

No Regrets?

I have just found out about The Beast, which was an interactive web game by a team of writers including the novelist Sean Stewart.

It has finished.

I wasn't entirely inconsolable as I'm not sure I would have managed to keep up anyway.

Not so long ago I came upon the wonderful blog by Miss Snark, offering witty advice to aspiring writers from the point of view of a literary agent. A whole community grew up around the blog and I would have loved to be able to join in the comments. But I came to it late.

It had finished.

Now that one I was sorry to have missed. If only I could have been a Snarkling. Alas, I was too late.

I'm determined not to have this happen again but I'm not sure how to keep up to date with what's happening. It seems to be a feature of the internet that the most exciting events end just as they become most popular. At least I'm in on Evil Editor's blog and community of writers. I hear he's just had his millionth hit. I hope he won't be leaving us any time soon: I've only just found him.

Put your coffee cup down now

Browsing the archives at Evil Editor I came across a post about brevity in query letters.

Among the greatest plot distillers in literary history was the guy who determined that only one m needed to be stamped on the side of an m & m. Janice Delaney's legendary query for her history of menstruation, entitled The Curse, consisted of a blank sheet of paper with a period in the center. (This used half as much ink as the previous record, the query for Dr. Jensen's Guide to Better Bowel Care, which was, of course, a colon.)

I take no responsibility for ruined keyboards: the warning was in the title.

Deus Ex Machina

I found Evil Editor's blog and I think I'm hooked. He offers advice to struggling writers on query letters and there's a whole community of his Evil Minions.

He also offers writing exercises, and I had a go at the latest one: to write a short (300 word) story with a Deus Ex Machina. So here it is:

Jason braced himself against a bulkhead and wrenched at the lever but it was stuck. He looked across at Emily imploringly and she added her strength. Her biceps bulged but the lever stood firm and the door remained firmly closed. Water swirled around their ankles. It was rising fast and would reach the ceiling in less than a minute.

Jason clutched at Emily. "We're going to die!"

She held him in her arms and gazed into his eyes. "There's only one thing we can do."

She reached into her enormous handbag and pulled out a can of WD40. One squirt and the lever came free. They opened the door and scrambled through, then pushed the door shut against the weight of the water.

Now the lever was hanging loose and they could not get the door to stay shut. Water poured through and Jason was shivering with cold and shock.

"If we don't stop the water coming through we're dead," he said.

"Don't panic." Emily reached into her bag and brought out a huge reel of duct tape, then bit off a long strip and handed it to Jason. Between them, they taped the door shut and the flow of water ceased. They slumped down against the sealed door to await rescue.

"How come you had the right stuff in your bag?" Jason asked.

"Everyone knows," Emily replied. "If it doesn't move and it should, you use WD40, and if it moves and it shouldn't, you use duct tape."