Bye-Bye ER

I watched the series finale of ER last night. Hard to believe the series started when Youngest Son was three or four years old. I’ve watched ER from the first episode, and I don’t think I’ve missed more than a handful of episodes in the last fifteen years. The series retrospective and finale was worthy of my favorite TV show. Yes, even when Grey’s Anatomy made an appearance, as much as I love that show, if I’d had to choose between the two, I would have chosen ER. Well, now I don’t have to choose, because Grey’s is the only medical drama I’m watching now. I tried getting into Private Practice and couldn’t. Okay, that’s not really fair. I watched the first episode and it didn’t catch me. I like my medical dramas set in hospitals. Plus, I was never truly enamoured of the character of Addison Montgomery while she was on Grey’s, so why would I follow her spin-off?

Boston Legal wrapped up in the fall, and Men in Trees was cancelled last year. With the ending of ER, I’m three TV shows down in my weekly line-up! My PVR could use the break. I’ve added Castle to the line-up, frankly because one of the main characters is a writer and I like seeing how his profession influences the story. Haven’t decided yet if I’ll stick with it. I’m enjoying it, but if it disappeared, I wouldn’t miss it. And, what the heck, I’ll try Southland next Thursday. I haven’t watched a cop drama since Hill Street Blues, so I’ll give it a whirl.

I really enjoyed the ER series finale. After suffering super disappointing finales when Seinfeld and Will & Grace ended, both NBC shows, I admit I was a little worried. But the story lines and relationships all wrapped up nicely, and the introduction of Mark Greene’s daughter, Rachel, as a newbie medical student was a  nice touch that brought the series full circle. Okay, so Doug Ross and Carol Hathaway were missing from the finale, but I loved how the series caught up with them last week. And, after all this time, I think the character of Dr. John Carter has finally grown on me.

So, bye-bye ER. I rarely buy DVD box sets of TV series. In fact, the only one I do have is Sex and the City, because My Liege and the boys saw fit to buy them for me. But I think I sense an ER collection in my future. And I love the idea of watching the series from the beginning again, see if I can catch any guest stars making double appearances as different characters (naughty, naughty). And who wouldn’t want to watch Dr. Romano lose his arm to a helicopter blade again? The arrogrant twerp.

Did you watch ER? Will you miss it? Which character(s) did you enjoy the most?

Automated Query Responses

I was surfing agent websites last week and came upon one that said the agent hoped to reply to every query, but could only promise to reply to the queries that sparked her interest. This got me thinking about my agent searches in the past and the “No Response Means We’re Not Interested” practice. While I understand how busy agents are and the quantity of queries they receive, I do wish there was a way a writer could at least receive acknowledgement that her query has been logged. It’s terribly frustrating to wait four – six months for a reply only to follow up and discover that the agent didn’t receive the query in the first place. Can not the query email address send out an automated “Your query has been received” message? You know, like the messages you receive when the person you’ve emailed has gone out of town?

As it so happens, BookEnds agent Jessica Faust opened up her blog yesterday to complaints about agents. I only had time to scan the Comment trail, and lo and behold one of the most major complaints was this “No Response Means We’re Not Interested” practice, when, for a writer, “No Response” might and can mean, “You’re Lost in My Spam Filter,” or “I Know It’s Been Ten Months, But I’m Still Undecided about the Partial.” The same idea I suggest here was suggested several times. Why NOT set up a special email address for queries and then have that email address automatically respond to every query with a form “We’ve Received Your Query and Will Get Back to You if We’re Interested” note?

See, we can understand not receiving a reply after our original query has been acknowledged. It’s not knowing if the query even arrived that causes the frustration.

If anyone can think of cons to automated replies to email queries, feel free to list them here.

By the way, I don’t believe BookEnds practices “No Response = Lack of Interest.” When I scanned the Comments trail of Jessica’s post, it reminded me that I had this post in my Drafts folder, so I dug it out. Timing is everything, doncha know?

14 Names

Because it’s April Fools Day, I’m posting something foolish. Filched from Avery Beck…

1. YOUR REAL NAME: Cynthia Cindy Lee Lou Procter-King (okay, that’s a slight exaggeration, but it sure drove SEW nuts when we were kids, so it’s worth it).

2. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME (mother and fathers middle names): Jean Andrew (Yawwwwwwn).

3. NASCAR NAME (first name of your mother’s dad, father’s dad): Archibald Duke (okay, so Duke was my paternal grandfather’s nickname, but NO ONE called him William, and Archibald Duke sounds cool!)

4. STAR WARS NAME (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name): Proci (Sounds like the name of a drug!)

5. DETECTIVE NAME (favorite color, favorite animal): Wedgewood Blue Kitty-Pooch. (She runs a high class agency, I assure you).

6. SOAP OPERA NAME (middle name, county where you were born): What’s a county? I think that’s more an American thing. We have counties, but we don’t go around remembering them. I’ve decided this means I’m much too cultured to have a Soap Opera Name.

7. SUPERHERO NAME (2nd fav color, fav drink, add “THE” to the beginning):  The Plum Sneaky Pete (Not that I drink them often, and there’s a good reason for that!). Do I have a cool Superhero name or what?

8. FLY NAME (first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name): Cing :::calling Jeff Goldlum::: :::Jeffy, can you hear me?:::

9. ROCK STAR NAME (current pet’s name, current street name): Allie Paranoid (as in I won’t give out my current street name on my blog). Do I have a cool Rock Star Name or what?

10. PORN NAME (1st pet, street you grew up on): Bootsey Paranoid II

11. YOUR GANGSTA NAME (first 3 letters of real name plus izzle): Cinizzle

12.YOUR IRAQI NAME (2nd letter of your first name, 3rd letter of your last name, first two letters of your middle name, last two letters of your first name then last three letters of your last name): Agh, I have to think? Okay…Ioledying. Sounds like I Lay Dying. Hmmm.

13.YOUR GOTH NAME (black, and the name of one of your pets): Black Keisha. Yeah, I rumble.

14. STRIPPER NAME (name of your fav perfume, fav candy): Summer Cups.  (It’s really CK One Summer, but that doesn’t sound very stripperish). (And, I must point out, the full name of the candy is really Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, however, again, it’s a mouthful, so I cheated).

There you have it! Mock me at will.

He’s No Fool

It’s My Liege’s birthday today. Yip-yip-yap-yap! Apparently, he was born ten minutes before midnight. Hmmm…. I wonder why it is that I know more people born on March 31st, all “just a few minutes before midnight,” than any other day of the year? Today is My Liege’s birthday, the birthday of my first best friend, as well as the birthday of a good friend from high school, the daughter of a good writing buddy, and the son of another writing buddy. Hmmm…

It’s a milestone birthday for My Liege, too. How many I won’t reveal, so as not to embarrass his Over-the-Mountaintop-and-Rolling-Down-the-Other-Side hide. Let’s just there’s a tombstone on his cake.

I wish I had a picture of him as a baby to upload, but I’ve been in major Family Responsibilities Mode since Friday, including a big family dinner on Sunday to celebrate The Passing of His Youth, and I’m too exhausted to take his baby picture off the wall, remove it from the frame, scan it, cut out his brother and sister, PhotoShop it so it’s not grainy as all get-out, then pop it into this post. Yes, I’m a bad wife. But I do happen to have a photo of our first Christmas together already in the computer, as a result of scanning dozens of pictures for a PowerPoint slideshow for my parents’ anniversary three years ago. Here we be:

xmas78-steve-and-cindy

Ain’t he cute?

Hard to believe Eldest Son is now older than either of us are in this photo. We’re both teenagers here. The time, she has flown.

Jenny Bent Flies Solo

Agent Jenny Bent, formerly of Trident Media and Harvey Klinger has opened her own agency, The Bent Agency, in Brooklyn. Visit her new website for details. Well, okay, I’ll list a few of them here:

  • She’s taking e-queries
  • If you’re querying a fiction project, she wants the first ten pages pasted within the body of the email (ie. not as an attachment, people).
  • She’s hosting a blog on her site (go now, bookmark at will).

The Day After

Wow, what a rush yesterday, watching all those announcements come in. If you haven’t had a gander at the listing of RITA and Golden Heart finalists for 2009 yet, please see yesterday’s post. I linked to as many websites as I could find. Some of these authors have fantastic sites. Check ’em out!

The official list of RITA and Golden Heart finalists is now up at the RWA website.

If you’re a Golden Heart finalist and haven’t yet heard that double finalist Elizabeth Bemis has started up a Yahoo group that you definitely want to join, here’s the info:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/2009-GH-Finalists/

Do join the loop! It’s not only great to celebrate with your fellow finalists, but the groups are great for discussing promotion, how to do your picture for the ceremony, what you’re wearing, who you’re getting an appointment with at National now that you have a fantastic reason to attend—all that good stuff.  

Now, for those of you who didn’t final…take heart! I’m especially talking about the Golden Heart contest. This was the second year I entered the RITA as Penny. I didn’t final, and so I can tell you from my own experience that not finaling in the RITA doesn’t feel anywhere near as earth-shattering as not finaling in the Golden Heart. Of course, when you enter the RITA, you’re already published. The RITA is icing on the cake, can be a great carrot to dangle to editors and agents (sometimes your own editor and even your current publishing house, let’s say, if you’re not getting the, um, attention there that you deserve). And, let’s face it, finaling is a heckuva lot of fun. However, when you enter the Golden Heart, often you can feel like it’s THE way to get published. If you don’t final, you’ve lost your chance.

I’m here to tell you that you haven’t lost your chance. Far from it. While many Golden Heart finalists go on to sell either their GH manuscript or another manuscript, I’m pretty sure just as many don’t. Okay, I don’t have stats, but several finalists final for several years before they sell. Finaling isn’t a sure-thing ticket to a contract. That said, it’s a heckuva lot of fun, too. I do believe it does open doors in query letters to editors and agents. It might not get your book sold, but it might get it a closer look, or even a request that otherwise might not come your way.

If you didn’t final this year, keep working on your writing and enter again next year! Believe in yourself and don’t give up. I entered the Golden Heart for several years before finaling. In fact, I finaled the last year I was eligible to enter (oddly, due to an unforeseen series of circumstances, I’m still waiting to hear if that manuscript sells—two years later). Two years before I finaled, I wrote an article for the Q&A page of my website called Why Keep Entering the Golden Heart. Wanna check it out? Here’s the handy link.

Oh, before I forget, someone asked me in private email why there are 8 or 9 finalists in some categories and only 3 in others. Don’t quote me, I don’t have the official word, but, as far as I know, the way it works is that each category needs a minimum of 25 entries to go ahead. If the category receives less than 25 entries, it’s cancelled for that year. So, if you see only 3 finalists in a category, that means the category had over 25 entries, but fewer than 40. The finalists are supposed to represent, I do believe, the top 10% of entrants in each category. If a category winds up with 9 finalists, guess what? That’s the most competitive category of either RITA or Golden Heart, because 9 finalists means 90 or more writers entered that category alone! Phew!

Again, congratulations to all the finalists. If I’ve screwed up the 10% thingie (and you know for sure that I have; you’re not just saying it to make me look bad, LOL), please let me know. And, if anyone has other questions about the contests, if I feel I can answer them, I will surely attempt to do so.