The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by colleen lindsay:

I guess it bears repeating because in nearly every discussion I see of #queryfail, one major fact is left out: We didn't use identifiers.

We did not use real names, titles, character names, location names or any other identifiers. The vast majority of examples used were actually paraphrased.

The whining and hang-wringing and gnashing of teeth that followed #queryfail was actually kind of funny considering most of the complainers had their facts wrong.

Afterward, I got a couple of emails from clearly delusional people who threatened to kill my cats, steal my car (I don't own one) and stalk me until I made a public apology. But the conversation officially went into the loony-sphere when Godwin's Law was enacted and I was compared to a Nazi on one comment thread.

Seriously? These are the people threatening to boycott agents? PLEASE! By all means, boycott me and every other agent and editor I know. Do us a solid, man! =)

Cheers!

Hey, let people keep complaining - the more they complain, the fewer really dreadful queries we agents receive. Leaves room for those folks who are really trying. =)

Cheers!

Yikes!

Patrick, my best to you and Teresa; sending good thoughts your way. Please keep us updated.

And do be a dear: give Teresa a head-noogie and remind her that being bored in the hospital is infinitely preferable to the alternative. :-)

All the best,

Colleen

Thanks, T!

Yet another great book on my list of "things to buy when I finally find gainful employment again..."

Hey, my pal Kuo-Yu Liang from Diamond Comics just got back from New Orleans, and has a good couple of posts about it here.

Why don't you guys get together and post a list the of best, or the ones you most enjoy working with? Why should the losers get all the free publicity?

:-)

Just picked up a copy, sir!

LOVED this story, by the way. Couldn't stop laughing. :-)

Faren: speaking of plots in search of a book or movie...every year, on New Years Eve, I wonder why someone hasn't written the perfect cliche thriller involving the ball drop in Times Square. It seems to scream DIE HARD 4: WE"VE RUN OUT OF IDEAS.

Cheers!

This made me laugh my ass off. Thank you!

Who knew you'd need a degree in advanced math to time the cooking of a turkey? This is why God invented Fresh Direct.

:-)

Dang but them there's alot of typos in that last post. Sorry about that.

See? I shoulda stayed in high school. :-)

Jill wrote:
"Can we have a show of hands of people who actually work in the field that their education "qualified" them for?"

Huh. I'm guessing that unless someone were trained for a particular skillset required to do a particular job [ie, lawyer, doctor, plumber, dentist, etc...] an awful lot of folks you meet probably don't work in a job that has anything to do with their education. At least not folks who are in their late thirties or older.

I did not graduate high school myself. I went to a Catholic school for eleven years, and three years into high school my folks moved out to California and I was plopped into a public school. The public school did not count those credits my brother and I earned in "religious instruction" so we were both left back a year, to make up the credits. However, we were both bored silly by the kind of bonehead curriculum at our high school (we'd learned most of the stuff they were taching by the time we were in sixth grade) so we both ended up just dropping out rather than repeating the whole year. [Possibly not the smartest decision in the world but hey, nobody has ever once asked me for a high school diploma during a job interview so who knows?]

I did go back to college later, when I was about 25, for two years. [And in California's state school system they did not used to require high school transcripts if the returning student was more than five years out of high school.]

I wanted to study history and archaeology, knowing full well that this was merely because I was interested in the subjects, and not because this field of study would ever have any practical value in finding a job. I merrily took all the history and ancient history and creative writing courses that I could, and worked in bookstores to pay for it. Eventually I had to admit to myself that I just could not afford to keep going to school so I didn't earn a degree. Someday I'd like to go back, just for fun, and finish up a degree in something that I just like to read about.

But strangely enough it was the bookstore experience that eventualy landed me a job in publishing, first as a sales rep in the early 90's, and then again in marketing and publicity about five years ago. This is not something I ever actually thought I'd be doing when I was going to high school.

The folks that hired me were frank about the fact that they were far more interested in my retail bookselling background than my academic background. That's good cos my academic background would qualify me for...pretty much nothing at all.

How many of you out there who are in a position to hire people actually care about what someones major was in school (again, unless it's something like a required skillset like medicine, etc). I'd be curious to know.

Holy cow. I have been away from this website for far too long to have missed such gems as this post. What the bloody hell is this guy thinking? Does he not think that editors can Google? Does he not think editors can read? Heck, does he not think editors have a brain in their head? LIE??? MAKE THINGS UP???!!!

Obviously I need to go searching online more often for ridiculously bad - so bad it's entertaining - writing advice.

Thanks for the break in my day, Teresa! (still laughing uproariously...)

Don't know if any of you saw this yet, but even the Army Times is jumping in the bandwagon and calling for those in charge at the highest levels to step down. See article here

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