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Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Teaser Tuesday - Mystic Taxi

I haven't posted since last Wednesday because not much is going on. Or I should say nothing much is going on in the publishing world since it's pretty much shut down for the holidays. Not everything is closed, but most things.

Jessica Faust of Bookends is giving her readers a special holiday gift by offering to critique random pitches posted to the comments section of her December 19th blog post. Unfortunately, a good number of posters don't know how to follow directions and they posted entire query letters or synopses. LOL! It amazes me that thse writers who care enough to read Jessica's daily informative posts are clueless what a pitch is. And twice her post specifically asks for a "one paragraph" pitch. People are posting up to five paragraphs or more! Simply amazing. What a way to impress an agent. I have to wonder what part of one paragraph don't these people understand?

I got some good news last night when I learned I made the cut for the second round of Karin Tabke's first line contest. Yippee! I'm now in the top sixty out of a hundred. So I got to post my third line. Karin is waiting until after the new year to post the results of the third round, and in that one only five entries will be cut instead of twenty. There are some great entries, and I was sad to see a few of my favorites not make it through. Sigh. I'm eager to see how far I get with Mystic Taxi. If you'd like to follow along with the contest results, go here.

Speaking of Mystic Taxi, I have a teaser to post for Tuesday! The following is a brief excerpt from my steampunk urban fantasy novel in progress:

***********************************

Mystic slammed the passenger side door a second time. Then locked it.

"What's with you, Mystic?" Henry grabbed the taxi's door handle and gave it yank. It didn't budge.

"I don't think it likes me much," Wanda said as she leaned against a lamppost to watch. "It's not going to let me in."

"Mystic is a she, not an it." He gave the cab's hood an affectionate pat. "You hurt her feelings."

Wanda snorted. "Feelin's? Who you tryin' to kid? That machine feels about as much as this here lamppost."

"You're wrong," Henry said. Mystic was afraid of Wanda, and he didn't blame her. The exorcist could easily pull Mystic's demon soul right out of the cab and send it straight to Hell. Mystic didn't belong there. She belonged with Henry.

"It ain't happenin', friend. We might as well take the tube." Wanda pushed away from the lamppost and started down the sidewalk, joining the other pedestrians who made up the afternoon rush.

When Henry started to follow, both the taxi's front doors flew open. A few passersby stopped to give it a startled look, then quickly moved on.

Henry grinned. "It looks like she changed her mind."

2 comments:

Suzanne McLeod said...

Congrats, Karen :-)

Go Henry, Go!

Barbara Martin said...

Karen, you're right and I am speechless there were less than 20 comments who presented one paragraph, and only a small portion of that amount actually had a short concise paragraph. It must be the desperation to get an agent at any cost.

All the best over the seasonal holidays.