Okay, literary types

(and all other friends and visitors who

happened to have stumbled on this post today) –

Here’s the first paragraph of my work-in-progress, as submitted today to Curtis Brown Literary Agent Nathan Bransford for consideration in his unofficial first paragraph of works-in-progress contest.  Please tell me YOUR response! 

Please be straightforward, honest, and bare-knuckled.  Does this sound like a book you would consider purchasing?  Why or why not?

She’s the only one who knows the professor’s been mobster-muscled into this impossible middle-of-the-night task. As he trudges through freezing desolate winter wetlands mud and drizzle in search of a hundred-pound dead turtle, she paces. She’ll work on it with him once he finds it and brings it back, but for now, Maddigan is on his own. He must trek through miles of slop to locate the corpse that’s anchored into the mud and ice-slick weeds at some vaguely calibrated point aligned with a corona-enwreathed Atlantic City skyline he can scarcely see. Once he’s there, and pulls it from the sucking mud, hefts it to his shoulder, and lugs it back to the Jeep, he must get it home.  He knows JP will then be waiting —with hatchet, knives and crowbar— to help him find the embedded microchip.”

  

Thank you! Hal

See Nov 29th post (below) for New Year’s contest prize and rules – Then GO FOR IT!  Emails to Hal@TheWriterWorks.com with “SOUNDS OF THE SEASON” in the subject line.  # # #

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 93 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

“The difference between 

the almost right word

and the right word is 

really a large matter— 

’tis the difference

between

the lightning-bug

and the lightning.”

     Whether for business or pleasure, for commercial reward or literary accolades . . . when you’re writing an advertisement, commercial, website, direct mail piece, news release, brochure, billboard, matchbook cover, a poem or short story, a fiction or nonfiction book chapter, a technical report, business plan, magazine or newspaper item or feature, a speech, photo caption, letter to the editor or a letter to your lover . . . remember Mark Twain’s words above.

     He was right, indeed! 

     Ah, you may say, but he’s ancient, and that was in the days of yore!  The truth?  He might just as well have said it this morning! 

     Writers will do themselves (and their readers) the greatest justice, achieve maximum impact, and most effectively march their persuasion skills to the beat of a different drum when they follow one simple rule of thumb (or pen, or keyboard). 

     It is the single most dramatically productive guideline that directly addresses the sentiments of Mark Twain’s quote, and where oh where does it originate? 

     Why from surgeons of course!  Where else?  And where did those super skilled, robotic, ice-water-veined ER and OR scalpel-slicers learn the trick? 

     Why, where else but from the friendly neighborhood carpenter. And guess what?  If you, dear communicator friend, will follow their lead (the surgeons and carpenters — not the hammering, drilling, screwing and scalpeling), you too will discover that getting through skin, wood, paper, airwaves, and cyberspace all have one thing in common! 

     You will (I personally guarantee it) end up putting your message across more clearly, more effectively, and more persuasively than ever before if you’ll simply remember to:

Measure twice and cut once! 

And so, the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning is not far from the difference between the Conscious and the UNconscious.

They are not extreme opposites.

In the case of the bug and the lightning, one begets the other (grammatically). Consciousness also often prompts UNconsciousness, and vice versa.

In business decision making, FLEXIBILITY is king! And when there’s no time to measure, gut instinct has to kick in!

# # #

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302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!”   [Thomas Jefferson]

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!