David Thayer

According to Publishers Weekly Minotaur is escalating the ARC wars with 4,000 galleys set for BEA distribution of Chelsea Cain’s novel HEARTSICK. According to PW reporter Rachel Deahl, “four thousand galleys, stuffed in clear evidence bags, were mailed to booksellers and the press last week, making the September novel appear it was culled from the scene of a crime.” ( Some paraphrasing here but that’s the gist.)

Matthew Baldacci is the VP of Marketing at Minotaur which is an imprint of St. Martins Press part of the Holtzbrinck empire. Mr. Baldacci says the effort is costing SMP “a significant amount of money.”

Financial editor of the Druidical & Literary, Stanley Morgan, although fictitious, has this to say: “A significant amount of money is one billion dollars. I don’t think this campaign will spend more than a few hundred thousand.”

None of the D&L’s literary team is familiar with Chelsea Cain’s work. A quick check with Marge, the afternoon cashier at Eddie’s Book Nook revealed that another publisher recently mailed her an entire author in lieu of an ARC. “That’s where the ARC wars are going,” Marge said. “Constant escalation.”

Literary critic Ildephonse Macaroni could not be reached for comment. His WIP I COOK is entering the pre-auction frenzy his agent Lydia Careerbreaker calls “robust.” Mr. Macaroni is prepared to be air-mailed to anyone whose anyone but not everyone whose anyone for fear of “reprisals.” Thus many who are someone may be disappointed but no one who is anyone will be overlooked.

From the Wellington Leg Archives: We’ve reproduced remarks attributed to an archivist whose apartment became a prison then a condo and  then a co-op before reprivatizing into a prison, who, by city ordnance, must remain anonymous. His blog was unearthed by archaelogists who weren’t looking for blogs at all but rather in an attempt to understand life in the Old City at the turn of the century uncovered a mural etched in the dank clay beneath the substrata depicting a pre-volcanic event believed to be associated with “writing.”

“gathering my wits I seize control of this blog in an attempt to create a human highlight reel out of which will come a clarity once thought so elusive as to be unobtainable. armed with that clarity I will convey what should have been said ages ago before the desire to blog first stirred, before cassius walmartus boxed us in, before my trivial concerns, condo, co-op, bubble, high velocity spatter first manifest…”

We do know this much: shortly before the meteor struck, Wellington Leg was ruled by Cassius W. Many of his Parking Regulations and Decrees survived the impact and subsequent confusion. “He was a human highlight reel,” noted Historian Bron Palaver. “We believe the author of the blog may have harbored a seditious inclination toward the Status Quo, born of an inability to play the bounce in Wellington Leg’s always frothy literary wars.”

Perhaps we’ll never know. The reign of Cassius W. ended abruptly in AD 2007 when a fishmonger hurled a salmon against the windshield of the emperor’s late model Volkswagen. Whether by accident or design this “fender bender” preceded a meteor strike which in turn caused Mount Veneer to bury the towne in magma. Perhaps it explains why both blogging and salmon hurling remain forbidden to this day long after the Restoration.

We hoped you’ve enjoyed this historical interlude from the Wellington Leg Archives. Tomorrow we’ll examine “likely causes of the Second Punic War” Will Hannibal Barca sack and burn Barcelona? Big H is back and he’s blogging about it.  It’s a Wellington Leg exclusive.

Wellington Leg: An attempt to reach the highest star came acropper this morning when the Earl of Watership Down vanished into the decorated branches of a one hundred foot Sitka spruce. “He’s been in there for several hours,” noted Publicist of Gloom Lars Kierkegaard. “It was a vainglorious attempt to adjust the star that graces the very tip of the mighty tree,” Lars continued. “Several maritime creatures had conspired to move the star closer to true north,” he added.

DCI Borchardt, on duty this festive weekend, rushed to the scene of the earl’s mysterious disappearance. “This is a hoax,” he muttered. Three penguins of uncertain origin were observed “falling off the curb” by eye-witness Eugenia Gadfly of GreatBigTreesGoFlying Avenue. “Mrs. Gadfly also reported receiving VOLTAIRE’S MIASMA as a Christmas gift,” Borchardt said. “What fiend would do such a thing?”

Elsewhere in the Leg, Wilfredo Tagesblatt reported that the Guillotine is working again. “I’m making scalloped potatoes,” he added. “This is great.”

At the Tower, Mrs. Anderson-Cooper, QC, wished everyone “Seasons Greetings.” Her phalanx of elderly Walmart doormen pressed through towne “in search of hooligans,” but were flummoxed by the earl’s “vanishment.” The Prosecutrix, who’d seen an owl on her balcony, remained indoors studying film of the Raiders offense.

With Costco closed, police units withdrew from the Overflow Lot where Roman skirmishers were sighted last week. DCI Borchardt suspects these strange doings are related. “The earl vanishes in a tree…penguins jump from the curb, the guillotine is working and I’m using the present tense. It’s beginning to look a lot like…Wellington Leg.”

A cab driver reported “theft of service” by an Orca shortly after midnight. The great beast swallowed the aging Marathon before spitting it out. The cabbie had been reading ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE when the Orca struck. He was breathalyzed and dragged before Judge Hamilcar Frist. “We danced the night away,” the judge remarked. Prinz Pomerol of Regensburg reporting.

With the earl in custody Wellington Leg officials are debating the future of the I HAVE SEEN THE EARL ESSAY CONTEST. Thus far four hundred and thirty bona fide entries have arrived at the Praesidium. WPC Mavis Davis-Gavus has taken charge of the essays, each one carefully labeled “essay” after the near disastrous incident with Wellington Leg Waste Management’s roving Recycle Squad. Davis-Gavus is herself a contestant although she is quick to point out that rather than seeing the earl during his interlude of freedom, she “imagined” the encounter during tai chi in Mad Hatter Park. “He was swathed in striped toothpaste,” she recalled. “I thought he looked sad.”

D.Rumsfeld, Proprietor of the Crutched Lynx on Great Balls of Fire Strasse, will judge the entries with the assistance of the Reading Auxiliary, a volunteer organization. Rumsfeld, faithful readers recall, is a promoter of Reading Under Water, a controversial method of appreciating literature. “The pages may be carried off by a rip tide,” warned Underwater Reader Professor Moriarity. “Indeed, the reader may be swept out to sea.” Beginners are urged to utilize a Fred Flintstone Pool and short stories. Professor Moriarity cautioned against reading the Earl’s work near bodies of water known for “tidal flux.”

Mrs. Bonita Beauregard owner of a vegan restaurant near Rittenhaus Circus has entered four essays since the earl’s incarceration.  Business has been brisk since the Decima Claudia Legion pitched camp nearby. Her soy and cornmeal confections are especially popular with the invaders. Good service is essential says she, otherwise, “Roman troops will throw javelins at the wait staff.”  Concetta Comedia della Arta reporting.

This isn’t a dry cleaning blog and it pains me to confess I didn’t know there was such a thing. Anyway I appreciate all the traffic and hope you guys enjoy a book or two when you’re not blogging about dry cleaning.

The blog is adding new feature as of this weekend. We invite attendees of writers conferences and literary events to tell us how they fared at the conferences. Conferences like SDSU in January and the San Francisco Writers Conference in February have wrapped up. Let us know how you enjoyed the events.

Max Magee at the Millions brought up the subject of historical fiction in a post last week. Jenny Davidson offered a serious list of books in the comments section. You can access the discussion via Metaxu Cafe or Scott Esposito’s Conversational Reading. Historical fiction is a huge area populated by numerous sub-genres that embrace traditional elements of adventure, romance, suspense, mystery and family saga. This does not begin to cover the waterfront; some historicals have teeth, big teeth, as in Count Vlad, dark antagonist of The Historian. Arturo Perez-Reverte has a series set in Spain during the Inquisition. Lewis Purdue has been writing thrillers with historical twists for years; I won’t mention Dan Brown.

I chose first century Rome as the setting for The Year of the Four Emperors. I’d read Tacitus years ago; his Annaleswas written in the last decade of the first century AD. My introduction to Roman history came in Latin class reading Caesar’s Conquests and Cicero. I enjoyed that stuff; other sources include Petronius, a contemporary of Nero and Josephus, author of The Jewish War. My protagonist, Troianus, is a veteran of Judea transferred to Spain in AD 68. He arrives just in time for the civil war between Galba and Nero. His love interest Liviana is a novitiate of Ceres; the religion of Rome included a tradition of female warriors that dates back to their struggles with the Etruscans. Liviana is an expert with a bow and arrow. The book’s climax involves the death of Nero reimagined to include Troianus and Liviana at the fateful moment. The novel covers the months between March and June of  that tumultuous year.

Okay you’re in a bar. It’s a working man’s bar, not a roost for fast trackers. You’ve got your butt on a cracked vinyl stool with a boiler maker in a front of you. The bartender is called Ernie. A ballgame is on but the TV is muted. There would be a haze of smoke but city ordnances forbid smoking. Drinking’s okay though. You get into an argument with a guy named Rafe who has had a few; Rafe’s a big guy and a loud mouth, a troublemaker. He says something like Dennis Lehane sucks; you call Rafe an ignorant lout. Rafe sez you suck you say he sucks Ernie sez knock it off.

Two years pass. Seasons change. If the bar had a calendar, pages would fall off. Ernie has a new haircut, a kind of weird white guy fade that makes his ears blow up like balloons, but he keeps Court TV on mute, otherwise that really loud lady would scare all the drinkers to death. Anyway Rafe ambles over and socks you in the nose and sez Dennis Lehane sucks. Huh? That argument ended in a draw two years ago. I was talking to Bert this morning and he told me we’d heard from an editor on a submission we made two years ago. The guy had some nice things to say about the submission but I’m thinking why did he wait two years. Ernie, explain this to me. Ernie?

Okay you’re in a bar. It’s a working man’s bar, not a roost for fast trackers. You’ve got your butt on a cracked vinyl stool with a boiler maker in a front of you. The bartender is called Ernie. A ballgame is on but the TV is muted. There would be a haze of smoke but city ordnances forbid smoking. Drinking’s okay though. You get into an argument with a guy named Rafe who has had a few; Rafe’s a big guy and a loud mouth, a troublemaker. He says something like Dennis Lehane sucks; you call Rafe an ignorant lout. Rafe sez you suck you say he sucks Earnie sez knock it off.

Two years pass. Seasons change. If the bar had a calendar pages would fall off. Earnie has a new haircut, a kind of weird white guy fade that makes his ears blow up like balloons, but he keeps Court TV on mute otherwise that really loud lady would scare all the drinkers to death. Anyway Rafe ambles over and sucks you in the nose and sez Dennis Lehane sucks. Huh? That argument ended in a draw two years ago. I was talking to Bert this morning and he told me we’d heard from an editor on a submission we made two years ago. The guy had some nice things to say about the submission but I’m thinking why did he wait two years. Earnie, explain this to me. Earnie?

Literary agent Donald Maass ran his breakout novel seminar in San Jose Costa Rica, no San Jose California this weekend. My sister attended, telephoning this reporter before the Saturday night mixer.

San Jose is in the heart of Silicon Valley and I wondered what genre dominated among the attendees. So close to Google HQ in Mountain View, so close to the Roman garrison at Monterey, yet distant from Hollywoodland, what are forty writers in the Valley likely to work on? When I attended Don’s class in Seattle it broke down this way: 21 fantasy, 12 traditional romance, 8 traditional sci-fi, 3 romantic sci-fi, 3 historical fantasy, and one noir thriller.

Terri has written a mystery that centers around a quilt show. She’s a quilter, so that makes sense. Her classmates are probably venture capital specialists or software engineers so I’d speculate the manuscripts breakdown like this: 1 quilter mystery, 4 venture capital thrillers, 11 vc romantic suspense, 7 fantasy Google Rules the World, 9 paranormal venture capital thrillers, 2 books about traffic, and 1 burning Angles, ruddy cheeks adventure about the sacking of York.

Donald Maass is an excellent teacher and the class is worthwhile if you fit one of the following categories: a working novelist, close to publication, or have two or three training novels under your belt. His focus is on writing novels that will perform well in the marketplace; if you’re at the beginner level, try reading The Career Novelist or the Breakout Novel Workbook before investing in the class.