Sam's A to Z

I've been meaning to plug Sam Hayes' great series of posts on writing ever since a post by Neil Ayres pointed me to them some time back. But, then I've also been meaning to lose some weight, pick up all the books piled next to our bed, and mow the side yard, and those haven't happened either.

But sending you off to her posts is something I can do without too much trouble, so here it is at last. Her first in the series is A is for Agent, and an impressive tale of rejection it is, even to hardened, jaded types like myself. She's up to F is for Foreign Rights now. (There's a sidebar on her blog that allows you to click through to any of the posts in the series.)

Sue Grafton*, author of the Kinsey Millhone alphabetic mysteries, once said she wished someone had reminded her that there were twenty-six letters in the alphabet. (Janet Evanovich faces an even more daunting task, as there are an infinite number of integers, and she's only up to Fearless Fourteen. One can only look forward to such titles as Sesquipedalian Sixty-Seven and Excessive Eight Thousand Eight Hundred and Eighty-Eight.) But twenty-six blog posts isn't an insurmountable challenge for a steady blogger like Sam, and I imagine she'll get through it in a year or two.

I'm looking forward to the remaining twenty.

Meanwhile, we're off to Miracle Hot Springs in the nearby desert, where we will be soaking in hot water and staring at the stars until the Xmas madness subsides. Happy Holidays, y'all.


*I enjoy Grafton's novels, but I was disappointed when she didn't title her third book C is for Stupid. How often do you get a chance like that?

She's out around "T" these days, I believe, and there's much speculation on the fast-approaching "X".