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Kvůli epidemii koronaviru se vláda na čas vzdá EET, projektu, který vnímá jako klíčový pro snížení daňových úniků. Sněmovna kývla na odklad celé EET do konce letošního roku. Potvrdit to ještě musí Senát. Neprošly návrhy opozice odložit EET ještě déle, když přitom Pirát Mikuláš Ferjenčík navrhoval odklad až do stých narozenin premiéra Andreje Babiše v roce 2054.

Ve Spojených státech v dubnu zaniklo rekordních 20,5 milionu pracovních míst. Míra nezaměstnanosti vzrostla na 14,7 procenta z březnových 4,4 procenta. Dostala se tak na nejvyšší úroveň od velké hospodářské krize ve 30. letech minulého století.

４／東京２０２０パラリンピック全２２競技

【パラバドミントン】

背に背負う羽根は糧となり

愛と勇気で魅了する赤い羽根さばき

華麗な蝶人円舞に心踊り

胸に刻まれるエンブレム

今切り拓こう

跳ねるの扉

《障がいの有無に関わらず

人間の無限の可能性を

世界の輪の中へ…一緒に》

エッセイ『歩~僕の足はありますか？』発売中

こちらから↓

https://www.shufu.co.jp/bookmook/detail/978-4-391-15356-9/

本日２月２８日（金）
２２時〜２２時４５分
BSスカパー！
PARA SPORTS NEWS
『アスリートプライド』


ゲストは

前回のアスリートプライドも

ご覧くださいまして有り難うございました。

ゲストは、

いつもスタジオを和やかな空気にしてくださいます清水宏保さんと

スポーツライターの宮崎恵理さんをスタジオゲストにお迎えして、

東京パラリンピックの競技開催が不安視されている

車いすバスケの障がいクラス分け問題を語って頂きました。

障がいの程度は、人それぞれでその中で一定の基準を設けることは大変難しいと思います。

この問題で有力選手が競技に参加できなくなってしまうこともあり得ます。

さらに車いすバスケだけでなく、各競技、そのクラス分けによって選手にとっては人生が左右される程にもなる問題です。

少しでもクリアにしてなるべく早くに結論を出して、選手の皆様が競技に集中できる環境を作ってほしいです。

また、コロナウイルスの影響で、依然としてパラリンピック開催も曖昧な状況下、選手、関係者の皆様の練習やモチベーションを保つのは大変かと思います。

最高で万全の形で選手が実力を最大限に発揮し、また世界が一つに笑い合えることを信じてます。

微力ではありますが、僕としてもアスプラとしてもこれからも全力で応援していきたいと思います。

エッセイ『歩~僕の足はありますか？』発売中

こちらから↓

https://www.shufu.co.jp/bookmook/detail/978-4-391-15356-9/

Question/s
I've queried fifty-six agents. Five requested my full manuscript. They all passed. I now have these questions: Regarding my MC's name, I know your mind turns to CODE NAME VERITY. This isn't what I want. But, I want to use the name and there's an etymological reason. Is this foolish? Should I mention that the novel is told in two points of view? Would it be relevant to mention my writer's group in my bio? And should I include my published novel even though it didn't achieve robust sales?

Dear Query Shark,

Sixteen-year-old Verity Callahan has the ability to know the true answer to every question she's asked. When she was fourteen, she learned minutes before it happened that her father would die in a car crash — and yet, she failed to save him.

She's tried to bury her ability, but now it's manifesting in new ways. She's burdened with more information than ever before. What's worse, she's compelled to blurt it all out. She never asked for this. She wants to be normal.

Her younger brother Lucas Callahan is an empath whose power is growing. He will manipulate anyone's emotions to get what he wants: access to the best Ivy League institutions and a life of power and prestige. And once he understands what Verity can do, he imagines all they could do together.

But Verity has found happiness with her new boyfriend, Will McConnall. Lucas wants Verity and her abilities under his control. Realizing he'll never get that with Will in her life, Lucas devises a drastic plan to eliminate him.

By answering one fateful question after another, Verity learns of Lucas's scheme. She must hone the very abilities she detests to thwart Lucas's plot, or lose Will forever and become Lucas's puppet.

TRUTH BE TOLD, a young adult contemporary fantasy novel, is 101,000 words.

My first novel, (title), was published by (press name) in 2009. I wrote the novel while earning a master's degree in creative writing at (named) College. I completed the Creative Writing Summer Programme at the University of (other name).

Thank you for your time and consideration.


Regarding your questions:

I've queried fifty-six agents. Five requested my full manuscript. They all passed. I now have these questions: Regarding my MC's name, I know your mind turns to CODE NAME VERITY. This isn't what I want. But, I want to use the name and there's an etymological reason. Is this foolish?

No. Verity is a fine, old-fashioned name.

Should I mention that the novel is told in two points of view?

It doesn't matter.


Would it be relevant to mention my writer's group in my bio?

No. Your writers group is absolutely irrelevant.
And should I include my published novel even though it didn't achieve robust sales?
Yes


And here's the answer to the question you didn't ask: what's wrong with my query.

Nothing. You're getting requests. The agents are passing after they've read the ms. That means you have a problem in the manuscript, not the query.

There are a couple of ways to work on that. All of them are going to require some financial investment. You can engage an outside editor to look at your novel and identify areas that need to be revised. You can enroll in a class about novel writing. Grub Street in Boston offers these. You can bid on (and win!) an auction item wherein an agent offers a manuscript critique.


When you're considering who to work with look for actual, and recent experience in trade publishing on the acquisitions side of things.  You need help from people actually in the publishing trenches, because what agents want is a book they can sell.
Your query has done her job. Time for the manuscript to step up.

Questions:

1) I know Shark Rules state housekeeping goes at the end. And I know my first paragraph goes completely against that. But it seems to be exactly what this particular agent is asking for on their website. And I know they're looking for thrillers. Should I still follow Shark Rules?


2) A friend who directed an Oscar-nominated movie has suggested I query this agent. The movie was adapted from a book by an author who is repped by this agent. A lot of the agent's clients have had their books made into movies and apparently that's important to them. My friend is up for helping me adapt my novel into a screenplay. Does that carry any weight? Does anyone give a rat's behind?

Dear Query Shark:

(Movie director), screenwriter and director of (Oscar-nominated movie), suggested I query you since you represent (author whose book was made into the movie). SEA BLADE is a 98,000-word adult thriller. It is the first book in a planned series. The main character is a man of color I would describe as James Bond meets Indiana Jones. As a former (military) officer, I think you'll like the concept.

Never tell an agent what you think they'll like.
It's like saying "this is funny" before telling a joke.
Half the fun for us is the sense of discovery.

It's one thing to mention the connection you have to the agent in the first paragraph. Don't go overboard by putting all that other info there as well.

It was supposed to be a routine job for Jet Morgan and his ex-girlfriend Maggie. Recover a Mayan artifact that holds the key to a billion dollars in gold from a pyramid in Belize. Then smuggle it past the drug dealers into Panama. But then Nathaniel Lynch, Jet's old boss, Nathaniel Lynch, at the CIA, shows up. Things rocket from routine to insane in 2.9 seconds. And Jet and Maggie are thrust into an international incident - China's imminent invasion of Taiwan.

If you put the name Nathaniel Lynch first, we don't know who he his.
If you let us know he's Jet's old boss FIRST, then, it has a connection to what we've read, and it makes sense. This is flow. It's making sure your reader doesn't stop and think "huh?"

I hate artifact-driven plots with a passion, but that's just me.
(I did manage to watch all the Indiana Jones movies without any trouble at all.)

Lynch stole Ultra Top Secret U.S. naval plans for Sea Blade, an unprecedented new class of submarine, and sold them to Taiwan. Now he needs Jet, once the CIA's top covert operative, to steal them back and stop the invasion. And to skip the 'being killed for treason' part, he'll need the artifact to personally finance the unsanctioned mission.

Well, this is actually a rather good use for an artifact.

But Jet's no longer a spy. He steals Mesoamerican antiquities now, not secrets. So Lynch desperately offers up his new business partner Ricardo Lopez, the reclusive Mexican billionaire who murdered Jet's wife and child, to lure him back in.


The mere thought of killing Lopez calls to Jet like a needle to the vein calls to a trembling junkie. But pulling the trigger on that fix could backfire on him. Helping a traitor like Lynch is suicide. He Jet and Maggie will be dodging CIA assassins the second Lynch gets what he wants. But if Jet doesn't help, the unthinkable will happen - war with China.

It's very easy to throw too much into a query.
You only need to entice me read the pages, not tell me about all of the plot points in Act One.

Put the word count, and other housekeeping items here.

With my science background, I was compelled to do proper research. In the process, I was shot at in Mexico, got hammered in Key West, dove with sharks and climbed pyramids in Belize, and fell in love with Panama.
I'm a chiropractor who now cracks creative-writing books. I studied writing at the Iowa Writers' Workshop and with Bret Anthony Johnston, internationally bestselling author and former Director of Creative Writing at Harvard University. Bret is up for providing a blurb, and (movie director) is up for helping me adapt SEA BLADE into a screenplay. With my science background, I was compelled to do proper research. In the process, I was shot at in Mexico, got hammered in Key West, dove with sharks and climbed pyramids in Belize, and fell in love with Panama.

Start with the interesting stuff.
You don't need the creds for your blurbers. If I know them, I already know it. If I don't I google.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

You can break the rules all you want, but it helps to understand WHY they are rules first. Putting the housekeeping stuff at the end is a rule because it forces you to put the story first.

Thus, putting something ahead of the story is ok, but you know to keep it to a minimum; just the info that will boost your chances of the agent reading the query. 

Early interest from someone about the screenplay is great, but you're querying an agent about selling  a book. "Interest from Hollywood" doesn't help sell a book; we know how nebulous that is. 

"Optioned for film" is better, and "started principal photography yesterday" better yet.  In other words, the closer you are to actually getting something made, the more it will help.  

Right now it's all hot air.  The reason you DON'T include it is that if you do, an agent is likely to think you don't understand how nebulous it is.

Questions:
Is my bio too long? I've been struggling with it since I don't have any credentials or formal education as of the moment, but I do have some things I felt were important to mention.


Dear Query Shark,

Cinis was eating breakfast when the first bomb hit.

This seems like one of those sentences that should work, doesn't it?
But it doesn't really. Cause everyone is doing something when the bombs hit.
Breakfast is as good as any.

A good first sentence in a query needs to grab your reader's attention and makes them wonder "what will happen now?"

You've got a pretty good candidate for that kind of sentence. It's the last one in the paragraph

Everybody was caught off guard, sure, but they knew the attack would come sooner or later; the Humans had known about Amarith for decades now. But the day had finally arrived:
This one: The Humans had come, and they had not come in peace.

Cinis and twenty other Amarithians were forced to flee. With nowhere else to go, they ran to Earth,

this is a classic example of saying the same thing twice, albeit in different words.

fleeing and running are the same thing here.

You can revise this sentence:

With nowhere else to go, Cinis and twenty other Amarithians were forced to flee to Earth
 hoping to hide in plain sight.

Eight years have passed, and later, just before Cin loses has lost all hope of returning to her planet, a new friend reveals life-changing information.

 what is the info?

Now, Cin and her friends must make a decision, one that could decide the fate of two planets, and all who inhabit them.

What's the decision?

My science fiction novel, Human (115,000 words), is the first in a planned series. The work takes on the point of view of several characters, all of whom keep “war logs”, through which the story is told.

I’m a staff member of a popular (name) server which has over 500 members dedicated to reading and discussing each other’s work.

This is another one of those things that sound good, but my first question is do they BUY the books of the members? Discuss all you want, but you don't get paid (me either) until a book has a sales slip.


I’ve always been an advocate for the fight against climate change, and my fascination with the environment only aids my writing as ideals of preservation and human pollution can be traced throughout my work. I also would like to point out my unique position as both a member of the LGBT community, and a woman, making this novel a #ownvoices contributor, as several main characters share one or both of these traits.

You're not the only (ie unique) woman who's part of the LGBT community. Saying this makes me think you don't understand what unique means.

Words are your tools.
If you keep hitting your thumb with a hammer, I'm not hiring you to hang sheetrock.

Thank you for your consideration.


email
phone
Twitter


There isn't enough here to catch your reader's interest. It's all pretty bland, and that is death in a query. A horrible beige death of zero cuts.

There's no sense of drama or tension because you've said they get info, but not what it is, and have to make a decision, but not what that is.

Dig in. Be specific. Use vibrant language. And use it well.

Donald Trump is getting nervous. Internal polls show him losing in November unless the economy comes...

I'm sure he's charming when you get to know him.

As a rule, the more intricate and over-worked the doodle, the worse the writing's going...

Vroom.

This is from the tour show. It's the image we put up at the start of the sketch about the designer of the snake, to try to get across the idea of an animal design department. Tomorrow, I'll put up the image that replaces it when the head of the department says he has one or two questions about the new design...

'...So, basically a tube?'

After Ken Anderson

All these things can be clicked for bigger-er, by the way.

Oh no.
It's happened again. 



We've got Muppets.

Apologies if this is baffling to non-Brits. But count yourselves lucky.