Page 130 of the fifth chapter of Starfighter.

Who is the top ranked prospect in the upcoming draft? Where does your favorite team pick? Check out our 2020 MLB draft coverage.

Mary Pratt, believed to be the last surviving member of the Rockford Peaches, has died at age 101.

Podle odhadu Evropské komise se česká ekonomika letos propadne o rekordní 6,2 procenta. To je více než za finanční krize v roce 2009. Se špatnými výsledky počítá odhad, který Brusel zveřejnil ve středu. Oproti evropskému průměru bude dopad koronaviru na HDP v Česku menší.

Americké trhy rostou rapidním tempem. A to i přes to, že ekonomiky po celém světě drtí koronavirus. Jejich dubnový růst je nejvyšší za desítky let – naposledy tak rychle za měsíc vyrostly v roce 1987. Nahoru akciové indexy ženou nejen vládní intervence a úspory, ale i investoři samotní.

Mezinárodní ratingová agentura Fitch Ratings snížila hodnocení úvěrové spolehlivosti Slovenska o jeden stupeň na úroveň A se stabilním výhledem. Důvodem jsou hlavně dopady koronaviru na slovenskou ekonomiku. Jde o první změnu ratingu země v době pandemie.

Česká národní banka čeká propad české ekonomiky o 8 procent. Na předkrizovou úroveň se nedostane ani v příštím roce. Restart bude záviset i na tom, jak rychle lidé začnou utrácet. Napovědí příští měsíce, kdy se víc lidí bude hlásit na úřady práce.

Studio Universal na znovuotevření kin nečeká. Premiéru animovaného hitu Trollové: Světové turné pustilo na placených digitálních kanálech. Strategie se vyplatila a hollywoodský gigant zvažuje, že by kinům v budoucnu odepřel jejich exkluzivní právo promítat filmy měsíce před uvedením na jiných platformách.

2019年もお世話になりました。

早いもので怪我をして２年３ヶ月…

今年は

哀しみも苦しみも迷いも孤独も　

喜びも楽しみも決断も絆も

全て良いも悪いも溜め込み耐え忍んだ一年

言うなれば、英気を養えた一年です。

仕事復帰…

パラスポーツ番組のＭＣ初挑戦は

今も心身共に成長させてくれています。

今も皆さんと情報交換したり意思疎通できたり

《繋がり》を保つができて嬉しく思います。

たくさんの繋がりに支えられ

節目として

エッセイ『歩』を出版できたことは大きいです。

2020年は

八重洲ブックセンターからスタートします。

ずっと応援してくれたファンの皆さんと会うのは久しぶりで…

９９%の待望と１%の不安があります。

気合いを入れて会いに行きます。

令和という新たな幕開け…

必ず、

2020年、さらに未来永劫への

大きな礎となろう年になったと

自負があります。

本年も本当に有り難うございました。

皆様、良いお年をお迎えください。　

エッセイ『歩』

こちらまで↓

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

1月11日『歩』お渡し会

八重洲ブックセンター本店

こちらまで↓

https://www.yaesu-book.co.jp/events/other/17601/  

新年明けまして

おめでとうございます

人と人

森羅万象のご縁を大切に

感謝を忘れずに

自分らしく一歩一歩…

前へと進んで生きます

本年もどうぞ宜しくお願い致します

Revision #1

Dear Query Shark,

Seventh grader Scott Winters doesn't know he has superpowers, but it sure would explain a few things. Like why there's a strange girl following him around, handing him blank business cards and picking fights with his bullies. Or why some telekinetic villain suddenly wants him dead

The villain attacks Scott at the school dance. He throws tables and speakers while shouting about how Scott ruined his life. Scott has trouble refuting this claim, because he has no idea who the man is. Fortunately, Scott's new stalker, Rachel Hunter, is secretly a junior superhero working for the FBI. She and her handlers force the villain to flee.

Now safe but thoroughly confused, Scott falls face-first into the hidden world of superpowers. He soon discovers his own powers: Immunity to other superpowers and the ability to suppress them temporarily through physical contact. Scott is ecstatic at the prospect of becoming a superhero, but trying to touch a man who can throw furniture at you from fifty yards away is as dangerous as it sounds. The FBI tell Scott to stay back and let the real heroes work. Scott begrudgingly complies, until one of those real heroes tries to kill him.


With Rachel's help, Scott manages to suppress his attacker's super strength. This somehow causes sudden amnesia. The assailant has no idea where she is or why she attacked Scott. The FBI soon discovers that the telekinetic man was also an unwitting pawn. The real villain is still out there, possessing people like a ghost. Only Scott's unique suppression ability can free the victims. So when the villain's next vessel is none other than Rachel, Scott knows its his turn to be the hero. All he has to do is save the girl... assuming she doesn't kill him first.


How to Save the Girl is the 69,000-word account of Scott's first summer as a superhero. Written by a physicist whose only superpowers are math-related, the work carries a comedic, kid-in-way-over-his-head tone inspired by the early Percy Jackson novels and Stuart Gibbs' Spy School series. [The work also features a schizophrenic deuteragonist with her own character arc.]


Thank you for your consideration, 
 If I acquired middle grade fiction, I'd read this.

----------------------------------------------------------
Initial query
Question: The query focuses largely on an act 1 subplot involving the MC's female best friend and ignores the main romance interest, whose plot doesn't rev up until late in act 2 (not good for a query). My one page synopsis (not included) is the exact opposite. It ignores the best friend entirely so it can focus on the main romance interest, whose plot structure largely parallels the main plot with the villains. I know you might not be able to answer without the synopsis, but will agents have a problem with this? I'm afraid it will feel too disconnected or misleading.


Dear Query Shark:

Seventh grader Scott Winters doesn't know he has super powers. He just knows he has problems. A bear in his school, a classmate with amnesia, a random rat infestation. Crazy things tend to happen around Scott, and he always gets the blame. So when seven of his classmates mysteriously fall into a lion habitat, Scott knows he's in trouble again. What he doesn't know is that someone just tried to kill him.


This lead paragraph is 72 words, or about 25% of your query. The ONLY information you need here is the first and last sentence.

The paragraph is well-written, and it's pretty funny, BUT it makes me think the book is about Scott getting his friends out of trouble. You don't want me to think the book is one thing when it's really something else.

So revising:

Seventh grader Scott Winters doesn't know he has super powers. He just knows he has problems. A bear in his school, a classmate with amnesia, a random rat infestation. Crazy things tend to happen around Scott, and he always gets the blame. So when seven of his classmates mysteriously fall into a lion habitat, Scott knows he's in trouble again. What he doesn't does know is that someone just tried to kill him.


Meanwhile, Scott's best friend is also in danger. Schvärtzmurgel Hoffman is three parts tomboy, two parts snark. Just don't try using her first name — she'll punch you. Schizophrenia and a terrible fashion sense earn her plenty of ridicule at school, but Hoffman's real trouble lies at home. Scott finds her with a black eye the next day. Her mother's hitting her again.

Wait. Schizophrenia? Where did that come from? And equating a debilitating mental illness with terrible fashion sense is both tone deaf and weird.

In addition, this paragraph does not relate in any way to the first paragraph. You left me wondering who's trying to kill Scott in paragraph one. Paragraph two should be something about that, not this odd curveball.


Scott already tried contacting the authorities about Hoffman's situation, but they don't believe him. Somehow Hoffman's mother always convinces the other adults that nothing's wrong. Scott settles for inviting Hoffman over as often as possible, but even this plan is jeopardized when another attempt is made on Scott's life. This time the villain reveals himself — a tall man with telekinetic abilities.

Ok so now we have the villain. You'll have to cut out all the stuff about Miss Hoffman (notice you've told us what NOT to call her, but not what her preferred name is) cause it doesn't relate AT ALL to what you've said is the main plot: someone trying to kill Scott.


Running for their lives, Scott and Hoffman are thrust into the hidden world of superpowers. Scott soon discovers his own unique power, immunity to other superpowers and the ability to suppress them temporarily. He also meets three empowered FBI agents. They take Scott and Hoffman into protective custody, which shines a spotlight on Hoffman's home life.


At this point I'm too confused to read on. What is "the hidden world of superpowers?" Where did the FBI come from? 

Scott doesn't have high hopes, but the superpowered branch of the FBI is better equipped than the local authorities. They identify Hoffman's mom as a psychic, able to manipulate the thoughts of others. It's such a dangerous power that the FBI asks Scott for help. His ability to suppress superpowers is ideal for shutting down psychics, but the telekinetic man is still at large. Scott now faces a difficult choice. Keep hiding for his own safety, or risk another attack to protect his friend.

If Hoffman's mom is a key part of the plot, you can still leave out all the abuse stuff in your query. A query needs to be sleek, not stuffed.


Written by a physicist who picked up creative writing as a way to stay sane in graduate school, HOW TO SAVE THE GIRL is a fast-paced tale full of quirky characters and superheroic hijinks. The work is 68,500 words, with a narrative style inspired by the Percy Jackson novels and Stuart Gibbs' "Spy School" series. While there is scattered humor throughout, the story does not make light of child abuse.

Doesn't make light of child abuse? Why on earth would I even think you'd do that? Don't defend yourself against accusations that haven't been made.

I don't care why you want to be a writer.

I hope there is more than scattered humor cause this is a middle grade book about superpowers. Funny is the ONLY way its going to work.

Right now this query is over stuffed. Focus on the MAIN plot.

I'm totally put off by the idea there's a romance in a middle grade novel but that's probably cause I'm thinking of romance novels. Middle grade novels are read by 4th-6th graders. I'm absolutely sure that a strong romantic element is out of place here. Boys and girls being friends is about the max on this kind of thing.


That the plot doesn't rev up until "late in Act 2" is a HUGE problem, in that when I request a full manuscript, the plot better be revved up and running by the end of Act 1 and preferably a lot sooner.

If not, I stop reading.

Middle grade readers aren't going to sit around and wait for the good stuff either.

Thank you for your time and consideration,

To answer your question: a query that doesn't match the synopsis IS confusing. The fact that they don't means you have a problem WITH THE BOOK. 

This means, before you revise the query, make sure the plot of your book is front and center in the very first pages.  

Then revise your query.

I also suspect you would benefit from reading more middle grade books. Your librarian can help you with that. She's superpowered that way.

Questions:

1.) Money is tight for me, so I can't buy new books and my library can be slow to get requests in. A CP suggested reading a summary of books so I can find comps, but that feels dishonest to me...if I don't read a book, how can I truly know it's a good comp? I thought about leaving comps out altogether, but I want to highlight my MC is an anti-hero. What's your opinion on this?

2.) I struggle heavily with depression, so I've had to take steps to protect myself from querying. I have a separate email for queries only and check it once a week, and only if I'm mentally prepared. Should I make a note in my query that my response (should I be so lucky!) may be delayed?

Dear Query Shark

Sixteen-year-old Katrell doesn’t mind talking to the dead; she just wishes it made her more money. Fifty bucks here and there isn’t enough to support her unemployed mother and her mother’s deadbeat boyfriend-of-the-week. But when she accidentally brings her dead dog back to life instead of summoning his ghost, Katrell gets dollar signs in her eyes. Talking to the dead is one thing, but people will pay top dollar to see their loved ones again.

I really like this.

Her plan runs smoothly at first. Though the resurrected people, called Revenants, don’t eat, sleep, or breathe, they’re warm and look enough like their old selves to convince her clients to part with thousands of dollars. Good enough for Katrell.

I really like this. And the best thing: I can see how the precipitating incident will lead to trouble down the road. That's a good thing when you're able to get your reader anticipating things.

But things fall apart when the Revenants aren’t docile puppets like Katrell thought. Her clients forget their loved ones ever existed and dump them on Katrell’s doorstep. Revenants rob citizens of her town and present stolen money and jewelry to Katrell. When her first Revenant graduates from theft to murder, Katrell has a decision to make. If she stops resurrecting people, she’ll be back under the poverty line. But if she continues, the body count will keep inching higher, and the people Katrell love may end up in the crossfire.

I really like this!

WILDFIRE is a 65,000 word young adult contemporary fantasy with elements of horror. It features an all black cast and is #ownvoices for the African-American lead and struggles with poverty.

If it were possible to like this more than I did before, I do.

I’m an author from Alabama, and so far, no Revenants are stalking me. I have a BA in English Literature with a minor in Creative Writing. I was an editorial intern with (company name) Publishing for a year.

So far anyway (let's keep it that way!)

Thank you for your time and consideration.

I love this a lot. If your pages hold up, I think you'll get requests.

As to your questions: 

(1) I don't think you need comps here. However, if you want to include them, it's ok to have read summaries not the entire book.  It's not dishonest. 

(2) Whether you include this information is up to you.  Choosing when and how to reveal that you struggle with depression has no right or wrong answer. Anyone who says otherwise should be ignored.

I don't expect an instant response to a request for the full manuscript, but I'm always much happier to get the requested full sooner rather than later. In your case, I'd want it sooner cause I'd want to start reading.

I wrote a blog post about when/how to reveal personal details that may shed some light too.

Warsingers.

Gods do not sing; they are the song.

The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It 

The coronavirus has starkly revealed what most of us already knew: The concentration of wealth in America has created a a health care system in which the wealthy can buy care others can’t. 

It’s also created an education system in which the super-rich can buy admission to college for their children, a political system in which they can buy Congress and the presidency,  and a justice system in which they can buy their way out of jail. 

Almost everyone else has been hurled into a dystopia of bureaucratic arbitrariness, corporate indifference, and the legal and financial sinkholes that have become hallmarks of modern American life.

The system is rigged. But we can fix it.

Today, the great divide in American politics isn’t between right and left. The underlying contest is between a small minority who have gained power over the system, and the vast majority who have little or none. 

Forget politics as you’ve come to see it – as contests between Democrats and Republicans. The real divide is between democracy and oligarchy.

The market has been organized to serve the wealthy. Since 1980, the percentage of the nation’s wealth owned by the richest four hundred Americans has quadrupled (from less than 1 percent to 3.5 percent) while the share owned by the entire bottom half of America has dropped to 1.3 percent.

The three wealthiest Americans own as much as the entire bottom half of the population. Big corporations, CEOs, and a handful of extremely rich people have vastly more influence on public policy than the average American. Wealth and power have become one and the same.

As the oligarchs tighten their hold over our system, they have lambasted efforts to rein in their greed as “socialism”, which, to them, means getting something for doing nothing.

But “getting something for doing nothing” seems to better describe the handouts being given to large corporations and their CEOs. 

General Motors, for example, has received $600 million in federal contracts and $500 million in tax breaks since Donald Trump took office. Much of this “corporate welfare” has gone to executives, including CEO Mary Barra, who raked in almost $22 million in compensation in 2018 alone. GM employees, on the other hand, have faced over 14,000 layoffs and the closing of three assembly plants and two component factories.

And now, in the midst of a pandemic, big corporations are getting $500 billion from taxpayers. 

Our system, it turns out, does practice one form of socialism – socialism for the rich. Everyone else is subject to harsh capitalism.

Socialism for the rich means people at the top are not held accountable. Harsh capitalism for the many, means most Americans are at risk for events over which they have no control, and have no safety nets to catch them if they fall.

Among those who are particularly complicit in rigging the system are the CEOs of America’s corporate behemoths. 

Take Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, whose net worth is $1.4 billion. He comes as close as anyone to embodying the American system as it functions today.

Dimon describes himself as “a patriot before I’m the CEO of JPMorgan.”

He brags about the corporate philanthropy of his bank, but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to his company’s net income, which in 2018 was $30.7 billion – roughly one hundred times the size of his company’s investment program for America’s poor cities. 

Much of JP Morgan’s income gain in 2018 came from savings from the giant Republican tax cut enacted at the end of 2017 – a tax cut that Dimon intensively lobbied Congress for.

Dimon doesn’t acknowledge the inconsistencies between his self-image as “patriot first” and his role as CEO of America’s largest bank. He doesn’t understand how he has hijacked the system.

Perhaps he should read my new book.

To understand how the system has been hijacked, we must understand how it went from being accountable to all stakeholders – not just stockholders but also workers, consumers, and citizens in the communities where companies are headquartered and do business – to intensely shareholder-focused capitalism.

In the post-WWII era, American capitalism assumed that large corporations had responsibilities to all their stakeholders. CEOs of that era saw themselves as “corporate statesmen” responsible for the common good.

But by the 1980s, shareholder capitalism (which focuses on maximizing profits) replaced stakeholder capitalism. That was largely due to the corporate raiders – ultra-rich investors who hollowed-out once-thriving companies and left workers to fend for themselves.

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn, for example, targeted major companies like Texaco and Nabisco by acquiring enough shares of their stock to force major changes that increased their stock value – such as suppressing wages, fighting unions, laying off workers, abandoning communities for cheaper labor elsewhere, and taking on debt – and then selling his shares for a fat profit. In 1985, after winning control of Trans World Airlines, he loaded the airline with more than $500 million in debt, stripped it of its assets, and pocketed nearly $500 million in profits.

As a result of the hostile takeovers mounted by Icahn and other raiders, a wholly different understanding about the purpose of the corporation emerged.

Even the threat of hostile takeovers forced CEOs to fall in line by maximizing shareholder profits over all else. The corporate statesmen of previous decades became the corporate butchers of the 1980s and 1990s, whose nearly exclusive focus was to “cut out the fat” and make their companies “lean and mean.”

As power increased for the wealthy and large corporations at the top, it shifted in exactly the opposite direction for workers. In the mid-1950s, 35 percent of all private-sector workers in the United States were unionized. Today, 6.4 percent of them are.

The wave of hostile takeovers pushed employers to raise profits and share prices by cutting payroll costs and crushing unions, which led to a redistribution of income and wealth from workers to the richest 1 percent. Corporations have fired workers who try to organize and have mounted campaigns against union votes. All the while, corporations have been relocating to states with few labor protections and so-called “right-to-work” laws that weaken workers’ ability to join unions.

Power is a zero-sum game. People gain it only when others lose it. The connection between the economy and power is critical. As power has concentrated in the hands of a few, those few have grabbed nearly all the economic gains for themselves.

The oligarchy has triumphed because no one has paid attention to the system as a whole – to the shifts from stakeholder to shareholder capitalism, from strong unions to giant corporations with few labor protections, and from regulated to unchecked finance.

As power has shifted to large corporations, workers have been left to fend for themselves. Most Americans developed 3 key coping mechanisms to keep afloat.

The first mechanism was women entering the paid workforce. Starting in the late 1970s, women went into paid work in record numbers, in large part to prop up family incomes, as the wages of male workers stagnated or declined. 

Then, by the late 1990s, even two incomes wasn’t enough to keep many families above water, causing them to turn to the next coping mechanism: working longer hours. By the mid-2000s a growing number of people took on two or three jobs, often demanding 50 hours or more per week.

Once the second coping mechanism was exhausted, workers turned to their last option: drawing down savings and borrowing to the hilt. The only way Americans could keep consuming was to go deeper into debt. By 2007, household debt had exploded, with the typical American household owing 138 percent of its after-tax income. Home mortgage debt soared as housing values continued to rise. Consumers refinanced their homes with even larger mortgages and used their homes as collateral for additional loans.

This last coping mechanism came to an abrupt end in 2008 when the debt bubbles burst, causing the financial crisis. Only then did Americans begin to realize what had happened to them, and to the system as a whole. That’s when our politics began to turn ugly.  

So what do we do about it? The answer is found in politics and rooted in power.

The way to overcome oligarchy is for the rest of us to join together and form a multiracial, multiethnic coalition of working-class, poor and middle-class Americans fighting for democracy.

This agenda is neither “right” nor “left.” It is the bedrock for everything America must do.

The oligarchy understands that a “divide-and-conquer” strategy gives them more room to get what they want without opposition. Lucky for them, Trump is a pro at pitting native-born Americans against immigrants, the working class against the poor, white people against people of color. His goal is cynicism, disruption, and division. Trump and the oligarchy behind him have been able to rig the system and then whip around to complain loudly that the system is rigged.

But history shows that oligarchies cannot hold on to power forever. They are inherently unstable. When a vast majority of people come to view an oligarchy as illegitimate and an obstacle to their wellbeing, oligarchies become vulnerable.

As bad as it looks right now, the great strength of this country is our resilience. We bounce back. We have before. We will again.

In order for real change to occur – in order to reverse the vicious cycle in which we now find ourselves – the locus of power in the system will have to change.

The challenge we face is large and complex, but we are well suited for the fight ahead. Together, we will dismantle the oligarchy. Together, we will fix the system.

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

These are the practice sketches for yesterday's, but I think I like some of them better than the way it turned out. Especially the cheerful chap in the bottom right corner.

Live at Dragonmeet, Ken and Robin talk Hindu mythology's secret role in the Norman Invasion, crisis on infinite podcasts, drinks to write by, and the real reason Ken had to make Trump president.

Странные данные по NYC
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data:COVID-19_cases_in_New_York_City.tab
трупов, оказывается, не 300-400 в день, как
объявлялось, а всего 200 в день, то есть около половины
мертвецов в NYC болели короной (или меньше; нормальная
смертность в NYC 400-500 человек в день).

Похоже, оно не растет даже, ну типа - ковид
выкашивает тех, кто и так на пороге смерти,
а остальные могут особо не беспокоиться.

Привет

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