MathiasCavanaugh.com

Ok, so I have been thinking about my “plan” for moving forward as I seek to get my work published.  My wife and I are currently on Chapter 13 of the live read edit for Under the Darkened Moon, and I have given myself a deadline of the end of September to have it, and the edits that come from it, done.  Boom, put it to bed.  It will be, by that point, as polished as it is going to get without the cost of professional editing.*

I am going to start the process of querying literary agents at that point.  I will be doing batches of 10 at a time and give each batch two or three weeks to reply before I send out the next round.  Some agents, I realize, don’t work that fast, but I figure it will give some nice overlap moving forward.  Oh, and BTW, if you are a literary agent and would like to see my work before I start querying, then by all means drop me a line to get at the top of the list!  I love it when people show initiative!  It’s a trait that I highly admire in people! Read more…

Every day I get new followers on Twitter.  I do follow back most (>50%), but I don’t follow back many for various reasons.  Here are the 10 most likely reasons you didn’t get a follow back.

10. You’re a political hack who likes to spout off your ignorant, unresearched, unfounded thoughts on a regular basis.  Note: I’m not on Twitter to listen to such things.
9. You’re obviously just collecting Twitter followers as some sort of meaningless trophy to boost your ego (I.e. you follow 100K people and have 100K followers)
8. A look at your recent history shows you only talk about yourself, don’t RT, or converse with others.
7. Your tweets or profile make it clear you think that Christians are evil, brainwashed people.
6. You tweet 300x an hour, 20 hours a day.
5. The only thing you tweet about is SEO.
4. Your twitter icon is essentially porn.
3. Not only did you follow me, but you immediately sent me a DM making sure I know it and asking when I am going to “return the favor”.
2. Every tweet you make is “Buy my [book/product]”
1. NOTHING you say interests me.

Realize this, I beg you.  When someone asks you for your “honest opinion” about something, odds are they don’t really want your “honest opinion” unless it means you agree with them and are willing to stroke their ego.  If not?  Well, then what they really want is you to lie and make them feel good by doing so.

Authors are notorious for this sort of thing.  If you are not willing to tell them that their latest manuscript, or even published book, is “five-star” quality, hold your tongue unless you are willing to be cursed at and argued with until the cows come home.