We Love You!
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Today! is the most perfect day! imaginable! in New York! the sky is a clear and cloudless blue! the birds chirp! a gentle breeze wafts, entirely sans that dense New-York-in-August stink of boiled poop! everyone is smiling on the subway! and we garnered a number of hostile looks from foxy ladies in our walk through the meatpacking district, which, we have finally learned after 1.01 years in the city, means we are wearing a splendid outfit! A PERFECT DAY! in fact, for sitting in a windowless fluorescent-lit box, cracked out on antihistamines and three shots of espresso, staring at a computer screen! And so! dear author-friends, inspired by the indomitable spirit of Authors Who Think the Random Deployment of Fifty-Cent Words Will Distract Us From How Deeply, Truly Awful Their Query Letter Is (our scientific analysis has shown us that this group is 47.5% young gents from Brooklyn writing "in the spirit of Bukowski," 32.5% former military operatives penning Al-Qaeda thrillers, and .007% writers whose books are actually probably pretty good but whose heads exploded with stress when they sat down to pen their queries, sending random fifty-cent words flying), we offer you this Very Special Writing Exercise!!!!!!
HERE IS YOUR MISSION, SHOULD YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT: Darling Author-Friends, please use the following Randomly Deployed Fifty-Cent Query Letter Words in a Paragraph. ONE paragraph. They do not have to be utilized in the order given.We will be beside ourself with excitement should you choose to share the results, and will even bestow a PRIZE upon the most creative entry, which is: our love and affection, which we don't hand out to just ANYBODY. Without further ado, here are your assigned words:
TEMERARIOUS, PROFLIGATE, BELEAGUERED, EXORBITANT, RAVENOUS, IDIOSYNCRATIC, WUNDERKIND, NEFARIOUS, PROVOCATIVE, WEREWOLF
Sample: "Today I am feeling particularly BELEAGUERED," ten-year-old lit-agent WUNDERKIND Bobby Broadside mused aloud. "Though my PROFLIGATE use of the form rejection has reached an all-time height, I'm still plagued with an EXORBITANT number of queries from these TEMERARIOUS fools who think themselves both IDIOSYNCRATIC and PROVOCATIVE! Don't they know they're a dime a dozen? I'd much rather read a book about a WEREWOLF. Where are the WEREWOLF queries? WEREWOLF, WEREWOLF. Arf, arf. Speaking of which, I'm RAVENOUS! Somebody bring me a goddamn martini!"
AND! WE HAVE A WINNER! and the winner, dear author-friends, is US. For hoodwinking such a parade of GENIUSES (genii?) as yourselves into perusing the wacky little universe of our brain. We are SO PLEASED with your efforts, and have chosen to bestow our love and affection UPON YOU ALL. EXCEPT for "dollcannotfly," who is clearly "STEVE," submitting an actual query letter, which is totally not fair to the other contestants.
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Being a shy idiosyncratic bookworm, I do think it was rather temerarious of me to agree to a blind date with a werewolf (well, that was the rumor about this rather hairy publishing wunderkind). At the restaurant, I blanched at the exorbitant prices, but feeling profligate I offered to pay because he works in publishing. He was incredibly ravenous—he ate what look like a whole side of beef. Being a vegetarian, I was kind of grossed out. I have to admit, part of the reason I agreed to the date was to talk about my manuscript Nefarious Zombies Crashed My Debutante Ball. Perhaps, however, I shouldn’t have worn such a provocative dress. He didn’t seem to be able to concentrate on my ms at all. He had this beleaguered look on his face every time I mentioned my ms. Alas, no chemistry between us—but he took the ms home with him!
Katana Wolf is a beleaguered werewolf wunderkind for her day. She turns an exorbitant amount children in each month, exceeding the species quota and outshining the profligate members of her clan who go after the easy kills. Her clan is nefarious for its ravenous habits, and for simply taking children who wander into the woods. But Katana is idiosyncratic—she only goes after the children asleep in their beds at night. She’s temerarious in her challenges to the members of her clans, telling them she only will mate with the one who can beat her provocative record.
While the idiosyncratic werewolf ordered kung pao, Johnny Contrary the provocative wunderkind exclaimed under his breath--" ... the nefarious Dr. Profligate is a temerarious fool if he thinks his legions will march unopposed into the beleaguered capital city!"--then tucked into the spring rolls, ravenous from his recent exertions and paying no mind to the exorbitant prices at the Jade Orkid commissary.
Enclosed please find my manuscript, JOHNNY CONTRARY AND THE IDIOSYNCRATIC WEREWOLF.
On -paragraph-? I thought you said one -sentence-.
In one PROVOCATIVE scene from my debut fiction novel, "The WEREWOLF WUNDERKIND", BELEAGUERED writer/nanny Claudia must stop her charge, currently a puppy, from unleashing his RAVENOUS desires upon her employers' EXORBITANT kitchen--and it's staff. The were-puppy, you see, has IDIOSYNCRATIC tastes. Claudia never knows when he will decide to eat Cheerios or the cook's leg! Our heroine, however, is TEMERARIOUS, and she places her body between the cook (or is it the Christmas Goose?) and the snarling were-puppy. She'd rather die than let her NEFARIOUS and PROFLIGATE (but cute!) charge destroy Christmas, because as an orphan, she has never had a real Christmas. The JUXTAPOSITION between Claudia's civilized nature and the savage desires of the were-puppy is never more apparent than in this scene.
Jack’s BELEAGUERED parents looked upon him with resigned disdain. He was their WUNDERKIND! It was just as teen WEREWOLF that he developed his TEMERARIOUS and shameful taste for PROFLIGATE, spoiled bimbo girls of the Hills. He simply couldn’t resist the NEFARIOUS appeal of their PROVOCATIVE dress and empty-headed ramblings. His IDIOSYNCRATIC taste caused his parents great shame. Werewolves should hunt prey with a little meat on its bones, not an EXORBITANT number of near starved social butterflies. Jack just couldn’t help himself. It took too many of the sweet delicacies to quell his RAVENOUS appetite.
BELEAGUERED by RAVENOUS WEREWOLVES on all sides, Count Bakula was starting to regret the TEMERARIOUS decision to go scavenging for blood in the Scottish highlands. That NEFARIOUS full moon hung like an EXORBITANT wheel of Gouda in the night sky, and the PROFLIGATE romp had turned into a rout when the lupines' IDIOSYNCRATIC leader, a WUNDERKIND with brains as sharp as his fangs and claws, showed up to the party with a PROVOCATIVE sneer.
Teenage Carrie Bradshaw couldn’t help but WUNDERKIND, “How can such a gifted, fashion-savvy, amusingly IDIOSYNCRATIC, curly-haired young sprite such as myself make it in a PROFLIGATE, NEFARIOUS city like New York?” But such BELEAGUERED thoughts are TEMERARIOUS, oops, I mean temporary, for the heroine of my YA novel YOUNG CARRIE BRADSHAW a.k.a. THIRD BASE IN THE CITY. From her EXORBITANT taste in shoes (squeee!!) to her PROVOCATIVE use of the word “PROVOCATIVE”, Young Carrie Bradshaw is the spitting image of Old Carrie Bradshaw, except younger. And less slutty, because this is YA, yo. Will she ever be paid to write? Well, duh. Will she ever find love? We’ll see what a certain hipsterey RAVENOUS hotty WEREWOLF named Jacob Slack has to say about that! YOUNG CARRIE BRADSHAW a.k.a. THIRD BASE IN THE CITY: when a wolf meet a fox, animalistic fireworks are sure to follow!
I kill monsters for a living. Sure, it's the sort of temerarious occupation that takes an exorbitant toll on your private life, but I've always been profligate with my personal time… And I've come to appreciate the kind of attention men give to a wunderkind of the stake and silver bullet. Truth be told, there's only one aspect of the business I'd call outright nefarious: werewolf hunting. Dispatching beleaguered creatures on the brink of extinction just because they have trouble controlling their ravenous appetites just doesn't sit well with me. I don't mention this idiosyncratic opinion too much, though. At best it's labeled provocative, at worst iniquitous – an epithet better avoided in my line of work.
(I HAD to add a few wonder-words of my own... Or should I say, idiosyncratic wonder-words?)
“Monica,” Harry said. “This is temerarious of me, but the provocative manner with which you eat your fried chicken lifts my beleaguered heart. I must have you over for dinner.” He licked his lips.
“Mr. Wolf!” Monica cried. “I promised my mother you were merely an idiosyncratic wunderkind. Now I see you are a nefarious profligate intent on robbing me of my innocence.”
“Exorbitant criticism from one so young,” he remarked. “Nevertheless, I apologize. Your eyes always bring out the werewolf in me.”
I strutted in wearing a new provocative outfit that I had purchased for an exorbitant price at one of the local shops. My boss, nefarious nazi that he was, seemed to take it easier on his poor beleaguered employees if we dressed in the latest temerarious fashions. His indiosyncratic nature did not inspire admiration even though he had been a wunderkind of sorts back in the day. As bosses went, he was better than most. If you played along you could expect to share in his profligate expense account but you had to endure his ravenous stares and the drool that inevitably slid down his chin when it was his time of the month. He was a werewolf, you see.
Fun! I've got two, neither particularly brilliant, but still--fun.
It's hard to believe how temerarious he can be, but he approached the beleaguered wunderkind and made the provocative suggestion that he buy his idiosyncratic widget-maker at an exorbitant rate. Apparently he thought he would be as ravenous and eager for a new start as any profligate werewolf at the full moon, no matter how nefarious the deal.
Once upon a time, there was a werewolf, more nefarious than most of his kind, who reveled in a exorbitant lifestyle with every full moon. One day, however, an idiosyncratic wunderkind came to town, determined to rid the region of this temerarious profligate. Wielding silver bullets and a provocative line of chatter (much like Buffy would have done), he forced the beleaguered, ravenous beast to slink away.
Dear Sir (or Madam)
I pray you do not think it temerarious of me to submit my novel, THE RAVENOUS WEREWOLF, for your perusal. Even though I am but fifteen years of age, I have been writing my entire life. I thusly take is quite seriously, as I am sure do you as well, too.
In this, my first full-length novel (for I have penned numerous short stories), I explore the idiosyncratic world of a group of profligate lycanthropes that attend an exclusive school on Manhattan's upper east side. At first we marvel at their exorbitant lifestyles, as we watch the nefarious doings of handsome wunderkind Spike Humphry, his beleaguered best friend Buster Bass, and the provokative Lucy Waldorf, whom they both love. The story quickly takes a sinister turn, which you will have to discover for yourself. If you dare to do so - read on!
Damn. Third Base in the City is horrifyingly brilliant. I think I smell the return of chick lit!
The profligate hunter hounded its beleaguered prey with a ravenous hunger known only to a nefarious night predator—the werewolf. Temerarious with the realization of imminent demise, the once wunderkind, now victim, cowered in the wake of a colossal conifer and ruminated. A swift glance at his Rolex inspired him—exorbitant and gaudy—he was not inclined to part with it. It suggested idiosyncratic fashion, which made him seem somehow extraordinary. Provocative even. But it had to go. His life was too important. He threw the timepiece, like a girl, unswervingly toward the beast. The watch hit its mark—the forehead of his pursuer—and the werewolf yelped at the impact. Momentarily confused, he fell in a heap, vanquished and despondent
Colonel Fritz Von Wunderkind has only thirty nine minutes before the narrow window closes… and the Nazi leader Adolph Hitler departs from Werewolf, the military headquarters on the Eastern Front. Fritz knows a terrible secret, and only he can act upon it, for Fritz had learned that the headquarters had not been randomly named, as Hitler himself had chosen the designation… chosen it because the Fuhrer himself was a lycanthrope, a ravenous loup garou. The Fuhrer's exorbitant need for expansion into new lebensraum was merely a need for new hunting grounds, new pastures for his kin… the werewolves. With this provocative knowledge the beleaguered Fritz knows he is the only one who can stop Hitler before the Eastern advancement continues and the new feeding grounds fall forever under the control of the Nazis and their lycanthropic leadership. Thirty nine minutes… so little time for Fritz to navigate spies, rebels, patrols and the nefarious SS officer who shares Fritz's secret knowledge and will do anything to stop him. But the profligate Hitler must be stopped, even if it costs Colonel Fritz Von Wunderkind his own life. His only hope is to use the idiosyncratic patterns of the werewolves to his own advantage, employing a temerarious plan that will end with hungry teeth at his throat… or a silver bullet in the heart of the Fuhrer.
He’d been nursing his idiosyncratic drink – vodka and lemon pledge - for forty minutes now and was ready to accept the precocious bitch wasn’t going to show. What did the provocative wunderkind need with a beleaguered old loser like him? He’d been killing time, trying to slog through an article in a science journal about the temerarious lunatics returning to live in abandoned Chernobyl – including several species of birds – and the exorbitant physical price exacted for this profligate risk. He’d reread the passage several times: “But at the end of the bird’s migration they are ravenous - their reserves need to be replenished, and in highly contaminated areas this is simply not possible. As a result, great tits and swallows are unable to maintain their bright plumage....” “Great tits and swallows”, he thought nostalgically. He wondered how the dating scene was in melted down cities. He’d heard the rents were reasonable. Maybe he should move to radioactive Chernobyl, maybe morph into a nefarious werewolf. He could hardly do worse than this.
Dear Sir:
I am a beleagured writer who is sick of temerarious editors that don't even bother to read my provacative (and a little idiosyncratic) first novel, Willy Wunderkind, a horror/romance for children. How will my profligate talent be discovered if you only consider tired themes like ravenous or nefarious werewolves? Trust me, if you want to get exorbitantly rich, you must jump ahead of the herd and read my manuscript before I send it to someone else.
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