How to Get Through Horrifying Process of Literary Agent Submissions
I have reached a critical point in the list of orderly steps in the long march to publication which I have been given by others and have dutifully written down. They are/were as follows:
1. Write the shitty first draft
2. Read it and make less shitty
3. Send it to Kind & Wise Mentory Editor Who Has Read James Joyce
4. Laugh and cry as you read her Kind & Wise suggestions; take 99% of them. Redraft.
5. Send new draft to 28-Year-Old Editor Who Doesn’t Remember President Nixon But Is Much Smarter Than I
6. Enjoy life with no novel to think about and write songs and poems while 28 y-o reads and edits draft.
7. Receive edits from 28-y-o and cry for a month. Decide you are not a novelist. Pick yourself up off the carpet and have a Zoom call with her in which she tells you she had a very hard time editing your novel because it was practically perfect.
8. Wonder if you are crazy.
9. Take 69% of her suggestions and finish the draft.
10. Write a synopsis which is harder than writing the novel
11. Write the query letter which is harder than writing the synopsis
12. Make a list of agents you’d love to work with by finding names in the acknowledgements pages of your favorite novels. Cross off the dead ones.
jen says to tell you that she LOVES neutral milk hotel. and that she has the chords for “in the aeroplane over the sea” if you want to add them to the singalong book.
Amanda Palmer and the theatre folks at Lexington High School did a piece called “The Needle That Sings in Her Heart” centered around and inspired by the In the Aeroplane Over the Sea album. It was a stunning piece of theatre, written by the kids on the cast and crew along with Amanda and Lexington High drama teacher Steve Bogart. The show takes you inside Anne Frank’s world as she travels to a circus-like place to escape the horrors of Bergen-Belsen. Pictures and a bit of info here, if you care to look: http://amandapalmer.net/lexington
So glad you’ve discovered this group and this album….it’s one of the best ever made, in my opinion.
Eric loves NMH. He has the best taste in music. There was apparently a musical written based on in the aeroplane over the sea, incorporating all the music. It was put on by the Lexington High School and we went to see it last spring!
My first boyfriend got me into Neutral Milk Hotel many years ago and ‘In the Aeroplane Over The Sea’ is my favorite album. The ‘King of Carrot Flowers’ – all parts and ‘two headed boy’ are my favorite. I think they have amazing lyrics! I would also recommend the groups ‘Bright Eyes’, ‘Catpower’ and ‘Old Crow Medicine Show’ if you’re looking for other people to check out. You know what, I just need to make you a mix CD! Strangely enough the soundtrack to the show ‘The L Word’ is really good. A friend of mine burned it for me a few years ago and there is so much good music on there
Wow, I would never have predicted that you’d be into Neutral Milk Hotel. I guess it just goes to show that music is broader than we think!
“In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” is definitely the more accessible album—it’s apparently inspired in part by the story of Anne Frank (or at least the broader Jewish experience in WWII). On that album, my faves are the title track and the amazing “Holland, 1945.”
On “On Avery Island” I particularly enjoy “Song Against Sex,” “Where You’ll Find Me Now,” and “Naomi.”
I’m now trying to imagine you and Katryna putting out an album of indie rock covers, and I’m loving the idea. 🙂
I was a late discover of Neutral Milk Hotel as well. I just happened one day while I was listening to the radio a few years back. I’d heard them before, but I’d never HEARD them before. I immediately went and traded in a certain Wilco live album that annoyed the crap out of me right out of the gate and bought “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” and then spent like two months listening to it over and over.
-Chris B.
p.s. loving the Guild in the studio photos.