Dan Krokos

I’m going to Bouchercon in Indianapolis this year. A little over a week from now.

I’m excited. Probably more excited than I’ve ever been about anything. And I’ve been excited about things before.

I get to meet my agent to make sure she’s real. I get to hang out with her other clients. Duane Swierczynski will be there. I’ll chase him down until he loves me.

Plus, no work for a few days. Me, loose in an unfamiliar city, all by myself.

I’m taking video.

And recounting my experiences in full, gory detail.

See, the convention ends each night. We get to go back to our hotels to recover until the next mystery-filled day. Not me. I hope to put Janet’s bail money to good use. Rumor is she keeps cash on hand since her authors tend to be . . . eccentric. Just look at Sean Ferrell or Jeff Somers. I wonder if I’m supposed to pay her back.

Anyway, expect some posts and tweets about it. Expect a video chronicling my times there.

It’s going to be good fun. I hope I brought the right kind of clothes.

So I heard my website doesn’t appear on search engines because my name only appears once on the whole site. That, my friends, is about to change.

Dan Krokos.

You see, when I had a blogspot site, it was the first thing to appear. Now I have themes, all right? I have this monochromatic theme for my site.

Dan Krokos

Is this helping or do I appear foolish. Dan Krokos. It’s worth a shot. Dan Krokos. I could always pay the extra eighty bucks to submit this site to every search engine created and some that haven’t yet been created. Dan Krokos. It even does Alta Vista, and who the hell uses Alta Vista anymore?

Dan Krokos.

Does this count as a blog post? I wish. Alas, I will have to come up with something else to blog about before the week is over. Dan Krokos. I was thinking about making a post about the things I had to change in my MS to get signed with an agent. Mistakes you might have in your own MS–easy fixes, really–that are keeping you from getting that Agent/Author agreement.

Dan Krokos.

We’ll see. It’s still hard to talk about the mechanics of writing without feeling arrogant.

That’s all for now.

Dan Krokos

I discovered a link on twitter today, with the help of a few friends.

It shows who has sent you messages by adding @DanKrokos. Little did I know, nearly four thousand people sent me messages of congratulations or questions about my book. I didn’t respond for days.

Now I know how twitter works. Now I can be a real author.

Which got me thinking about other things.

Like what’s the difference between a writer and a writer who has an agent?

Not much.

Before last week, I labored under the delusion that writers became writing gods upon landing an agent. I expected a little fairy with my contract, one that would sit on my shoulder like a parrot, whispering brilliance I could then transfer to the page.

It didn’t happen.

I’m still me. I still have to think about cool stuff for hours and hours, hoping a story blooms from the mess of ideas. Disappointing, but a relief at the same time. Having an agent just means a professional has validated my work, has said, “Yeah, you’re all right.”

Another myth shattered. What’s next?