So! A little birdy recommended a lit agent who was currently accepting queries, and I decided to send her an email. No manuscript pages yet - just an excuse to get in contact with a “hey, you said you don’t like world building manuscripts, could you define ‘a world building manuscript’ for me” - but Jesus Christ, I’m already wigging out. Time to check my campus email every five minutes and put dish towels under my armpits.

Her profile says she’s more interested in YA and “new adult” [18-30] than I’d like - I reeeeally wanted to avoid YA - but shit, guys. This is something. Maybe I’ll start doing things with 45 Fathoms, instead of sitting on my bony ass and constructing a Sherlockian mind palace of reasons why no-one will ever want to publish me.

I’m also coming to accept the possibility of 45 Fathoms as a novelette and not a full-length novel. I don’t know whether they’re a harder sell, or whether they’re more appealing, by virtue of being in fashion or because it’s less ink and paper to print.

I don’t know anything about what they want, actually, and that’s the conclusion I’ve come to. I’ve spent two years now obsessing over potential rejection on the grounds of being “too short” - the one time I did research on agents, they all seemed to want 60-80,000, and thinking 45 Fathoms will break 40 is a Pollyanna venture. But I think now, instead of lamenting it, I should own it. If the entire story has been told in that length, I don’t think I ought to bloat it with an extra 20,000 words. It doesn’t need it and I probably couldn’t even come up with it. The only purpose it would serve is to meet a magic number that I’m not even sure is magic. Because, well, I don’t know what they want.

But if they want to treat it like a novelette instead, then maybe so be it. It’s becoming less and less important to me how they market the work, and more and more important that I get this literary albatross off of my neck.

They had to ford the human river to get home.

Voices shouted. Bodies elbowed and shoved. Horatio hooked Asher’s arm in one and Mrs. Carentin’s in the other. The chain took slams to the face and bashes to the kidneys. Just as Asher’s head began to spin they sprang free of the mob - and into the path of a policeman.

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“Claudia Banks,” The constable dictated, pacing. “Fifty years old. Blunt trauma to the head.”

His lackey hunched over his notebook and scribbled with fury. The photographer flashed his shutter. The blast of white hit Claudia full force - face down on her desk, blood drying in her hair.

“You think they knew her?” The lackey turned a page and kept scrawling. “Bashin’ someone over the brains is a crime of passion.”

“For Christ’s sake, Adler,” Constable Reed scolded over his shoulder. “Don’t speculate.”

Claudia’s husband tried to barge into the room and collided with the photographer.

“Sorry!” He staved the intruder off with barricading arms. “Sorry, Professor, can’t let you in…” he rambled - “… Contaminating the crime scene and all that, terribly sorry— ”

“Let me through!” Banks protested.

“Get him out,” Reed commanded. Notebook and camera beat the professor back.

The constable sighed and took advantage of the moment of solace. At least in the study. Commotion echoed in from the hall. Incompetents.

Never mind. He lifted his cap, preened his hair, brushed off his epaulets and strutted toward the body like a rooster. His hand snaked under Claudia’s chin to examine further…

… And two unoccupied eye sockets met his stare.

He slammed the head back down onto the blotter. Clinical in theory, he noted. Abominable in practice.

“Poor old Claudia,” he mused to the back of her skull. “Poor, pernicious old Claudia.”

Before I forget, I promised you guys longer novel excerpts before - so here you go!

If this scene seems familiar it’s because it’s one of the ones I’ve rewritten the most. I’ve gotta stop now, though. Have to stop rewriting sometime.

-

He sighed, patted dust off his sleeve and looked up. Ishmael sat before him at a beat-up desk, intimidating and unwavering. Three days of stubble hung off his jaw. Hollow cheeks and dark circles smacked of malnutrition.

“Um.” Asher flashed a cautious smile. He bent down and gathered an armful of fallen books. “Hello, Ishmael.” He deposited them on a surviving pile and maneuvered forward.

The man stared without responding. Curious? Suspicious? Out of his mind? Or all three…

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And something came to him. Couldn’t hurt to ask, he supposed. Not much.

“Hey, while I’m here…” he volunteered - “… I was wondering something.”

“Scientific curiosity.” Banks closed the book. “This is new.”

“Well…” Asher conceded - “… not really.” He hooked his shoe on the nearest desk’s footbar. “You went here with my father, didn’t you?”

“Lucas, yes.” Banks expressed a bad taste in his mouth. “What for?”

Asher shrugged. “It’s not… relevant, really. I was just curious.” He freed his foot. “What he was like.”

The professor flattened his hands on the leather cover. “Always right, he was. Always right.” He picked it up and stashed it below. “Even when he was wrong.”

“… You have my eyes,” the man noted. “You know that?”

“Doctor?” Asher scrunched them. “What is this?”

“Don’t call me Doctor, Asher…” The man shifted to an angle in his armchair - “… I’m your father.” He tapped the back of his timepiece.

Asher’s head swiveled with disbelief. “Where the hell have you…” His speech faculties abandoned him. “You’re… y’r… you’re dead!”

“And yet here I am.” Dr. Carentin spoke to the watch. “And so are you…” he noted, picking at the lever and pulling it out - “… which means someone has a lot of explaining to do.”

“Yeah!” Asher spat. “You’d better have a fine reason why my mother thinks she’s a widow!”

“Ah yes… your mother.” The word oozed forth with grim distaste. “Well, I won’t speak ill of your mother. But there are some things…” his tone cooled as he wound the watch - “… she just wouldn’t understand.”

“I dunno about you…” Asher settled into quiet, simmering anger - “… but when someone abandons their family, I think they ought to tell them why.”

“Reductio ad absurdum, Asher.” Dr. Carentin breathed a laugh out his nose. “Come on. You’re better than that.”