Zombie power plants?

In this edition of "Where do writers get their ideas?", through this article, we learn that a crematorium over in the UK is looking into "technology to reclaim some of the energy lost in the cremation process."

To quote: "Although the technology is still in its proving stages, the crematorium hopes to have new generators that will capture and reuse the excess heat created by the cremation process to heat and eventually power the facility."

Yeah. Can't see any way that this could go wrong. Not like ghosts are going to start pouring out of electrical sockets, or a bunch of zombies are going to rise up to hunt down their stolen life force. Nah.

How else do you envision this destroying the world? Or at least reducing the population by 75%.

The Passenger

To lighten up the day, here is a recently posted CGI video created over the course of 8 years by Chris Jones. Chris did everything with this video, including the animation, music, and writing the storyline. It's a good bit of spooky fun. Enjoy.

Agents have it hard, too

Jenny Rappaport, a highly esteemed and popular literary agent and author of the Lit Soup blog, sent out a notice today that her agency, The Rappaport Agency, will be closing down permanently at the end of this year. Here is the official announcement:

It is with a great deal of sadness that I announce that The Rappaport Agency, LLC will be closing for business at the end of the year, due to economic reasons. I have been privileged to get the chance to work with amazing people over the last four and a half years, many of who I am proud to call my friends. In the coming weeks, I will be wrapping up outstanding submissions and putting things in order. I can be reached by e-mail at jenny@rappaportagency.com
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This isn't a decision I've come to lightly; it's taken a lot of thought and effort to reach this point, and to decide to seek a change of careers. I want to thank you for reading along with me on LIT SOUP, and I hope to remain connected in the writing community. I'm still going to be writing myself, striving like the rest of you for publication, and to get my own words out there.

We're very sad to hear this as well, Jenny. We wish you all the best in your continued writing, and hope it's your books we see on the shelves someday, alongside those you helped get there.

Jenny has been representing authors such as David Williams, Douglas Cohen, Anne Harris and Kylie Griffin. The Rappaport Agency focused heavily on representing speculative fiction, including fantasy, horror, science fiction, and any subgenre in between.

What's an agent's inbox like?

My brain is pretty burnt out this week from dealing with all sorts of house-buying issues as we stumble and fumble our way towards closing--which seems likely to be pushed back a week or two...again. Yeah, trying to buy our first house. Everyone who uses the term "roller-coaster" to describe the experience should be hamstrung for severe under-exaggeration.

Anyways, I looked around for something that might even remotely equate to what its like to be constantly dealing with appraisers, lenders, underwriters and others the occasional pedestrian who doesn't seem to have any concept of common courtesy. Lo and behold, I found this article by The Rejectionist.

In all of the publishing industry, what could be more of a bumpy ride than slogging through hundreds of thousands of novel queries each week? As a writer, I understand that we often feel rejections are personal and direct attacks against our literary genius, but just try to get a grasp on what agents have to deal with on a daily basis and it might help with our perspective. Do read and enjoy and sympathize.