jkazimer's profile
AGE:
36
LOC: Denver, CO
GEN: Female
LAST LOGIN: September 02
LOC: Denver, CO
GEN: Female
LAST LOGIN: September 02
Where have all the good reviewers gone?
Me, More or Less:
I originally hail from Cleveland, Ohio, but I moved to Denver, CO many years ago. I’ve been writing since 2001.
I wrote my first novel five years ago and I am now working on my fourth, which can’t be as bad as the first.
I’ve written some poetry (My apologies to ee, Maya, and Dylan Thomas—for I know not what I do). Surprisingly, I had a poem entitled, 1042 published in twenty3 magazine.
I write short stories—some good, some bad. I’ve even had five of them published, and have even gotten paid for it. Writing that is.
A little bit about me as a person. I have a masters degree in forensic psychology, and currently work at Naropa University’s Summer Writing Progra…
(more)
Items
Version 1
7 Reviews
2 Comments
After leaving the panhandlers, I glanced at my beat-up watch, a gift from the Salvation Army for thirty days sober. 3:12 p.m. Fuck. I’d missed my bus. I ran an angry hand through my collar length black hair, pushing it from my eyes. Its greasy ends left smudge marks on the plastic of my sunglasses, giving my vision a hazy glow, like the days of old Hollywood. I looked across the street to a hooker dressed in a leather shirt and push-up bra. Soft focus did nothing to cover her Adam’s apple and...
Ratings & Rankings
Version 1
7 Reviews
2 Comments
Ten blocks up, Bill dropped me off. I waved goodbye and headed into the Hollywood BAART Clinic, a seedy substance abuse treatment facility funded by Medicaid and the good-old city of angels. The place smelled of human waste and bleach. A line of addicts waited on cracked plastic chair, hunched over, eyes vacant. I picked a number, 89, from the machine and sat down to wait my turn. I’d read somewhere that the average citizen in Los Angeles spends over sixty-two minutes a day waiting, for the b...
Ratings & Rankings
Version 1
17 Reviews
4 Comments
Contemplating the striking woman two seats away, I swallowed the remnants of my drink. Its bitterness burned a path down my throat, quenching more than my thirst for expensive tequila. The woman’s skin sparkled in the sunlight, tanned and toned to trophy-wife perfection. I lowered my sunglasses, gazing at the tattoo snaking up the back of her thigh. She smiled in response and undid the top string of the apple red bikini. My eyes followed the bikini’s path to the pearly sand, and I thanked wh...
Ratings & Rankings
Version 1
13 Reviews
14 Comments
We met in a darkened alley across from St. Michael’s parish; the fading lights of the rectory deepened the shadows where evildoers lurk. One look at her red rimmed eyes, and I knew, her ying was my yang. It was there, in the way her eyes widened when I suddenly appeared and how her fingers felt wrapped around me. It wasn’t long before, I was pressed closely to her emasculated body. Touching quivering lips, and stroking cold flesh, I pondered our time together. A roller coaster ride it would ...
Ratings & Rankings
Version 2
11 Reviews
12 Comments
The shaking wouldn’t stop. It tore into me like a drill, ripping and clawing at my sanity. I needed a hit—just one fucking hit to get right—twenty fucking dollars worth. Was that too much to ask? Looking at my face in the rearview mirror, I knew the answer; it was written in every burst capillary lining my nose and the white pallor of my skin. The disease had taken my life. No longer was I the man I used to be. He had died, and soon my body will follow suit, slipping away in a heroin haze. M...
Ratings & Rankings
[ View all items ]
Reviews
Yeah, query letters suck, but I think you have some good stuff here, and in the manuscript in general. My thoughts are to work on the opening line a bit. First, it doesn't really grab me, nor does it impart any real information. I don't have a clue that this is gay literary fiction until the second paragraph, and that's even a bit unclear since the best friend is listed as Dr. P, which might be female. An agent you query, whether they work in gay literary or not, will also handle non-homosexu...
First off let me say for a newbie writer, you do have talent. So bear that in mind, if the rest of this review seems harsh. Sorry but I didn't have time to read the whole piece, but read half. I won't knock the grammar, but I am going to mention some of the basic techniques of fiction writing in terms of mechanics. First of which is dialogue tags. You do well using the said tag, but what your punctuation surrounding it. Example: “Pathetic,” H(h)e said and tossed me aside. “Try again.” I'd try...
Great query. k, so here are some suggestions even though as it is now, I think you have a strong query. Also, let me say that the manuscript sounds great too. I'd read it. My first comment regards the use of the term novel. It isn't a novel yet, it's a manuscript, and using the term novel is a flag to agents that this is a first timer, which isn't a bad indication. But for the sake of clarity, you might want to change that. The second thought is the word use in Jay's description. The exotic p...
Not a bad query. Just a couple of thoughts. First, you're not asking them to represent a novel, but a manuscript. Until a book is actually published it is referred to as a manuscript for query purposes. Okay, now my second thought is 98,000 words is BIG for a historical romance. So I ask, is it 98,000 words by publisher count or by Microsoft word count? Either way, if your looking to market in the romance genre, you might consider a full out edit and lose about 10,000 words. Okay, more about ...
[ View all reviews ]
Favorites
People
