North Korea Story Notes

* * *
80,000 words
four story lines
20,000 words each
* * *

Two children orphaned by the famine

Japanese girl kidnapped by North Korea, forced to teach English
American soldier who defects
North Korean spy
* * *
Kimiko (“Empress”) – Walking to school and is kidnapped by strange men, taken on boat; forced to teach spies at a special school; forced to marry a man whom she doesn’t love (rapes her?); her two children are taken from her; one of her spy students, Soo-hyun, is to be involved in a terrorist attack on South Korea; Kimiko gives Soo-hyun a postcard to mail to tell her parents she’s alive ; a new teacher at the school, an American; she is given to him as a wife.
Soo-kyung / Soo-hyun – The terrorist goes to school, befriends her Japanese teacher, who is about her age; Soo-hyun, is to be involved in a terrorist attack on South Korea; travels through Britain and must decide whether to send Kimiko’s postcard; decides not to but keeps the postcard; goes on plane and blows it up; is captured and taken to South Korea, where she realizes everything she was taught was a lie. She killed innocent people. Her only way to atone is to turn over the postcard — but when she tries to, she realizes it has been switched by her partner, as his last gift to her.(?)
Roy / “Dae Ho” – Soldier at the DMZ; Terrorist attack coincides with riots in South Korea; learns of US role in propping up corrupt South Korean dictators; disgusted with American imperialism, decides to defect; is hailed as hero in NK but soon sees bad side; is given a “Korean” wife, who actually turns out to be Japanese – Kimiko; he is kind to her; they both confess they are prisoners together; she has a dream of uniting her parents again, with their grandchildren; he says he doesn’t think the postcard was delivered because he would have heard of it (timing?); vows to help her find her children
Jung Hwa (righteous & rich) / Myung Dae (“right and great”) and Myung Hee / Myung Ok (“Bright Girl/Bright Pearl”) – They live with their father and stepmother; famine hits North Korea; their mother is a spy on their father and stops them from escaping North Korea; their father is disappeared; they are taken to the hills and abandoned. They decide they must leave for China; start the journey, two among thousands of homeless beggars; cross the river; arrive in China; are betrayed and sold back to North Korea
* * *
The Winter River
Language of the Fox People
Frog in a Well

Parable of the Pedestal

I’ve done it again.
I’ve put my story on a pedestal. A shiny, glowy Roman column of a pedestal, representing the pinnacle of literary grace, depth and passion. A place quite out of reach for a writer of my meager talents.
My story is too good for me. I don’t deserve it. I might as well give up on it now, because it’s obvious I will never earn the right to even shine the boots of my story. My story contains a glimmer of the empyrean, it tinkles with chimes from the music of the spheres. I, on the other hand, am an eyeless, earless invertebrate lacking any capacity to translate the transcendent notes of my story into a form comprehensible to normal mortals. I suck.
There is a solution. I will wait to write this story until I have mastered a style which is more complex, more mature.
In the meantime, I will start another story, a B Class story, which is humbler, simpler, more appropriate for my lowly talents. I won’t aim high with this story, I won’t put Story B on a pedestal, I promise. I won’t even try to have it published. I’ll just write it for my own amusement, and for my own education. Story B will be my practice. It will train me to write Story A.
But Story B has hidden charms I didn’t see at first. I was too shallow; Story B is exquisite. Story B deserves so much more than I realized. Story B should be polished and perfected, not simply shoved full of garbage and dumped at the curve like a plastic trash liner.
Story B deserves a pedestal too.
I can reach it. Just not yet. I’m not good enough.
Story C….

History Novel Ideas

Zenobia

Esther’s Daughter

The King of Spain (script)

Escape from North Korea

Tsunami (The Third Sorrow)

Chinese Pirate Queen

First Blue Eyed Girl

Retelling of Ramayana in pre-Atlantean civilization (maybe timetravel)

Slave Uprising in 8th Century Iraq

Rapa Nui (The Last Tree on Easter Island)

SF/F Novella Ideas

The Pink Dolphin – A man representing a bunch of anarchists and a woman who breeds pink compete to claim a stake of “land” in the open ocean, when the US opens territory for a new state.

Doolittle – Talks to animals
Handshake – Holding hands augments magic.
Zombie War – Die and join the army.

Cinderella Retelling.
Mimsykin – Butterfly Girl.

Lousy Job Markets Open Holes for New Jobs


And I just thought of a cool new job.

You’ll be blown away…wait for it…

Ebook agent.

Oh, yeaaaaah. Let me repeat that for those of you who thought I was kidding the first time.

Ebook agent.

There are already agents, such as Lori Perkins who have also put on the hat of publishers. However, I’m talking about an agent who shops out mss primarily to epubs.

There are plenty of reputable epublishers out there, but also plenty of sharks. Consider what happened to a friend of mine:

I epublished a novel back in July through eTreasures Publishing. The contract was quite good and quite straight-forward. Then in Sept, she decided to go to print, even though I had an addendum to my contract sayng that I would keep my print rights, since I intended to send my novel [NAME] to an agent. Everything was hunky-dory until she called me on the phone, demanding $458 + shipping for 25 copies of my book. Since my hubby and I are on a limited income, and that $458 is 1/4 of our monthly income, there was no way we could afford that. She cancelled my contract and gave me back all my rights. I was rewriting the story (since I found 80 typos in the first 200 pgs of the novel that were put in there between the time I sent the galleys back to her and the time she published).

This is sad and it needn’t happen.

Agents could help shield writers from wasting their efforts on dodgy epublishers, and winnow out submissions from slush to send to epublishers. In other words, their role would be exactly the same, except with “e-” added in front of everything.

What’s wrong? You don’t like this idea? You thought epublishing meant an end to the tyranny of agents and editors?

Sorry. No.

Some epublishers have already become “submit by invitation only” publishers, and others frequently close submissions for the end of the year (and others for years without end).

“Yeah,” says potential ebook agent, “but what about $$$?” Many epublishers are royalty only.

I say, run with that. An agent who sells a lot of ebooks is going to receive 15% of royalty checks from a lot of authors. I think right now it would be easier to make decent money as an ebook agent than as an ebook author. I believe this so strongly that I would become an ebook agent RIGHT NOW instead of simply posting my great idea for all you chubs to steal. I’m not, only for the same reason I haven started my own epublishing house. If I had an ounce of business talent, I wouldn’t be an artist, and my family would have a much higher standard of living.

“Hm,” potential ebook agent says now, “Okay, but would any authors bother with an agent who is only promising epublishing? The big money is still in print.”

I say, build a website, call yourself an agent and garner a few sales, and they will come. Oh, will they come. You too will have a slush pile of your very own to overflow your inbox. And if you pick good authors, quality will speak for itself, and maybe you will soon be subbing to print. It could happen.

If you do decide to go into this business, write to me, and I’ll link to it here on my blog.

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