Wednesday writers

This morning I had breakfast with a friend who has been passing along books written by some of his family members. The first one, written by his grandfather but mostly about the great-grandfather, was quite enjoyable. The most recent one by his brother was built around what some Christians call the Rapture. It did not appeal at all. On my third attempt to read it, I discovered that if I skipped all the Rapture stuff and read the autobiographical sections scattered throughout, I could manage.

When I was growing up, we believed in the Rapture, or at least that Jesus was coming back soon and that  that the living saved people would be taken up into heaven to meet him in the air. I used to worry it would happen while I was sitting on the toilet and would be most embarrassing. You will notice that I was sure I would be among the airborne. We did not believe by the way in the whole Millennium/Left Behind stuff.

I no longer worry about that sort of thing and have no interest in reading about other people's worries. Whatever your personal beliefs, I hope you don't worry either.

After that I went into the Dells to meet with a retired school teacher who had inquired at the library about someone who might be able to talk to him about getting a book published. He had already written and self-published a book about his family, but this is a novel. It is based on a true crime that involved two young men he had taught in high school. Drugs came into it at some point and one boy killed the other. He concealed the body in a gruesome manner, chopping it up, putting the remains in garbage bags and burying them near a suburb of Milwaukee. (I may have the details mixed up and don't know anything about the actual events and have not yet read the manuscript.)

This is not the sort of thing I normally read for leisure, but after talking with him I agreed to read it and give my opinion. So that will keep me busy for a bit. I used to evaluate book proposals and manuscripts for ICS Publications, but this is a totally different kind of book. He also wanted hints on improving his query letter, the one he sends out trying to find an agent. I agreed to offer some, but I pointed out that none of the query letters I sent had ever procured the services of an agent.