WHY ZOMBIES?

*

Candilynn Fite

http://cfitewrite.blogspot.com/

pointed out that the CDC had a

PREPARE FOR THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE announcement last year.

I still have it on my sidebar actually.

Zombies seem the next big thing. Alice Wentworth is eagerly awaiting for the craze to turn to ghouls. She could just eat up her new fans ... literally.

Why are we attracted to monsters?

No, I’m not talking about our love life. Ah, maybe I am. But that’s another post entirely.

We are drawn to monsters in our entertainment. Hannibal Lector. Dexter. Edward of TWILIGHT infamy, sparkles and all.

It is the allure of the forbidden. Hence the cover of the first TWILIGHT : outstretched hands holding a bright red apple. The eternal battle : “What I knew was right” vs. “What I wanted.”

We search for the humanity in the attractive monster : yes, he does terrible things, but never to me.

Samuel McCord chides the ghoul, Alice Wentworth, that Victor is basically a Walking Happy Meal to her. Bella is the same thing to Edward.

Should she have chosen Jacob, she would have had to walk on eggshells never to make him angry to escape the scars another mortal woman received who had the misfortune to love a werewolf.

In the latest TWILIGHT trailer, Bella said while alive she was too ordinary. Now, that she is an undead predator, she feels special. Bella has issues.

Sure, vampires are sexy. And what a compliment that a sexy man wants your company when he could just as easily have you for dinner.

Our attraction to sexy vampires can be understood.

A vampire Megan Fox would be hard to refuse a nibble on the neck, if sips were all she planned to take. But the ghoul, Megan Fox, is hardly sexy when she develops an appetite for bad, and ultimately, good boys in JENNIFER’S BODY.

Vampires are the ultimate Bad Boy in many urban fantasies today.

Many women want to believe that the right woman could tame even a blood-thirsty monster … at least enough to be the ultimate protector, provider, and lover.

As a former counselor, I cannot stress enough how unrealistic and dangerous that is.

But it sells books.

It just isn’t true to the male nature. But it is a wish that is understandable since most of those novels are written by women –

Who have to guess at the nature of males as men have to with the nature of females.

But then there is our puzzling fascination with zombies.

Zombies embody an “all consuming evil” (pun intended.) A malevolent evil with no mercy, regard, or compassion … only hunger.

Worse.

If you are only infected instead of ingested, you become one of the hungry dead yourself! No sense of family, friend, or even of yourself.

And you develop terrible table manners!

Zombies are not unlike a force of Nature … and Nature has become unsettlingly dangerous these past months as we remember Japan, New Zealand, and Katrina.

So perhaps we are drawn to the zombie movie because the zombie reflects the all-too-real terrors in our newspaper headlines. Just as you cannot reason with a zombie, threaten its family or its further living … the same can be said of a terrorist.

Terrorists keep on coming until you kill them. The same can be said for the deranged killer who stalks into a schoolroom and begins to open fire with automatic weapons.

Zombies provide similar evils … but non-threatening since they could never exist. We can work out our fears of terrorists, muggers, and insane gunmen in the dark of the movie theater.

We can ask ourselves what would we do in a Zombie Apocalypse, who would we take with us, what we would take, and where would we go. In the unspoken thoughts of our minds, we translate that into a Nuclear War/Natural Disaster Apocalypse.

We identify with the survivors in the zombie movies. We want to believe that we would survive in such a crucible. And deep down that supports our fearful hope that we would survive should Nature, Nuclear War, or terrorism reign over our landscape.

Who would have thought it?

Zombies as therapy!

*this image & the film, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, are in the public domain.

Source: Due to the filmmakers' neglect of the (former) requirement to put proper notice on copies of their work, this image & the film it's from are in the public domain

Don't forget about GHOST OF A CHANCE: (Now #41 on Amazon's 100 Best Selling Angel Novels!)
http://www.amazon.com/GHOST-OF-A-CHANCE-ebook/dp/B0097Z99YM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1347238534&sr=1-1&keywords=ghost+of+a+chance+roland+yeomans

***

NIGHT OF THE LIVING UNREAD the sequel!

*

NIGHT OF THE LIVING UNREAD the sequel :

New York City. The town of undead dreams and shattered illusions.

My very first agent. The biggest in publishing, mind you.

And here I was -- in his elegant, spacious ... and much too dark office.

At night.

What was up with that?

Actually, I knew. Courtesy of Raymond Chandler. His ghost really.

He had hated agents in life. Now, in undeath, he hated them even more. Bloodsuckers he called them.

Literally.

Now, was that type casting or what?

Aaron Bael smiled at me. His charm was colder than his eyes, and they were glitttering chips of dry ice.

With his much too long fingers, he patted my manuscript. "Odd term you use in here. 'Revenants' not the more popular, enticing 'Vampires.'"

I nervously toyed with the ball bearing in my left hand and kept from chewing my thick toothpick with an effort of will.

"In my novels, there's nothing sexy, sparkly, or warm about the reanimated dead. How could there be? Humans are their meals not their friends."

Bael nodded. "Just so. And your prose is quite good. Too good not to make large sales."

His smile dropped like a lead weight. "We cannot allow that."

A blur to my left. Fangs at my throat. Fetid breath in my face.

His not-so-lovely assistant. My thumb and forefinger shot the ball bearing into her open, snarling mouth. She hunched over choking.

Living or undead, the gag reflex will not be denied.

I whipped the thick toothpick out of my mouth and jabbed it deep into the back of her left hand still on my shoulder.

She squealed in a wet husk, then thumped bonelessly to the thick carpet like a puppet with the strings cut. She didn't move.

She was as dead as something like her could get.

Popping out of my chair, I backed up, keeping my face to Bael. "Research. Gotta love it."

He flicked an uneasy look to my manuscript. "There really is a lost acupuncture point?"

I nodded. It was the chi in the blood that animated the revenants not the oxygen. Dam the flow of chi in their bodies, and they were short-circuited : dead.

"Yes, and thanks to Tommy's Middle East tour of duty I know it."

His eyes became as flat and soulless as a snake's -- but without as much warmth. "Your precious "League of Five" friend. Well, I have a friend, too."

His canines grew longer. "As I recall, you were quite taken with Miss Lupa, my secretary, and her mini-skirt."

His office door burst open. A snarling she-wolf shambled in, her black business suit hanging from her in tatters.

Reaching slowly into my jacket's inside pocket, I forced a smile. "Honey, your legs were prettier without the fur."

Bael sneered at my hand under my jacket. "You're carrying a gun in New York City?"

I shook my head. "Only criminals get to do that."

I brought out the magnesium flare. "Meet my best-est buddy, Mr. Sunshine-in-a-Stick."

I snapped its end off to bring it to blazing life. Its red glare filled the office. And the same ultraviolet light that burns from the Sun seared the flesh from Bael's screaming, writhing body.

The stench filled the spacious room, making acid bile burn up my throat and into my mouth.

Miss Lupa had seen better days, too.

The ultraviolet light had tricked her body into a "false dawn" dress-down to humanity. But she was caught mid-way, her body changing in spurts to the surges in the flare.

She writhed on the carpet in agony. I couldn't leave her like this.

Thanks to Chandler's ghost, I didn't have to.

I walked gingerly around the still-smoldering Bael and his simply still assistant. I went to the back of the agent's desk to the middle drawer. I pulled it out.

"Only criminals get to do that," I whispered, pulling out the automatic.

Silver bullets in the clip Chandler had assured me. I chambered a round into the barrel.

I walked back to stand over Lupa. She snarled at me, spittle flying from her sharp teeth.

"How many screaming humans have you killed that were helpless to fight back?," I sighed.

"N-Not enough," husked Lupa.

"One was too many," I said low and double-tapped her.

(Unlike politicians, movies sometimes told the truth.)

She stopped wiggling. I looked over to Bael and his assistant. How many dreamers
had they shot down,

not because their work wouldn't sell,

but because it would?

A pounding shook the heavy entrance wooden doors. I went quiet and cold inside.

The zombie security guards Chandler had told me about. I smiled bitterly. No problem.

They only ate brains.

And obviously, no one who opened a can of whup-ass on revenants and ferals simply for being rejected had any of those.
*
Movie Art from Night of the Living Dead (1968).

Due to a failure to include a copyright notice on the 1968 print, all images from this film are in the public domain.
***

ZOMBIES AS THERAPY!

Why are we attracted to monsters?

No, I’m not talking about our love life. Ah, maybe I am. But that’s another post entirely.

We are drawn to monsters in our entertainment. Hannibal Lector. Dexter. Edward of TWILIGHT infamy, sparkles and all.

It is the allure of the forbidden. Hence the cover of the first TWILIGHT : outstretched hands holding a bright red apple. The eternal battle : “What I knew was right” vs. “What I wanted.”

We search for the humanity in the attractive monster : yes, he does terrible things, but never to me.

Samuel McCord chides the ghoul, Alice Wentworth, that Victor is basically a Walking Happy Meal to her. Bella is the same thing to Edward.

Should she have chosen Jacob, she would have had to walk on eggshells never to make him angry to escape the scars another mortal woman received who had the misfortune to love a werewolf.

Sure, vampires are sexy. And what a compliment that a sexy man wants your company when he could just as easily have you for dinner.

Our attraction to sexy vampires can be understood.

A vampire Megan Fox would be hard to refuse a nibble on the neck, if sips were all she planned to take. But the ghoul, Megan Fox, is hardly sexy when she develops an appetite for bad, and ultimately, good boys in JENNIFER’S BODY.

Vampires are the ultimate Bad Boy in many urban fantasies today.

Many women want to believe that the right woman could tame even a blood-thirsty monster … at least enough to be the ultimate protector, provider, and lover.

As a former counselor, I cannot stress enough how unrealistic and dangerous that is.

But it sells books.

It just isn’t true to the male nature. But it is a wish that is understandable since most of those novels are written by women –

Who have to guess at the nature of males as men have to with the nature of females.

But then there is our puzzling fascination with zombies.

Zombies embody an “all consuming evil” (pun intended.) A malevolent evil with no mercy, regard, or compassion … only hunger.

Worse.

If you are only infected instead of ingested, you become one of the hungry dead yourself! No sense of family, friend, or even of yourself.

And you develop terrible table manners!

Zombies are not unlike a force of Nature … and Nature has become unsettlingly dangerous these past months as we remember Japan, New Zealand, and Katrina.

So perhaps we are drawn to the zombie movie because the zombie reflects the all-too-real terrors in our newspaper headlines. Just as you cannot reason with a zombie, threaten its family or its further living … the same can be said of a terrorist.

Terrorists keep on coming until you kill them. The same can be said for the deranged killer who stalks into a schoolroom and begins to open fire with automatic weapons.

Zombies provide similar evils … but non-threatening since they could never exist. We can work out our fears of terrorists, muggers, and insane gunmen in the dark of the movie theater.

We can ask ourselves what would we do in a Zombie Apocalypse, who would we take with us, what we would take, and where would we go. In the unspoken thoughts of our minds, we translate that into a Nuclear War/Natural Disaster Apocalypse.

We identify with the survivors in the zombie movies. We want to believe that we would survive in such a crucible. And deep down that supports our fearful hope that we would survive should Nature, Nuclear War, or terrorism reign over our landscape.

Who would have thought it?

Zombies as therapy!

***

SNOOPY VERSUS ZOMBIES!

Woodstock has just got to stop watching those DVD's of

THE WALKING DEAD!

And don't forget one of the prizes in THE FRIENDS OF VICTOR STANDISH contest

is

a CHARLES SCHULZ AUTOGRAPHED program of WINTER DREAMS!

http://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2011/10/new-and-old-prizes-i-am-giving-away.html

ZOMBIES AS THERAPY!

Why are we attracted to monsters?

No, I’m not talking about our love life. Ah, maybe I am. But that’s another post entirely.

We are drawn to monsters in our entertainment. Hannibal Lector. Dexter. Edward of TWILIGHT infamy, sparkles and all.

It is the allure of the forbidden. Hence the cover of the first TWILIGHT : outstretched hands holding a bright red apple. The eternal battle : “What I knew was right” vs. “What I wanted.”

We search for the humanity in the attractive monster : yes, he does terrible things, but never to me.

Samuel McCord chides the ghoul, Alice Wentworth, that Victor is basically a Walking Happy Meal to her. Bella is the same thing to Edward.

Should she have chosen Jacob, she would have had to walk on eggshells never to make him angry to escape the scars another mortal woman received who had the misfortune to love a werewolf.

Sure, vampires are sexy. And what a compliment that a sexy man wants your company when he could just as easily have you for dinner.

Our attraction to sexy vampires can be understood.

A vampire Megan Fox would be hard to refuse a nibble on the neck, if sips were all she planned to take. But the ghoul, Megan Fox, is hardly sexy when she develops an appetite for bad, and ultimately, good boys in JENNIFER’S BODY.

Vampires are the ultimate Bad Boy in many urban fantasies today.

Many women want to believe that the right woman could tame even a blood-thirsty monster … at least enough to be the ultimate protector, provider, and lover.

As a former counselor, I cannot stress enough how unrealistic and dangerous that is.

But it sells books.

It just isn’t true to the male nature. But it is a wish that is understandable since most of those novels are written by women –

Who have to guess at the nature of males as men have to with the nature of females.

But then there is our puzzling fascination with zombies.

Zombies embody an “all consuming evil” (pun intended.) A malevolent evil with no mercy, regard, or compassion … only hunger.

Worse.

If you are only infected instead of ingested, you become one of the hungry dead yourself! No sense of family, friend, or even of yourself.

And you develop terrible table manners!

Zombies are not unlike a force of Nature … and Nature has become unsettlingly dangerous these past months as we remember Japan, New Zealand, and Katrina.

So perhaps we are drawn to the zombie movie because the zombie reflects the all-too-real terrors in our newspaper headlines. Just as you cannot reason with a zombie, threaten its family or its further living … the same can be said of a terrorist.

Terrorists keep on coming until you kill them. The same can be said for the deranged killer who stalks into a schoolroom and begins to open fire with automatic weapons.

Zombies provide similar evils … but non-threatening since they could never exist. We can work out our fears of terrorists, muggers, and insane gunmen in the dark of the movie theater.

We can ask ourselves what would we do in a Zombie Apocalypse, who would we take with us, what we would take, and where would we go. In the unspoken thoughts of our minds, we translate that into a Nuclear War/Natural Disaster Apocalypse.

We identify with the survivors in the zombie movies. We want to believe that we would survive in such a crucible. And deep down that supports our fearful hope that we would survive should Nature, Nuclear War, or terrorism reign over our landscape.

Who would have thought it?

Zombies as therapy!

***

HOW TO GET AN AGENT FAST!

Please vote for my GateKeeper Contest entry. Victor's mother is beginning to grumble about the lack of votes. Ah, Death has no sense of humor.

http://www.wattpad.com/1073509-the-legend-of-victor-standish?d=ud

Now, to my post title : HOW TO GET AN AGENT FAST!

One sentence answer :

Make the sale for her.

Before you get your hackles up, bear with me for a second.

I didn't say it was fair. It's just how to get an agent fast. You make the sale yourself.

Besides, in a way, it is quite fair :

Who else knows your novel as intimately as you do?

Who else can see its market potential, how best to phrase its strengths, illuminate why what might seem a weakness is in fact a strength?

Your carefully crafted query will more than likely be the essence of your agent's pitch to weary, skeptical editors.

Making your query shine not only makes your agent look better, it makes her sale easier.

And after all, 85% of the money from that sale will go to you.

Then why do you need agents in the first place?

Cliff Notes answer :

Most publishers won't look at you without one.

Agents will fight for you to get more money for a long list of rights you know nothing about, and when your editor moves on, your agent will make sure you're not shoved to the bottom of the stack

(which you will be if you don't have an agent.)

All right. How do you make the sale for them?

1) Make your own market :
Conventional wisdom says start your own blog. Be unconventional. Make the "Pet Rock" of blogs. How?

You do daily posts. Don't groan. You need to build a following. Daily posts will do that for you.

You make short posts for shorter attention spans.

You make each one funny. Be the Christopher Moore of blogdom. How?

Nothing is shorter than a one panel cartoon. Create a zombie Ziggy (creation by Tom Wilson.) Call him "Nearly Dead Ned." Place him in a post-apocalyptic New York City.

First cartoon :
Ned is happily eating his own forefinger. The caption reads : "The trouble with finger sandwiches is that none are as good as homemade."

Second cartoon :
Ned is looking odd at a cobwebbed skeleton by a doorway. The skeleton is wearing sunglasses and a badge " Help the Blind." The skeleton is pressing a door buzzer under a sign which reads : "School for the Deaf."

Third cartoon :
Ned is lumbering down a street in the red light district. He has passed two bars. One advertises : "Live Nudes." The second : "Undead Nudes."
Ned is stopped in front of the third with his now classic puzzled look. Its window reads : "Don't Ask."

You do a year's worth of cartoons. Pick the ones with the largest number of favorable comments. Bind them up and submit to agents with the comments to each attached, along with the daily stats for your blog.

{Now, obviously this is just an example of an unconventional "Pet Rock" blog. You have to use your own muse to take off and run with the concept.}

2) Fan the flames of off-line and on-line interest :
As I will do shortly with my blog tour for the next classic fantasy to take America's imagination by storm : THE BEAR WITH 2 SHADOWS.

And wouldn't you have loved to have been one of the first readers to have read and been amazed by the magic of THE LORD OF THE RINGS? Don't believe me? Download those first free chapters. You'll be a believer.

Get a local reporter to do a review of your novel for your local newspaper. Hopscotch that into another review from the newspaper of a near-by town.

3) Make a book trailer of your novel.
Using the students from a local university, create a book trailer. Utilize public domain music and images.

Splice the images with teases from your novel. Put the book trailer on your blog and on YouTube.

Advertise your book trailer on the blogs of your friends, in the local newspaper, and in the local college newspaper (hawking the fact that you used students from said college.)

4) Petition your local newspaper and those free newspapers at the doors to every grocery store to do free reviews for upcoming books and movies. Keep a record of each and every article you do for different newpapers with names and dates.

5) Be sure you state all of the above quickly and tersely at the end of every query to every agent.

And there you have the five easy steps to get an agent fast. They might even work. May we all get agents faster than we believe possible.
{Cartoon by the comic genius, Chuck Ingwersen http://wordsandtoons.com/2009/05/ }
***************************************
And a movie that succeeded due to its unconventional take on a classic subject is :

AGENT REJECTION_ROH MORGON'S MONSTER MASH entry Part I

Here's my entry into Roh Morgon's MONSTER MASH BLOGFEST :

http://www.rohmorgon.com/blog/?p=898


AGENT REJECTION :

New York City. My very first agent. The biggest in publishing, mind you.

And here I was -- in his elegant, spacious ... and much too dark office.

At night.

What was up with that?

Actually, I knew. Courtesy of Raymond Chandler. His ghost really.

He had hated agents in life. Now, in undeath, he hated them even more. Bloodsuckers he called them.

Literally.

Now, was that type casting or what?

Aaron Bael smiled at me. His charm was colder than his eyes, and they were glitttering chips of dry ice.

With his much too long fingers, he patted my manuscript. "Odd term you use in here. 'Revenants' not the more popular, enticing 'Vampires.'"

I nervously toyed with the ball bearing in my left hand and kept from chewing my thick toothpick with an effort of will.

"In my novels, there's nothing sexy, sparkly, or warm about the reanimated dead. How could there be? Humans are their meals not their friends."

Bael nodded. "Just so. And your prose is quite good. Too good not to make large sales."

His smile dropped like a lead weight. "We cannot allow that."

A blur to my left. Fangs at my throat. Fetid breath in my face.

His not-so-lovely assistant. My thumb and forefinger shot the ball bearing into her open, snarling mouth. She hunched over choking.

Living or undead, the gag reflex will not be denied.

I whipped the thick toothpick out of my mouth and jabbed it deep into the back of her left hand still on my shoulder.

She squealed in a wet husk, then thumped bonelessly to the thick carpet like a puppet with the strings cut. She didn't move.

She was as dead as something like her could get.

Popping out of my chair, I backed up, keeping my face to Bael. "Research. Gotta love it."

He flicked an uneasy look to my manuscript. "There really is a lost acupuncture point?"

I nodded. It was the chi in the blood that animated the revenants not the oxygen. Dam the flow of chi in their bodies, and they were short-circuited : dead.

"Yes, and thanks to Tommy's Middle East tour of duty I know it."

His eyes became as flat and soulless as a snake's -- but without as much warmth. "Your precious "League of Five" friend. Well, I have a friend, too."

His canines grew longer. "As I recall, you were quite taken with Miss Lupa, my secretary, and her mini-skirt."

His office door burst open. A snarling she-wolf shambled in, her black business suit hanging from her in tatters.

Reaching slowly into my jacket's inside pocket, I forced a smile. "Honey, your legs were prettier without the fur."

Bael sneered at my hand under my jacket. "You're carrying a gun in New York City?"

I shook my head. "Only criminals get to do that."

I brought out the magnesium flare. "Meet my best-est buddy, Mr. Sunshine-in-a-Stick."

I snapped its end off to bring it to blazing life. Its red glare filled the office. And the same ultraviolet light that burns from the Sun seared the flesh from Bael's screaming, writhing body.

The stench filled the spacious room, making acid bile burn up my throat and into my mouth.

Miss Lupa had seen better days, too.

The ultraviolet light had tricked her body into a "false dawn" dress-down to humanity. But she was caught mid-way, her body changing in spurts to the surges in the flare.

She writhed on the carpet in agony. I couldn't leave her like this.

Thanks to Chandler's ghost, I didn't have to.

I walked gingerly around the still-smoldering Bael and his simply still assistant. I went to the back of the agent's desk to the middle drawer. I pulled it out.

"Only criminals get to do that," I whispered, pulling out the automatic.

Silver bullets in the clip Chandler had assured me. I chambered a round into the barrel.

I walked back to stand over Lupa. She snarled at me, spittle flying from her sharp teeth.

"How many screaming humans have you killed that were helpless to fight back?," I sighed.

"N-Not enough," husked Lupa.

"One was too many," I said low and double-tapped her.

(Unlike politicians, movies sometimes told the truth.)

She stopped wiggling. I looked over to Bael and his assistant. How many dreamers
had they shot down,

not because their work wouldn't sell,

but because it would?

A pounding shook the heavy entrance wooden doors. I went quiet and cold inside.

The zombie security guards Chandler had told me about. I smiled bitterly. No problem.

They only ate brains.

And obviously, no one who opened a can of whoop-ass on revenants and ferals simply for being rejected had any of those.

***

HOW TO GET AN AGENT FAST!

One sentence answer :

Make the sale for her.

Before you get your hackles up, bear with me for a second.

I didn't say it was fair. It's just how to get an agent fast. You make the sale yourself.

Then why do you need agents in the first place?

Cliff Notes answer : Most publishers won't look at you without one. Agents will fight for you to get more money for a long list of rights you know nothing about, and when your editor moves on, your agent will make sure you're not shoved to the bottom of the stack (which you will be if you don't have an agent.)

All right. How do you make the sale for them?

1) Make your own market :
Conventional wisdom says start your own blog. Be unconventional. Make the "Pet Rock" of blogs. How?

You do daily posts. Don't groan. You need to build a following. Daily posts will do that for you.

You make short posts for shorter attention spans.

You make each one funny. Be the Christopher Moore of blogdom. How?

Nothing is shorter than a one panel cartoon. Create a zombie Ziggy (creation by Tom Wilson.) Call him "Nearly Dead Ned." Place him in a post-apocalyptic New York City.

First cartoon :
Ned is happily eating his own forefinger. The caption reads : "The trouble with finger sandwiches is that none are as good as homemade."

Second cartoon :
Ned is looking odd at a cobwebbed skeleton by a doorway. The skeleton is wearing sunglasses and a badge " Help the Blind." The skeleton is pressing a door buzzer under a sign which reads : "School for the Deaf."

Third cartoon :
Ned is lumbering down a street in the red light district. He has passed two bars. One advertises : "Live Nudes." The second : "Undead Nudes."
Ned is stopped in front of the third with his now classic puzzled look. Its window reads : "Don't Ask."

You do a year's worth of cartoons. Pick the ones with the largest number of favorable comments. Bind them up and submit to agents with the comments to each attached, along with the daily stats for your blog.

{Now, obviously this is just an example of an unconventional "Pet Rock" blog. You have to use your own muse to take off and run with the concept.}

2) Fan the flames of off-line and on-line interest :
Get multiple college newspaper reviews of your novel. Guest-blog on others' more popular blogs. {As Anne Gallagher has done in her insightful article on the popular GUIDE TO LITERARY AGENTS :

http://www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog/The+5+Stages+Of+Querying.aspx }

Get a local reporter to do a review of your novel for your local newspaper. Hopscotch that into another review from the newspaper of a near-by town.

3) Make a book trailer of your novel.
Using the students from a local university, create a book trailer. Utilize public domain music and images. Splice the images with teases from your novel. Put the book trailer on your blog and on YouTube. Advertise your book trailer on the blogs of your friends, in the local newspaper, and in the local college newspaper (hawking the fact that you used students from said college.)

4) Petition your local newspaper and those free newspapers at the doors to every grocery store to do free reviews for upcoming books and movies. Keep a record of each and every article you do for different newpapers with names and dates.

5) Be sure you state all of the above quickly and tersely at the end of every query to every agent.

And there you have the five easy steps to get an agent fast. They might even work. May we all get agents faster than we believe possible.
{Cartoon by the comic genius, Chuck Ingwersen http://wordsandtoons.com/2009/05/ }
***************************************
And a movie that succeeded due to its unconventional take on a classic subject is :