Well, at long last I’ve finished reading all 200 entries. Some were disqualified for a variety of reasons so there were about 192 actual competitors for the First Last and Only Idols of March Writing Contest.
There was an amazingly high percentage of good work considering the word use requirements, the short amount of time AND the 100 word limit.
Herewith the results:
Two entries reminded me of great words I hadn’t used in a while:
Wang Chung! (90)
Snivel (77)
Two entries used the Space Ark hilarity to great effect:
144
148
Seven entries eschewed “the usual suspects” and did some interesting things with form:
25
66
80
81
99
120
154
192
Three entries had to use the Topic That Will Not Die: SASE. They all made me laugh!
5
108
162
One entry is cited for Best Suck Up of the Day:
13
Several interesting revelations about Mr. Lazar:
He owns a compound (19), and a weekend house on the Niger River (160)
He’s in fact Miss Snark (28), who is of course also a girl (152) and a drag queen (46)
He’s a missile man (55)
He bowls! (73)
He’s a vampire! (97), and an executioner (180)
He’s a real estate broker (101), a master thief (107) a secret agent (117) a heartbreaker (122) and of course a hero (136).
He has a teddy bear tattoo (141) goes bungee jumping (151), and kidnaps dogs (157).
But mostly Dan Lazar is a rock god (179)
Some entries were funny but horrifyingly true:
11
The award for use of ‘non-jack’ reacher goes to #64 for Reacher, West Virginia.
The award for best use of the word ‘helicopter’ goes to #138
There were 22 entries that stood out from the pack:
The first 15 are:
3
21
25
67
75
80
86
108
123
130
137
140
148
154
These 3 are really good:
30
54
57
These three are very good:
131
159
162
Third place goes to: 92
Second place goes to: 118
First place goes to: 170
I remain astounded by the wealth of creativity in the readers of this blog.
It was crazy to do this contest, but it was worth it!
3.24.2007
IOM 123-194 (last entry) -UPDATED with comments
Entry 123
Dr. Susan Applegate, M. D., sat behind her oak desk, staring her client in the eye. "I'm not sure I understand."
"I'm not Dan Lazar!" Daivad squawked, looking at her stapler.
"All right," Susan said. She put the stapler in the drawer. Too distracting.
"I'm not a helicopter, and I didn't fly in on some snazzy moonbeam, either," he croaked.
"So what is the problem?" she asked.
"I'm a reacher," he moaned. She arched an eyebrow. "I reach out and touch everything."
Lovely. An OCD griffin. And, as Special Counselor to Exotic Species, she was within claw reach. Oh, dear.
oh yes!!
Entry 124
“Who’s Dan Lazar?”
“Some guy.”
“That’s helpful,” Jamie rolled her eyes. “Not a llama or unicorn or gin guzzling griffin?”
“He flies helicopters or some shit.” Doug was playing with Grandma’s reacher, squeezing the handles to grab at his thigh. “This thing’s snazzy. I wish I had shrunken arms and arthritis.”
Jamie stared into the night sky with teenage self-importance and annoyance – wondering what she’d done to deserve a brother – when suddenly a freak moonbeam aligned disastrously with the reflectors and lenses of Dr. Freundenheizer’s giant death ray, reversing it upon the hapless mad scientist. Small portions of Oklahoma survived.
What's the bad news?
(sorry Lesia!)
Entry 125
Chapter 5- Crash Page 56
horrific crunching noise.
The twisted wreckage of the once snazzy helicopter settled into place like a large griffin tucking his wings awkwardly underneath him.
"Dan Lazar!?! Dan??" she cried out desperately. She heard soft moaning, and the pale light of a moonbeam glimmered in the dark abyss of her heart.
Hot tears burned her cheeks. She cursed; she always carried her reacher with her! And now, when her crippled lover needed her, she was without the tool that could free his bruised, muscular body from his prison of tangled steel.
Chapter 6 – Rescue
Not dead yet!...and "muscular"...woo hoo!
Entry 126
"Yes. I will be there. The helicopter is ready?" The phone crackled. "You're breaking up. Take care of Dan Lazar, Mr. Griffin. I have one more errand."
The man drove through the night and listened to gentle classical. He aimed for potholes and smiled each time he heard the package thud in the back.
He parked at a cliff atop a rocky shoreline and opened the trunk. The package laid still.
The man dragged it to the edge and rolled it off. His lips curled as the body fell, lit by a moonbeam. "Snazzy. Goodbye, Mr. Reacher."
I spot on guarantee you that Reacher not only survives the fall, he returns to return the favor.
Entry 127
When I left him in Mexico, I hadn't expected to see him again. But here he stood. Dan Lazar. And he didn't look pleased.
He stared. I stared. He said something I couldn't hear as a helicopter flew overhead. I wasn't sure I wanted to anyway. He always did have a foul mouth.
I hoped a giant moonbeam would zap down and pluck me up. Nothing quite so snazzy happened.
I pulled out my reacher to pick up trash. If nothing else, maybe it would protect me from this fire-breathing griffin who was about to unleash his fury.
I told you he was a survivor!
Entry 128
Dan Lazar tossed the Marymount Manhattan Griffin yearbook on the seat of the snazzy helicopter cockpit and picked up a Jack Reacher novel to read by the light of a moonbeam.
well, brevity is the soul of wit but this is only so brief as to be a halfwit.
Entry 129
dupe of 127 (which is a relief cause I was off on my numbering and this explains it).
Entry 130
MURDER AT THE AWP
Atlanta, Detective Reacher mused, is a Great Gatsby city: a moonbeam straining towards the sun, a country girl in Donna Karan. Snazzy as a helicopter whir, but about as elegant as a Dan Lazar rejection.
The perfect home for an overachieving serial killer.
Reacher could see why the Griffin had chosen it. A city full of unripe lives to pluck, dark and secret pasts to delve. And, of course, the AWP: the one place a pathos-ridden bibliophile could
become invisible. For the Griffin had murdered with literature before, and he would do it again.
Well, at least Dan is alive!
I like this one in addition to Dan not being dead.
Entry 131
Snazzy and Moonbeam spent all morning crunching numbers. There was just no getting around it. S & M High-Riders would have to close shop for good. Ironically, their alcoholic helicopter pilot wasn’t even the problem this time.
“We’ve been grounded,” Snazzy lamented, pulling his rising T-shirt back over his beer-gut so that its airbrushed griffin appeared menacing once more. “I don’t know who Dan Lazar thinks he is, but his lawsuit against us for false advertising is a real reacher, man.”
Moonbeam shook her matted dreadlocks and the two old hippies held each other, weeping the loss of their dream.
Brilliant. Plus, Dan isn't dead.
Entry 132
The forest trees shielded the moonbeams from providing sufficient light to land a helicopter. However, Griffin was an experienced fighter pilot. Though it was dark and it was a tight squeeze, he was able to find a clearing just a few feet from the rendezvous point.
“Snazzy landing” said Reacher as he adjusted his Night Vision Goggles to a sharper image.
“Sweet” agreed Dan Lazar as he did the same.
“Well, what can I say” Griffin replied quickly turning his attention to the dispatch call blaring through his headphones. Than he siad “Ready up Romeos Juliet awaits your arrival.”
Who knew Jack Reacher owned night vision goggles??
Entry 133
Griffin's pissed: "you reckon you're Dan Lazar? You sell 'dogs, man, and not in Central Park!"
Reacher smiles, his chipped incisor escaping his lip. "I tell you, Griffin, I can do it for you. Trust me, here."
"How?"
"All you need is a helicopter and a cloudy evening. And a snazzy moonbeam tool to write the message."
"Yeah, right! I want something permanent. How's Suze going to know I love her if it ain't permanent?"
"That, amigo, is 'your' problem. Take a photo or something. Now, are you buying the dog, or do I have to mug your pockets again?"
alrighty then.
Entry 134
Reacher shifted uncomfortably in his helicopter jump seat. The moonbeam shining through the domed plexiglass reflected harshly off of Dan Lazar’s snazzy sequined suit.
“Dan,” can you shift a bit to the left, please?
“Sure,” he said, not moving an inch.
A winged shadow temporarily cut off the glare.
“Look! The griffin!” Reacher said.
Dan craned his neck uncomfortably to get a view. “Nah, it’s just Killer Yap out on Miss Snark’s broom again.”
Killer Yapp rides a swiffer. Customized of course.
Entry 135
A toddler's titter in the air announced the return of the reacher. Grandma's claw they called it. An old Featherlite--32" aluminum-frame--with a snazzy magnet on one of its jaws. There, near
where the moonbeam fell during the summer months (when grammy couldn't pull the curtain shut: no reacher), she raised it, pulled the trigger, and lacerated old stumpy.
Stumpy the griffin. 'It no griffin,' Vern said, 'it Dan Lazar's beast, sure, but no griffin.' Grammy spun around, reacher in her claws, twirled, helicopter blades and such. 'What it be then if no
griffin?'
'Snark!' grammy's chords screeched.
Oh great, now Miss Snark joins the ranks of the deceased!
Entry 136
Dan Lazar was worried. Maybe his wife was right, that his snazzy new helicopter “the Griffin,” was a bad business decision. They were now deeply in debt, and he’d just spent their last thousand dollars on an ad, but he knew it would pay for itself if he got just one celebrity rescue on LA’s TV news. He sighed and opened the last beer in the fridge when the phone rang. It was George Clooney, whose dog, Moonbeam, was stranded on a ledge over the Pacific. A storm was coming in fast, and he had only one hour to reacher.
Dan Lazar, hero!!!
Entry 137
“Can you reacher?”
The helicopter drifted across the sky.
“Don’t know,” Griffin said. “That’s a lengthy shot.”
The first man patted the steel tube. “Well, what you waiting on? Let’s test that snazzy new lazar out.”
“Laser.”
“You gonna make fun of the way I talk or you gonna shoot that dan helicopter out of the sky?”
“Damned helicopter,” Griffin said as he aimed the laser and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
“Griffin, your dan lazar don’t even work. Jeez, I got a better chance of shooting a moonbeam out my ass.”
Despite the terrifying anatomical images, this is hilarious.
Entry 138
Jack Reacher walked along the shoulder of US-75, keeping a three-foot space between him and the passing traffic. Three feet was optimum for a hitchhiker; close enough to encourage rides, but still maintain a margin of safety.
A car stopped. Reacher saw a moonbeam glint against the griffin logo: a Saab.
“Ride?” the driver asked. “I’m Dan Lazar.”
Lazar was sociable, confiding he was an agent. “Doing my helicopter routine. In town to hover over a best-selling client.”
The agent paused, but Reacher didn’t fill the space with words.
“Your shoes sure are snazzy,” Lazar finally commented. “British, right?”
Good knowledge of the Reacher novels here! And GREAT use of helicopter!
Entry 139
The Griffin swooped down, the Lee Child novel clenched tightly in it’s beak. Dan Lazar freaked out; his last book. He’d never make it as a literary agent, not with that griffin flying away taking with her his only clue, his bible to the business. Without it, Dan wouldn’t be able to identify a good writer from A snazzy typewriter. What would Reacher do?
So Dan jumped in the helicopter. He ascended with the bright moonbeam in his eyes. Too late, the rotors caught the Griffin’s lion tail sending them all crashing in a mass of tangled metal and feathers.
He's better off dead I guess.
Entry 140
Dr. Lazar grabbed his reacher and sent it down my throat.
"Think of unicorns and moonbeams," he said, "and magical griffins."
"I just read a book about a stoic helicopter medic."
"Whatever works."
Soon my pabrums were qualibrating.
How disconcerting to receive mediaeval remedies in such snazzy office. Oh well, arthritis picked me, I didn't pick it. On the sonogram I could see my worm being removed. Soon a fresh one was plucked for imbibement.
"I'm going to name this one," I said. "Here's hoping he works harder than the last one."
"What's the name?"
"Dan"
Lazar laughed.
Nice, nice, nice!
Entry 141
Moonbeams slipped through the window, the light softening the griffin tattoo on his wrist into the shape of a teddy bear. He tugged his cuff down to cover it. He was The Reacher, not a pre-school teacher. The teddy's ears poked out and he yanked the cuff harder. He dropped in and out of lives like the devil in a helicopter, taking away hope. The ears appeared again,
waggled slightly. Cute...Snazzy little thing... No! Stop! The shirt ripped at the shoulder, but the teddy was gone. He was Dan Lazar, Literary Agent and it was time for manuscript torching.
Dan Lazar has a teddy bear tattoo??
Entry 142
Feeling the helicopter touch down, Dan Lazar shook his head as he glanced at the snazzy masks worn by the other passengers; Moonbeam and Reacher. The masks and nicknames were requirements of the bride. Dan was calling himself Griffin. Stepping out while ducking under the still whirling blades, he saw the unfairly suave groom in the distance, the only one without a mask. Even the bride would be wearing one.
The bride. . . . Dan still couldn't believe it.
Clooney marrying Miss Snark. . . . Dan shook his head again, fearing the apocalypse that couldn't be far behind.
Bring it on!
Entry 143
A sexy man, his charms enticing like Kama Sutra bonbons. “Writer’s House welcomes new blood.”
“Which writer’s home?” I ask. “Maybe Lee Childs? I love Jack Reacher.”
“Reacher might be there now. I’ll take you in my helicopter.” A moonbeam yellows Dan Lazar’s teeth. He isn’t quite as sexy anymore.
“Say, you aren’t thinking of throwing me off the ‘copter, are you?”
“Why would I do that?”
“My personal griffin says not to trust you.”
“Sign with me, and I’ll buy you a snazzy new one with George's Clooney's head instead of a lion’s.”
I thought about it.
“Okay.”
sucker!
Entry 144
The pleasant spring breeze coming through Dan Lazar's office window became a violent tempest and the slush pile erupted. The helicopter was back, and this time with a floodlight. Dan forced deep breaths into his panicked body and tried to imagine the swirling pages as dust
motes in a moonbeam.
Petulant whines breached the pandemonium, "THINK SPACE ARK MEETS KIPLING'S KIM! A 19th CENTURY GRIFFIN IN INDIA TRANSPORTED ACROSS THE UNIVERSE! I EVEN HAVE A SNAZZY BINDING!"
Dan stuck a reacher out the window and snatched the manuscript.
"S.A.S.E.?" he screamed over the noise.
The megaphone spluttered, "WAIT! THAT'S $35.00!!!!"
Excellent use of Blog rants for material!
Entry 145
Dan Lazar had made a snazzy getaway as his helicopter sashayed over head. It would take a moonbeam to take him down now.
If only I had been more prepared and brought my reacher, I could have grabbed onto the bottom of the helicopter before it flew away. Now here I was alone on this island with nothing but a half-empty bottle of tequila.
As my despair set in, I took a swig of the tequila and heard a rustling in the bushes. I turned to see a giant griffin staring back at me.
"Oh shit."
alrighty then.
Entry 146
The helicopter was ready. Unfortunately, three different agencies couldn't tell him where to go. So he was sitting in the dirt in a shack outside Pune. His snazzy uniform was getting dirty. He would tell them all where to go later. The Reacher sat facing him, eyes closed, in a trance. Horseshit. Someone was Googling by moonbeam on a wind-up computer and passing her answers. This was taking too long.
"Mizz…"
"Miss."
"Whatever."
"Griffin."
Her eyes opened. An insult.
"A name. Please."
"Dan Lazar."
He shot her twice, stepping over her as he left.
"Dan Lazar. Thank you."
Well, at least Dan't not the dead one this time!!
Entry 147
When Hunter sold the “big house” he sighed. Not because he'd miss the snazzy griffin beside the gilded front door, or the phallus shaped junipers flanking the portico. The Macmansion had swallowed funds for five years, but he'd attained his objective: a condo in fashionable Moonbeam Grant sub-division with no mortgage. He'd always been a reacher; pigeonholing long-term goals. With money inherited from his grandfather, agent Dan Lazar, Hunter had purchased the Macmansion with a small down payment and a colossal mortgage one month after landing his first job as co-pilot for a helicopter transport.
ungrateful loinfruit.
Entry 148
"Someone killed Dan Lazar in a contest entry," said Zeus. "He's in Hades, and I need him out to represent GRIFFIN REPORT: HELICOPTER SCANDALS."
"That's Orpheus' job."
"His voice hasn't been the same since Selene demoted him from moonshine to moonbeam. Turns out the alcohol fumes were what sent everyone into a trance."
"Masters, I is saving him."
"What are you?"
"Reacher, a temple-elf."
"Aren't you from Harry Potter?"
"No, that's copyright. You needs a snazzy lawyer for that. But I is close enough to use Charm."
"How?"
Reacher smiled proudly. "I gets Master Lazar out on the Space Ark!"
oh dear dog, another stogie gone, Grandmother Snark calling for oxygen and Miss Snark herself requiring new drawers.
Entry 149
"Griffin watched as the maple seed spiraled like a helicopter gently to the moss covered ground. She sighed.
Yesterday, Reacher had come to her for the last time. She remembered how they made love here, urgent yet satisfying; their skin illuminated by a moonbeam.
“Will you forget me?” she had asked him.
She did not remember his answer today. It had been snazzy yet evasive. She had laughed and cried at the same time. Then he had gone."
Laughing, Dan Lazer forwarded the story to his closest friends and reached for drink. Lee won the April Fool’s prize, again.
Reacher's really getting around!
Entry 150
Once upon a twilight time in a thatched village, an old man was sitting on the back porch with his griffin.
"That moonbeam's a reacher," Dan Lazar said. "See, it's almost touching the bay."
The griffin snored.
"Wake up!" cried Dan, for at that very moment a silhouette was flying through the moonlight, getting larger and larger. "Wake up!"
The griffin awoke for a moment, looked up at the moon, then promptly fell asleep again.
"I bet it's a snazzy helicopter, whirling lights and all," Dan said. "Or the aliens, coming to getcha." And he was right.
Can't be soon enough!
Entry 151
Dan Lazar fell. Not just any fall, off a chair or down the stairs or some such. Dan began a thousand-foot plummet. Why had he jumped out of the helicopter? He immediately regretted it, twisting about and extending an arm back toward the woman he called Reacher, since she reached out in a futile attempt to save him. Dan had no crazy, drug-induced delusions about riding snazzy moonbeams or mythical griffins back to the ground. Death would snare him after these interminable seconds in freefall. Unless
The bungee cord about his ankles finally tightened, offering relief and salvation.
Dan Lazar, bungee jumper!
Entry 152
Dan Lazar had to hold on to the wall to keep her balance. Tatters of her jumpsuit were all that remained, strategically placed for a PG-13 world. Perhaps the outfit had been snazzy once, before jumping from the helicopter trying to re-capture Reacher. Wings spread in a moonbeam, the griffin taunted her, holding his leash out and then flying away like the petulant child he was. The fall had broken more than her pride, but she’d never really needed her third leg anyway. With a sharp twist, she ripped it off and threw it at her pet. She missed.
Surreal in so many ways.
Entry 153
A heavy stuttering sound pulsed rhythmically through the night, beating against Sky-Reacher's sensitive ears. He circled in the air, curious about the strange creature slicing through the moonbeams below. It rose, coming closer and closer—too close for Sky-Reacher's comfort. Screaming, the griffin dove.
"What was that?" Jim looked up at the helicopter's ceiling.
"Dunno." Matt continued reading his magazine. "Pretty good thump though. Blades might of hit an owl or something."
Jim nodded slowly. "Yeah, maybe."
"Hey." Matt held up the magazine. "Pretty snazzy car, huh?"
"Yeah. What are you reading?"
"Article about some dude named Dan Lazar."
Nifty trick doing a POV change in fewer than 100 words!
Entry 154
You slide into a booth at Griffin Diner and bark at the waitress, "Get Dan Lazar on the phone, right now!" She rolls her eyes because she doesn't know who Dan Lazar is, but she knows you, or someone just like you. The type to come floating in on a moonbeam, or dropped from a helicopter. She doesn't understand. You're a reacher.
She brings you coffee and you tell her, "You're looking snazzy tonight." She gives you a finger, and not the chicken kind. You like it. You like it so much, you bite it off. Now she understands.
Tales from the bright lights in the big city!
Entry 155
The Reacher was sometimes rude, but was always considered odd. To arrange oneself so that anytime you need to pick something up you must reach for it, with arms spread as the wings of a griffin, IS odd.
The reaching took its toll, especially constantly trying to goose the quick Dan Lazar. Reacher's arms drug about behind him.
Some LSD and a helicopter ride make a good gift. However reaching for moonbeams, with the door open, was a surprise. Whoever finds his arm will have questions. I feel it would make a snazzy boa, covered with colored feathers and de-boned.
given the insanity of 100 words in less than 24 hours, I planned to go easy on the ones that just puzzled me, but there is only one thing to say to this one:
WTF???
Entry 156
The gate to hell was locked. Terror rose within her as the Reacher forced her soul into a perpetual game of torment and longing. There must be a key.
Charred images of dying dreams fought against her resolve as she slid her hands against the cold steel. Nausea swept through her, a pulsating rush like snazzy helicopter blades were spinning within each cell of her frail, neglected body.
Moonbeam, she was named, as though the word itself was protection from the harshness of life. Her scream signalled surrender as she forfeited her agent, Dan Lazar, to the demon griffins within.
alrighty then
Entry 157
Miss Snark heard a desperate yelp and staggered to her bedroom window. Pulling the drape, she was alarmed to see Moonbeam, Killer Yap’s illegitimate offspring, being carried away via helicopter by that snazzy dresser, Dan Lazar.
She met the cold eyes of the kidnapper as he dangled the terrified pooch by some geriatric's Reacher and thought, ‘He assumes he can get away with this because he’s so damned good-looking.”
“Killer Yap!” she said, pointing out the window. “Fetch!”
Killer Yap knew what to do. He spun around three times and took his true form as LEOGLE, the heroic griffin ...
Dan Lazar, dognapper!
Entry 158
The phone rang. Dan Lazar opened the blinds in his snazzy corner office. As a New York agent, he had the perfect cover. No one suspected that he had been an MP in Vietnam. He had always identified with the fictional detective Jack Reacher, another MP in 'Nam. But unlike Reacher, Dan was five foot six, not six foot five, and couldn't bench press more than fifty pounds.
"Moonbeam," the voice said. "We're here."
Dan heard the whirling of the helicopter, his family crest, a scarlet griffin, emblazoned on the side. He packed his double-action revolver. Dan was ready.
All literary agents can not only bench press 50 pounds, they can haul it up and down subway stairs, and hold it on line at the post office.
Entry 159
The machine griffin lay preening her titanium feathers. A newcomer from the desert approached.
“I’ve come for training,” said the robed stranger. “I reach for the power of the vehicle-beasts.”
“A reacher?” muttered the griffin. “How snazzy.”
The man stepped forward, cast pale in the path of a moonbeam. “I was once a lowly author. Now I am a bringer of death.”
“Black-belt, I see,” said the griffin. “Which Dan?”
“Dan Lazar. I seek the Dan Quasar.”
At this the griffin unfolded her wings and started her engines, rotor-blades spinning in the night. “Then prepare to experience the Mythical Helicopter.”
Dan Quasar!!!!!
This is hilarious!
Bringer of death indeed!
Entry 160
“Monsieur!” the guide called, but he had spotted it as well. A cave, sunk high into the hillside. He shivered and not just from the malaria. He swung the wheel of the Reacher, burying the prow into the Niger’s muddy bank.
“Go Moonbeam!” The guide took the snazzy package and scampered up the cliff on all fours, reminding him of the beast in that Griffin Dunne movie. Moonbeam dissapeared inside for only seconds, before his body helicoptered from the sky, and smashed into the deck. He read the words carved in the dead man’s breast:
“NO UNSOLICTED MATERIAL. Dan Lazar.”
Dan Lazar's weekend house is in Timbukto? Who knew?
Entry 161
Eagle Eye
“Wing and claw… see it now?”
It’s a bird, then? A constellation? “It’s all about theme.” Jack the teacher, the always reacher, directs his moonbeam,
and Dan Lazar gilds the account with the molten wash
of his baritone wave.
“Look again.”
Snazzy! A griffin!
Beneath, the body shifts;
I feel feline muscles, restrained power.
I become the wind against a breast of fur and feathers,
even here in this airless space,
on this helicopter ride,
circling points
from star to star
WTF??
Entry 162
“Crap! My arm’s not long enough. Hand me that snazzy Thinga-Ma-Reacher.”
“Stealing Federal mail is a crime,” Dan Lazar said dolefully.
“I’m not stealing. I’m the moron who put it in this box.”
“You should have made sure the SASE was included before you let go.”
“Thank you, Captain Obvious. Any more scintillating observations?”
“Helicopter coming.”
Chopper blades cut the moonbeam I was angling by. I recognized the merciless griffin on the aircraft’s underbelly.
“It’s the AAR!” I gasped.
“You should have put the SASE--”
“No way! You turned me in!”
He shrugged. “It’s not just the writing.”
Captain Obvious!! Oh dog this made me laugh!
Entry 163
Kate always had a plan of the day. Today, it turned out, had a plan for her.
In the morning she planted a snazzy Moonbeam Coreopsis in her beloved garden.
She’d been languishing over whether to send her book query to Dan Lazar and finally hit “send.”
After finishing Griffin’s latest novel, she settled into a nap.
Kate awoke with a jolt. A helicopter hovered overhead. Something fell from the chopper and landed, with a thud, on her new plantings.
She felt like a character in a Jack Reacher novel — but this was real, and the story had just begun.
I hate prologues!
Entry 164
As the nitwit army advanced, Killer Yap, eyes glistening in the moonbeams and curly coat flowing like a regal griffin's mane, beckoned Dan Lazar to reload the snazzy, fully-automatic clue gun mounted in the back of the Reacher 760, Yap's state-of-the-art helicopter
gunship.
Lazar preferred to sip his gin.
Nitwit army!!!
Entry 165
Moonbeam leaned across the table.
"Don't be a reacher, squirt!" Griffin exploded. "You want the salt, ask for it." Moonbeam glared, her irises whirling in the ceiling fan's reflection like helicopter rotors.
"I'm no beggar," she hissed. She turned to Dan. "Lazar gets anything he wants, thinks he's in charge. Not any more." Her .38 cracked twice, and both Dan and Griffin lay dead. Avoiding the diseased blood pooling on the snazzy carpet, she calmly salted her fries and left.
Geeze louise, he's dead again.
Entry 166
Hoboken Haiku: R&R
"Jack Reacher or John Rain, who'd win?
"Just tell me about the job Gus."
I teach poetry at Hoboken Community College. Working extra for Gus supplements my income.
Gus described the job. I took it.
I leaned into the open car window, "Snazzy tattoos. A griffin and helicopter?"
"Yeah."
He was still looking down my blouse when I jammed the syringe into his arm.
Just another needle mark among many. The coroner would figure overdose.
Job's done. Haiku isn't. Dan Lazar passed on ' Moonshadows.' Reacher vs Rain? Heh. They aren't real.
I closed my laptop and went to get laid.
Reacher, Rain, and Joe Pike. For that I'd buy a tv and get cable and watch the WWF.
Entry 167
“Come on, Dan! What do you want to pack?” Nathan opened his backpack and made room for Dan’s unopened Christmas present - a Snazzy Shooter helicopter.
“Where’s your Griffin shirt?” Nathan rummaged around the floor of the closet, and finally found Dan’s favorite sweatshirt. He started to pack it, then changed his mind and pulled it over his sweater.
“We’ll bring this too.” Nathan gently removed Dan’s ‘Reacher’ award from under a pile of papers: High Flying Reader, Dan Lazar.
Nathan closed his brother’s door. “Let’s go.”
A moonbeam slanted through the window, and landed on Dan’s obituary.
yikes!!!!!! Not only dead but doing an Alice Sebold number it looks like.
Entry 168
“We’re taking fire!”
Dan Lazar banked the helicopter hard to the right. An RPG shot past the aircraft, roaring like some mythological beast come to life, a griffon trailing smoke and fire into the night.
Next to him, Ronald Massey whistled. "That’s some snazzy flyin’.” He reached up, flipping a switch on the overhead console. Massey was always reaching to flip a switch, turn a knob, press a button. If questioned, he’d only shrug. “What can I say? I’m a natural born reacher.”
Beneath them, the desert stretched across horizon, a sea of sand lit by moonbeams and stars.
Griffon is a dog, not a griffin. DQ'ed for word violation.
Entry 169
The Fantasy
Daniel Lazar sighed, reaching for the next slush manuscript. Reading was a
low priority, but it must be done. The thin sheaf of onionskin was mounted in a snazzy purple leather binder, emblazoned with the Griffin family crest.
Tempted to reject on format alone, he forced himself to read the first
page.
“Miss Reacher,” he screamed to his assistant. “I need a helicopter!.”
Lazar rushed aboard, clutching the cover page, as the beating blades cleared
traffic in front of the brownstone.
Pointing to the address, he yelled, “Take me to her!” as they rose through the
streaming moonbeams.
I believe this is actually how Dan does sign his clients.
Entry 170
Literary wunderkind Dan Lazar arranged the midnight reception at the House of Seven Gables. In conversational knots, authors surrendered to the otherworldliness of the colonial milieu. Grimoires. Griffin. Spooks. Satan. We inspired sycophants silently spun plots like helicopter blades. Later, I found Dan stoking kitchen hearth coals with an antique iron reacher.
“Snazzy blazer, pal,” I said, despite that it was not. Without acknowledgement, Dan turned
and dashed outside, me right behind.
“There is no Pyncheon elm!” he cried. Awash in moonbeam, edged in shadow, sober as Hawthorne’s portrait, he wandered to a blighted chestnut, to stand against the day.
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Entry 171
"In Bed with Dan Lazare"
Dan Lazare--not Dan Lazar--loves his last name. Letters mostly common and soft, but for that sharp "z", like a griffin's beak surrounded by feathers, or the moonbeam couched in diffuse light that shot through the tiny hole of a window above his bed. The window had been an impulse decision, which seemed snazzy at the time, but now was rather silly and useless and annoying and required a special reacher to close the tiny blinds. Lying on his back in his bed, he stares at the window and cringes. In the distance, a helicopter is heard.
this has a certain unexplainable charm.
Plus, Dan's not dead.
Entry 172
He was a tall man, dressed in the latest snazzy style. He boarded the helicopter as he had done a hundred times before, confident and deliberate in every movement.
They took off and flew to the west. He looked out the window as they passed his building and saw the beak of a griffin reflecting a moonbeam.
“There in twenty minutes, Mr. Child.”
“That’s fine. Dan Lazer should be there by then.”
He leaned back and picked up a book, his latest in the Reacher series. He paged to the inscription.
“To my new agent, Fondly, Lee.”
uh oh, now I'll have Emma on my ass too. Great.
Entry 173
A thin pale light lay across the bloodied face of my old friend Dan Lazar. More accustomed to streetlamps than moonbeams, I crouched down to get a better look.
“How did you find him, Snaz?”
Snazzy Griffin rubbed her eyes. Her voice was thick.
“I… I heard a helicopter, flying low, and I went outside to see who it was,” she said. A soft night breeze caught her loose cotton dress, swirling it around her bare legs. It teased my nose with hints of spring, of coconut lotion, of the metallic tang of fresh blood. “Reacher, I saw him fall.”
Dead again!
Entry 174
Snap! Moonbeam's snazzy hit the target like a fork of lightning. Hidden under the purplish bulbao stones, Koyla felt his blood drain to his toes. He became a black-eyed wraith with death ten minutes away, as he watched the snazzy's webbed layers wrap, then tighten, around the prize. It was all over for the helicopter.
"Oye, Puds!" Moonbeam called, "Where dat dan lazar?"
"Ah dinno," Puddlestump shouted back, "Wayt, wayt, hah, dar iss she!"
Puds lifted a tri-part leg over the griffin, stretched, and failed.
"Urggh, EmBe, ah caint reacher!" she gurgled.
I'm gurgling too.
Entry 175
Dan Lazar looked up from the manuscript as the Author dropped her snazzy jacket and bolted across the darkened yard.
“If she makes it, you buy this thing. That’s the deal.”
The Publisher just nodded.
As the clouds parted, a stray moonbeam illuminated the great golden mane of the griffin crouched and waiting under the starless sky.
“Here we go again,” Lazar sighed, throwing the manuscript on the bloodied pile.
“You don’ know Jack,” said the Publisher. “She’ll make it if she kin reacher’ helicopter in time.”
oddly compelling, and clearly the sort of thing authors imagine happen ALL the time.
Entry 176
A helicopter circled overhead, cutting the moonbeams with shadow. Dan Lazar cursed the blinking tracker strapped to his left ankle. Today had gone to hell.
"Mr. Lazar!" boomed a magnified voice. "The stairwell to the roof has been blocked. There's nowhere for you to go!"
"Of course there is-down!"
Dan leaped from the high-rise. "Reacher!"
His nagging mother told him how stupid a name this was for a rescue griffin. Dan thought it was rather snazzy. True to its name, Reacher zoomed toward him and extended a taloned foreleg.
Dan jerked upward as the griffin took hold. "Thanks."
Dan Lazar, superhero!
Entry 177
Snazzy climbed into her helicopter and dropped the crumpled letter onto the seat. "Take your time, Griffin. I'm not in a hurry."
They rose into the night sky. Snazzy's vision blurred with unshed tears.
Your prose is an embarrassment. Don't query me again.
The letter was signed by the man himself. Dan Lazar. The man would edit Jack Reacher.
"All men are pricks!" The pilot turned his head. "Not you Griffin."
Snazzy opened the door. The Statue of Liberty slid gracefully past.
Griffin snatched at her wrist.
Snazzy flipped off her Prada's and took a swan dive through a moonbeam.
Well, at least it's not Dan who's dead but really y'all, I'm getting a trifle worried by your obsessions here.
Entry 178
Striking was the woman who flicked filth from beneath her fingernails, watching the helicopter speed away with the meddlesome Detective Reacher. He would die mid-flight from the poison so daintily slipped into his scotch. Such an uncouth drink; nothing like gin.
Of course, his death was more artful than the first. The bludgeoning of Dan Lazar bordered on crass, not to mention unsightly. She shook her head – a snazzy pair of stilettos ruined.
A stone griffin lurked in the shadows, a moonbeam in its knowing eye. She winked at it.
Mr. Clooney would be next. Rejection had its price.
Heresy!!! Mr. Clooney has never rejected Miss Snark! He just hasn't excercised his option yet!!!
Entry 179
Dan Lazar had one dream: to become a Snazzy Moonbeam. Ken Reacher, the band's slide whistler, was a god among Lilliputians. Griffin Tides played the recorder with an alacrity only known in textbooks. John Snees, well, he was John Snees.
They were the real deal -- they toured. Lazar had all five of their mp3s and knew he was a perfect addition.
They were slated to blast Skokie into the stratosphere on Tuesday morning. One song and two Aquafinas in, Lazar jumped onstage with his signature move -- hands rhythmically beating his chest like a helicopter.
Snazzy Moonbeam played on.
Dan Lazar, rock god!
Entry 180
"Any last words?"
"Dan Lazar." The prisoner's words came out like a curse.
The executioner nodded once before finishing his job. Turning, his mind already on the paperwork before him, he noticed Snazzy running toward him. The Griffin helicopter was still waiting on the edge of the cliff, the rest of the team inside. No one had wanted to witness the execution.
"We were wrong," Snazzy said. "He wasn't the Moonbeam Reacher…did he say anything?"
"Nothing."
"He must've known the Moonbeam Reacher's identity. Now we'll never know. Are you coming, Lazar?"
The executioner nodded, his face firm. "Count me in."
ohhh, not only not dead, but not dead due to evil evil evil ways!
Entry 181
Griffin Reacher busted out the jalopy’s headlights with a baseball bat. He pulled at the exposed lights, grasping the bulbs by the neck, drawing them carefully out of the sockets. A moonbeam spotlighted his creations that hung like a Halloween ghoul’s dangling eyeballs. Thoughts spun around his head; his ears vibrated with the imagined noise of helicopter propellers. The last step was rubbing, dripping, and splattering blood red paint on the body of the vehicle as though it was a Jackson Pollock painting. Griffin pushed the snazzy clunker into Dan Lazar’s yard. His rejection letter was under the wiper blade.
Dan Lazar has a yard?
way cool!
Entry 182
Captain Dan Lazar stood on the wet tarmac under a full moon and admired the sleek black beast. The Griffin Attack Helicopter was a marvel of efficiency and technology. It looked vicious even sitting still and quiet, a sallow moonbeam reflecting off its snazzy carapacian hide. The Griffin seemed nothing more than a malevolent, greedy insect – no mind, no mercy, no qualms about murder. Well, it'd get its wish for blood tonite, even if he was already sick to his stomach with the thought of this nasty mission.
"Fire her up, Lieutenant Reacher," Lazar said, "its time to go..."
Captain Dan Lazar! I wonder if he's related to Captain Underpants?
Entry 183
Paradise Found
Dan Lazar stapled the last of his signs to the post.
Lost Dog. Wearing snazzy red collar. Name: Reacher.
He thought of his bad black lab, gone for two days, probably filthy from getting in trashcans, eating whatever he could find, but rolling in it first. Taunting traffic. Dan pictured the dog at night, dancing in a moonbeam, fighting a griffin only he could see, chasing his tail, helicopter ears spinning out.
Quite sweet.
Miss Snark of course, is anti-sweet.
Entry 184
The thought of touching even a skin cell of a germ-ridden literary agent unnerved Howie Mandel, which is why he rammed his snazzy extendable reacher into Dan Lazar’s face to wake him. Even through a headache that screamed like a griffin drowning in battery acid, Dan knew he was in a helicopter.
“I have 26 parachutes,” Mandel said, gesturing toward a gaggle of knapsack-sporting fashion models illuminated by a moonbeam reflecting off the game show host’s head. “But only one works. Or, you could just represent my mysophobia-erotica novel. Deal or no deal?”
Dan surrendered. “How about ‘no whammies’?”
I had to look up mysophobia but it turned out to be germane.
Entry 185
Dan Lazar & Reacher: An Interview
Interviewer: Nice snazzy designer label suit…
DL: Thanks. Lunch meetings all day today.
R: Joe’s suit. Don’t ask.
Interviewer: Did you know the guy who fell off the Helicopter?
DL: Read about him.
R: Yes. Just got one thing to say: You do not mess with the Special Investigators.
Interviewer: What do you think of when you hear the word griffin?
DL: An eagle and a lion.
R: The desert.
Interviewer: Moonbeam?
Silence.
Interviewer: Ok. Thank you.
DL: No trouble.
R: Yeah, just call.
Interviewer: But you don’t have a phone…
R: Bad luck.
Someone has read the book!!
Entry 187
Dan Lazar is the final obstacle between Reacher and publication. The former cop had faced dangerous opponents before, how tough could one literary agent be? He checks the clip of his automatic as he manoeuvers the helicopter toward Manhattan. Within minutes, Reacher bursts through the snazzy doors of Writer’s House demanding to see the agent.
“No,” the nightwatchman roars, the griffin on his baton glinting in the ray of a moonbeam.
Reacher fires his weapon and the guard falls. Racing past the inner doors, Reacher is knocked unconscious by the wily agent.
“That’s how tough,” Lazar sneers.
yea!!!!!!! Dan Lazar kicks ass (finally!)
Entry 188
“Definitely Reacher.”
All the signs were there. The body, sprawled beneath the lazy whoosh of helicopter blades. A stray moonbeam illuminated the head, face up, a snidely derisive look still upon it. The tang of decaying manuscripts whispered through the darkness.
“Poor Dan. I warned him, If you’re going to give writers brutal feedback, hide your identity.”
“That’s Dan Lazar?” The kid gulped, his greenish pallor clashing with his snazzy puce tie.
“How’d you know it was Reacher?”
“See the griffin graffiti? That’s Reacher’s query. In a world that can envision an griffin, he’s miffed he can’t get published.”
I love the smell of decaying manuscripts in the morning!
Entry 189
“Thet-thar nucular Reacher am gonna blow, jess like Three Mile Island!”
Portia adjusted her rhinestone #1 Bitch pin, as if wanting to look snazzy for the occasion.
“Whut brand o’ moonbeam beverage you imbibin’ Portia?”
The fuzzy pooch in her purse groaned.
“Aw Dan, lazar the damn thing with yer fancy-ass machine quick-like. Don’t yew smell that? It’s gonna blow!”
If he played along...Dan snuggled closer.
“Hel, i’ copter feel, Griffin!” Portia reflexively squeezed the dog.
Griffin yelped, farted, then grinned with relief.
“Dammit, tew late,” said Portia, breathing through her red painted mouth.
“Some veterinarian yew are.”
Entry 190
I'm a double-agent. Literary by daylight, secret by moonbeam. The name's Dan Lazar, but call me 'Griffin.' The Russians already do. Oh, in the end I pledge allegiance to no one but myself, but at the moment, the GRU has my bank account number and undivided attention. In a few moments, a helicopter will take me and ten years of secrets to Moscow, then on to ritzy houses, snazzy women, and suitably aloof French waiters. It's a reacher to assume no one will be suspicious—a literary agent making millions?—but in the Riviera, no one asks questions.
Gainsville Regional Utilities need a secret agent?
Who knew!
Entry 191
Dan Lazar pulled out his Jack Reacher novel and began to read while the helicoptor lifted into the night air. This annoyed Miss Snark, who'd been waiting impatiently all evening for a critique of her snazzy new outfit.
She flicked the offending novel from his fingers. It sailed through the open door, its flapping pages caught in the light of a moonbeam. With the ferocity of a griffin, she growled, "Pay attention to me, dammit."
Her manicured fingers curled around his linen collar, and she pulled the surprised agent to her, giving him a passionate kiss.
AAAAAAKKKKKKKKK!!!!!! Miss Snark kisses editorial ass, not AGENTS!!!
Entry 192
There once was the creature with frightening feature.
Teacher, called The Reacher.
He flew his helicopter.
Risk was his adopter.
He laughed in the face of fear.
He was snazzy,
His jeans so jazzy.
His grin, a dream, like the cat with cream.
It would seem, he's not part of a team.
Flying solo along the moonbeam,
with his companion, Jim Beam.
He penned his life's story, all guts and glory.
Queried Dan Lazar, words cut like a laser
Dan's sidekick, old Griffin saw his jaw bristle and stiffen,
as The Reacher's creature was featured.
Entry 193
“Snazzy,” Dan Lazar murmured. “No author’s taken me for a helicopter ride among the moonbeams.” His leg pressed against Reacher’s. The small hairs on Reacher’s neck stood up; was this how agents did foreplay?
“Have you considered writing a memoirs? A novel? I bet you have a great mcgriffin.” Lazar’s words slurred.
“That’s macguffin.”
“Eight thousand feet,” the pilot said over his shoulder.
Reacher leaned across Lazar to throw back the cargo door. Artic wind slapped both men’s faces.
Reacher wrenched the agent from his seat. “Tess O’Brien doesn’t like the deal on her last book. Too bad your contract’s iron-clad. She said this was the only way out.” Reacher gave a great heave and watched Lazar spiral away.
I told you to put those 30 day notices in your contract Dan!!!!!
Entry 194
The writer’s conference was over, but wanna-bes still circled like a helicopter over a car crash. The query letter boot camp was not a success. His snazzy shoes and painfully honest critiques had angered the so-called writers in Denver. Unfortunately, a griffin with a thick manuscript pointed to him. Dan Lazar glanced around for an exit. He made a desperate wish and a gossamer moonbeam descended from the Heavens. Dan stepped towards it, longing for escape. Alas, his Cole Haan caught a seam in the carpet. Dan stumbled and became a reacher, not a teacher. He fell. The mob applauded.
Mob indeed. Y'all are just blood thirsty!
Dr. Susan Applegate, M. D., sat behind her oak desk, staring her client in the eye. "I'm not sure I understand."
"I'm not Dan Lazar!" Daivad squawked, looking at her stapler.
"All right," Susan said. She put the stapler in the drawer. Too distracting.
"I'm not a helicopter, and I didn't fly in on some snazzy moonbeam, either," he croaked.
"So what is the problem?" she asked.
"I'm a reacher," he moaned. She arched an eyebrow. "I reach out and touch everything."
Lovely. An OCD griffin. And, as Special Counselor to Exotic Species, she was within claw reach. Oh, dear.
oh yes!!
Entry 124
“Who’s Dan Lazar?”
“Some guy.”
“That’s helpful,” Jamie rolled her eyes. “Not a llama or unicorn or gin guzzling griffin?”
“He flies helicopters or some shit.” Doug was playing with Grandma’s reacher, squeezing the handles to grab at his thigh. “This thing’s snazzy. I wish I had shrunken arms and arthritis.”
Jamie stared into the night sky with teenage self-importance and annoyance – wondering what she’d done to deserve a brother – when suddenly a freak moonbeam aligned disastrously with the reflectors and lenses of Dr. Freundenheizer’s giant death ray, reversing it upon the hapless mad scientist. Small portions of Oklahoma survived.
What's the bad news?
(sorry Lesia!)
Entry 125
Chapter 5- Crash Page 56
horrific crunching noise.
The twisted wreckage of the once snazzy helicopter settled into place like a large griffin tucking his wings awkwardly underneath him.
"Dan Lazar!?! Dan??" she cried out desperately. She heard soft moaning, and the pale light of a moonbeam glimmered in the dark abyss of her heart.
Hot tears burned her cheeks. She cursed; she always carried her reacher with her! And now, when her crippled lover needed her, she was without the tool that could free his bruised, muscular body from his prison of tangled steel.
Chapter 6 – Rescue
Not dead yet!...and "muscular"...woo hoo!
Entry 126
"Yes. I will be there. The helicopter is ready?" The phone crackled. "You're breaking up. Take care of Dan Lazar, Mr. Griffin. I have one more errand."
The man drove through the night and listened to gentle classical. He aimed for potholes and smiled each time he heard the package thud in the back.
He parked at a cliff atop a rocky shoreline and opened the trunk. The package laid still.
The man dragged it to the edge and rolled it off. His lips curled as the body fell, lit by a moonbeam. "Snazzy. Goodbye, Mr. Reacher."
I spot on guarantee you that Reacher not only survives the fall, he returns to return the favor.
Entry 127
When I left him in Mexico, I hadn't expected to see him again. But here he stood. Dan Lazar. And he didn't look pleased.
He stared. I stared. He said something I couldn't hear as a helicopter flew overhead. I wasn't sure I wanted to anyway. He always did have a foul mouth.
I hoped a giant moonbeam would zap down and pluck me up. Nothing quite so snazzy happened.
I pulled out my reacher to pick up trash. If nothing else, maybe it would protect me from this fire-breathing griffin who was about to unleash his fury.
I told you he was a survivor!
Entry 128
Dan Lazar tossed the Marymount Manhattan Griffin yearbook on the seat of the snazzy helicopter cockpit and picked up a Jack Reacher novel to read by the light of a moonbeam.
well, brevity is the soul of wit but this is only so brief as to be a halfwit.
Entry 129
dupe of 127 (which is a relief cause I was off on my numbering and this explains it).
Entry 130
MURDER AT THE AWP
Atlanta, Detective Reacher mused, is a Great Gatsby city: a moonbeam straining towards the sun, a country girl in Donna Karan. Snazzy as a helicopter whir, but about as elegant as a Dan Lazar rejection.
The perfect home for an overachieving serial killer.
Reacher could see why the Griffin had chosen it. A city full of unripe lives to pluck, dark and secret pasts to delve. And, of course, the AWP: the one place a pathos-ridden bibliophile could
become invisible. For the Griffin had murdered with literature before, and he would do it again.
Well, at least Dan is alive!
I like this one in addition to Dan not being dead.
Entry 131
Snazzy and Moonbeam spent all morning crunching numbers. There was just no getting around it. S & M High-Riders would have to close shop for good. Ironically, their alcoholic helicopter pilot wasn’t even the problem this time.
“We’ve been grounded,” Snazzy lamented, pulling his rising T-shirt back over his beer-gut so that its airbrushed griffin appeared menacing once more. “I don’t know who Dan Lazar thinks he is, but his lawsuit against us for false advertising is a real reacher, man.”
Moonbeam shook her matted dreadlocks and the two old hippies held each other, weeping the loss of their dream.
Brilliant. Plus, Dan isn't dead.
Entry 132
The forest trees shielded the moonbeams from providing sufficient light to land a helicopter. However, Griffin was an experienced fighter pilot. Though it was dark and it was a tight squeeze, he was able to find a clearing just a few feet from the rendezvous point.
“Snazzy landing” said Reacher as he adjusted his Night Vision Goggles to a sharper image.
“Sweet” agreed Dan Lazar as he did the same.
“Well, what can I say” Griffin replied quickly turning his attention to the dispatch call blaring through his headphones. Than he siad “Ready up Romeos Juliet awaits your arrival.”
Who knew Jack Reacher owned night vision goggles??
Entry 133
Griffin's pissed: "you reckon you're Dan Lazar? You sell 'dogs, man, and not in Central Park!"
Reacher smiles, his chipped incisor escaping his lip. "I tell you, Griffin, I can do it for you. Trust me, here."
"How?"
"All you need is a helicopter and a cloudy evening. And a snazzy moonbeam tool to write the message."
"Yeah, right! I want something permanent. How's Suze going to know I love her if it ain't permanent?"
"That, amigo, is 'your' problem. Take a photo or something. Now, are you buying the dog, or do I have to mug your pockets again?"
alrighty then.
Entry 134
Reacher shifted uncomfortably in his helicopter jump seat. The moonbeam shining through the domed plexiglass reflected harshly off of Dan Lazar’s snazzy sequined suit.
“Dan,” can you shift a bit to the left, please?
“Sure,” he said, not moving an inch.
A winged shadow temporarily cut off the glare.
“Look! The griffin!” Reacher said.
Dan craned his neck uncomfortably to get a view. “Nah, it’s just Killer Yap out on Miss Snark’s broom again.”
Killer Yapp rides a swiffer. Customized of course.
Entry 135
A toddler's titter in the air announced the return of the reacher. Grandma's claw they called it. An old Featherlite--32" aluminum-frame--with a snazzy magnet on one of its jaws. There, near
where the moonbeam fell during the summer months (when grammy couldn't pull the curtain shut: no reacher), she raised it, pulled the trigger, and lacerated old stumpy.
Stumpy the griffin. 'It no griffin,' Vern said, 'it Dan Lazar's beast, sure, but no griffin.' Grammy spun around, reacher in her claws, twirled, helicopter blades and such. 'What it be then if no
griffin?'
'Snark!' grammy's chords screeched.
Oh great, now Miss Snark joins the ranks of the deceased!
Entry 136
Dan Lazar was worried. Maybe his wife was right, that his snazzy new helicopter “the Griffin,” was a bad business decision. They were now deeply in debt, and he’d just spent their last thousand dollars on an ad, but he knew it would pay for itself if he got just one celebrity rescue on LA’s TV news. He sighed and opened the last beer in the fridge when the phone rang. It was George Clooney, whose dog, Moonbeam, was stranded on a ledge over the Pacific. A storm was coming in fast, and he had only one hour to reacher.
Dan Lazar, hero!!!
Entry 137
“Can you reacher?”
The helicopter drifted across the sky.
“Don’t know,” Griffin said. “That’s a lengthy shot.”
The first man patted the steel tube. “Well, what you waiting on? Let’s test that snazzy new lazar out.”
“Laser.”
“You gonna make fun of the way I talk or you gonna shoot that dan helicopter out of the sky?”
“Damned helicopter,” Griffin said as he aimed the laser and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
“Griffin, your dan lazar don’t even work. Jeez, I got a better chance of shooting a moonbeam out my ass.”
Despite the terrifying anatomical images, this is hilarious.
Entry 138
Jack Reacher walked along the shoulder of US-75, keeping a three-foot space between him and the passing traffic. Three feet was optimum for a hitchhiker; close enough to encourage rides, but still maintain a margin of safety.
A car stopped. Reacher saw a moonbeam glint against the griffin logo: a Saab.
“Ride?” the driver asked. “I’m Dan Lazar.”
Lazar was sociable, confiding he was an agent. “Doing my helicopter routine. In town to hover over a best-selling client.”
The agent paused, but Reacher didn’t fill the space with words.
“Your shoes sure are snazzy,” Lazar finally commented. “British, right?”
Good knowledge of the Reacher novels here! And GREAT use of helicopter!
Entry 139
The Griffin swooped down, the Lee Child novel clenched tightly in it’s beak. Dan Lazar freaked out; his last book. He’d never make it as a literary agent, not with that griffin flying away taking with her his only clue, his bible to the business. Without it, Dan wouldn’t be able to identify a good writer from A snazzy typewriter. What would Reacher do?
So Dan jumped in the helicopter. He ascended with the bright moonbeam in his eyes. Too late, the rotors caught the Griffin’s lion tail sending them all crashing in a mass of tangled metal and feathers.
He's better off dead I guess.
Entry 140
Dr. Lazar grabbed his reacher and sent it down my throat.
"Think of unicorns and moonbeams," he said, "and magical griffins."
"I just read a book about a stoic helicopter medic."
"Whatever works."
Soon my pabrums were qualibrating.
How disconcerting to receive mediaeval remedies in such snazzy office. Oh well, arthritis picked me, I didn't pick it. On the sonogram I could see my worm being removed. Soon a fresh one was plucked for imbibement.
"I'm going to name this one," I said. "Here's hoping he works harder than the last one."
"What's the name?"
"Dan"
Lazar laughed.
Nice, nice, nice!
Entry 141
Moonbeams slipped through the window, the light softening the griffin tattoo on his wrist into the shape of a teddy bear. He tugged his cuff down to cover it. He was The Reacher, not a pre-school teacher. The teddy's ears poked out and he yanked the cuff harder. He dropped in and out of lives like the devil in a helicopter, taking away hope. The ears appeared again,
waggled slightly. Cute...Snazzy little thing... No! Stop! The shirt ripped at the shoulder, but the teddy was gone. He was Dan Lazar, Literary Agent and it was time for manuscript torching.
Dan Lazar has a teddy bear tattoo??
Entry 142
Feeling the helicopter touch down, Dan Lazar shook his head as he glanced at the snazzy masks worn by the other passengers; Moonbeam and Reacher. The masks and nicknames were requirements of the bride. Dan was calling himself Griffin. Stepping out while ducking under the still whirling blades, he saw the unfairly suave groom in the distance, the only one without a mask. Even the bride would be wearing one.
The bride. . . . Dan still couldn't believe it.
Clooney marrying Miss Snark. . . . Dan shook his head again, fearing the apocalypse that couldn't be far behind.
Bring it on!
Entry 143
A sexy man, his charms enticing like Kama Sutra bonbons. “Writer’s House welcomes new blood.”
“Which writer’s home?” I ask. “Maybe Lee Childs? I love Jack Reacher.”
“Reacher might be there now. I’ll take you in my helicopter.” A moonbeam yellows Dan Lazar’s teeth. He isn’t quite as sexy anymore.
“Say, you aren’t thinking of throwing me off the ‘copter, are you?”
“Why would I do that?”
“My personal griffin says not to trust you.”
“Sign with me, and I’ll buy you a snazzy new one with George's Clooney's head instead of a lion’s.”
I thought about it.
“Okay.”
sucker!
Entry 144
The pleasant spring breeze coming through Dan Lazar's office window became a violent tempest and the slush pile erupted. The helicopter was back, and this time with a floodlight. Dan forced deep breaths into his panicked body and tried to imagine the swirling pages as dust
motes in a moonbeam.
Petulant whines breached the pandemonium, "THINK SPACE ARK MEETS KIPLING'S KIM! A 19th CENTURY GRIFFIN IN INDIA TRANSPORTED ACROSS THE UNIVERSE! I EVEN HAVE A SNAZZY BINDING!"
Dan stuck a reacher out the window and snatched the manuscript.
"S.A.S.E.?" he screamed over the noise.
The megaphone spluttered, "WAIT! THAT'S $35.00!!!!"
Excellent use of Blog rants for material!
Entry 145
Dan Lazar had made a snazzy getaway as his helicopter sashayed over head. It would take a moonbeam to take him down now.
If only I had been more prepared and brought my reacher, I could have grabbed onto the bottom of the helicopter before it flew away. Now here I was alone on this island with nothing but a half-empty bottle of tequila.
As my despair set in, I took a swig of the tequila and heard a rustling in the bushes. I turned to see a giant griffin staring back at me.
"Oh shit."
alrighty then.
Entry 146
The helicopter was ready. Unfortunately, three different agencies couldn't tell him where to go. So he was sitting in the dirt in a shack outside Pune. His snazzy uniform was getting dirty. He would tell them all where to go later. The Reacher sat facing him, eyes closed, in a trance. Horseshit. Someone was Googling by moonbeam on a wind-up computer and passing her answers. This was taking too long.
"Mizz…"
"Miss."
"Whatever."
"Griffin."
Her eyes opened. An insult.
"A name. Please."
"Dan Lazar."
He shot her twice, stepping over her as he left.
"Dan Lazar. Thank you."
Well, at least Dan't not the dead one this time!!
Entry 147
When Hunter sold the “big house” he sighed. Not because he'd miss the snazzy griffin beside the gilded front door, or the phallus shaped junipers flanking the portico. The Macmansion had swallowed funds for five years, but he'd attained his objective: a condo in fashionable Moonbeam Grant sub-division with no mortgage. He'd always been a reacher; pigeonholing long-term goals. With money inherited from his grandfather, agent Dan Lazar, Hunter had purchased the Macmansion with a small down payment and a colossal mortgage one month after landing his first job as co-pilot for a helicopter transport.
ungrateful loinfruit.
Entry 148
"Someone killed Dan Lazar in a contest entry," said Zeus. "He's in Hades, and I need him out to represent GRIFFIN REPORT: HELICOPTER SCANDALS."
"That's Orpheus' job."
"His voice hasn't been the same since Selene demoted him from moonshine to moonbeam. Turns out the alcohol fumes were what sent everyone into a trance."
"Masters, I is saving him."
"What are you?"
"Reacher, a temple-elf."
"Aren't you from Harry Potter?"
"No, that's copyright. You needs a snazzy lawyer for that. But I is close enough to use Charm."
"How?"
Reacher smiled proudly. "I gets Master Lazar out on the Space Ark!"
oh dear dog, another stogie gone, Grandmother Snark calling for oxygen and Miss Snark herself requiring new drawers.
Entry 149
"Griffin watched as the maple seed spiraled like a helicopter gently to the moss covered ground. She sighed.
Yesterday, Reacher had come to her for the last time. She remembered how they made love here, urgent yet satisfying; their skin illuminated by a moonbeam.
“Will you forget me?” she had asked him.
She did not remember his answer today. It had been snazzy yet evasive. She had laughed and cried at the same time. Then he had gone."
Laughing, Dan Lazer forwarded the story to his closest friends and reached for drink. Lee won the April Fool’s prize, again.
Reacher's really getting around!
Entry 150
Once upon a twilight time in a thatched village, an old man was sitting on the back porch with his griffin.
"That moonbeam's a reacher," Dan Lazar said. "See, it's almost touching the bay."
The griffin snored.
"Wake up!" cried Dan, for at that very moment a silhouette was flying through the moonlight, getting larger and larger. "Wake up!"
The griffin awoke for a moment, looked up at the moon, then promptly fell asleep again.
"I bet it's a snazzy helicopter, whirling lights and all," Dan said. "Or the aliens, coming to getcha." And he was right.
Can't be soon enough!
Entry 151
Dan Lazar fell. Not just any fall, off a chair or down the stairs or some such. Dan began a thousand-foot plummet. Why had he jumped out of the helicopter? He immediately regretted it, twisting about and extending an arm back toward the woman he called Reacher, since she reached out in a futile attempt to save him. Dan had no crazy, drug-induced delusions about riding snazzy moonbeams or mythical griffins back to the ground. Death would snare him after these interminable seconds in freefall. Unless
The bungee cord about his ankles finally tightened, offering relief and salvation.
Dan Lazar, bungee jumper!
Entry 152
Dan Lazar had to hold on to the wall to keep her balance. Tatters of her jumpsuit were all that remained, strategically placed for a PG-13 world. Perhaps the outfit had been snazzy once, before jumping from the helicopter trying to re-capture Reacher. Wings spread in a moonbeam, the griffin taunted her, holding his leash out and then flying away like the petulant child he was. The fall had broken more than her pride, but she’d never really needed her third leg anyway. With a sharp twist, she ripped it off and threw it at her pet. She missed.
Surreal in so many ways.
Entry 153
A heavy stuttering sound pulsed rhythmically through the night, beating against Sky-Reacher's sensitive ears. He circled in the air, curious about the strange creature slicing through the moonbeams below. It rose, coming closer and closer—too close for Sky-Reacher's comfort. Screaming, the griffin dove.
"What was that?" Jim looked up at the helicopter's ceiling.
"Dunno." Matt continued reading his magazine. "Pretty good thump though. Blades might of hit an owl or something."
Jim nodded slowly. "Yeah, maybe."
"Hey." Matt held up the magazine. "Pretty snazzy car, huh?"
"Yeah. What are you reading?"
"Article about some dude named Dan Lazar."
Nifty trick doing a POV change in fewer than 100 words!
Entry 154
You slide into a booth at Griffin Diner and bark at the waitress, "Get Dan Lazar on the phone, right now!" She rolls her eyes because she doesn't know who Dan Lazar is, but she knows you, or someone just like you. The type to come floating in on a moonbeam, or dropped from a helicopter. She doesn't understand. You're a reacher.
She brings you coffee and you tell her, "You're looking snazzy tonight." She gives you a finger, and not the chicken kind. You like it. You like it so much, you bite it off. Now she understands.
Tales from the bright lights in the big city!
Entry 155
The Reacher was sometimes rude, but was always considered odd. To arrange oneself so that anytime you need to pick something up you must reach for it, with arms spread as the wings of a griffin, IS odd.
The reaching took its toll, especially constantly trying to goose the quick Dan Lazar. Reacher's arms drug about behind him.
Some LSD and a helicopter ride make a good gift. However reaching for moonbeams, with the door open, was a surprise. Whoever finds his arm will have questions. I feel it would make a snazzy boa, covered with colored feathers and de-boned.
given the insanity of 100 words in less than 24 hours, I planned to go easy on the ones that just puzzled me, but there is only one thing to say to this one:
WTF???
Entry 156
The gate to hell was locked. Terror rose within her as the Reacher forced her soul into a perpetual game of torment and longing. There must be a key.
Charred images of dying dreams fought against her resolve as she slid her hands against the cold steel. Nausea swept through her, a pulsating rush like snazzy helicopter blades were spinning within each cell of her frail, neglected body.
Moonbeam, she was named, as though the word itself was protection from the harshness of life. Her scream signalled surrender as she forfeited her agent, Dan Lazar, to the demon griffins within.
alrighty then
Entry 157
Miss Snark heard a desperate yelp and staggered to her bedroom window. Pulling the drape, she was alarmed to see Moonbeam, Killer Yap’s illegitimate offspring, being carried away via helicopter by that snazzy dresser, Dan Lazar.
She met the cold eyes of the kidnapper as he dangled the terrified pooch by some geriatric's Reacher and thought, ‘He assumes he can get away with this because he’s so damned good-looking.”
“Killer Yap!” she said, pointing out the window. “Fetch!”
Killer Yap knew what to do. He spun around three times and took his true form as LEOGLE, the heroic griffin ...
Dan Lazar, dognapper!
Entry 158
The phone rang. Dan Lazar opened the blinds in his snazzy corner office. As a New York agent, he had the perfect cover. No one suspected that he had been an MP in Vietnam. He had always identified with the fictional detective Jack Reacher, another MP in 'Nam. But unlike Reacher, Dan was five foot six, not six foot five, and couldn't bench press more than fifty pounds.
"Moonbeam," the voice said. "We're here."
Dan heard the whirling of the helicopter, his family crest, a scarlet griffin, emblazoned on the side. He packed his double-action revolver. Dan was ready.
All literary agents can not only bench press 50 pounds, they can haul it up and down subway stairs, and hold it on line at the post office.
Entry 159
The machine griffin lay preening her titanium feathers. A newcomer from the desert approached.
“I’ve come for training,” said the robed stranger. “I reach for the power of the vehicle-beasts.”
“A reacher?” muttered the griffin. “How snazzy.”
The man stepped forward, cast pale in the path of a moonbeam. “I was once a lowly author. Now I am a bringer of death.”
“Black-belt, I see,” said the griffin. “Which Dan?”
“Dan Lazar. I seek the Dan Quasar.”
At this the griffin unfolded her wings and started her engines, rotor-blades spinning in the night. “Then prepare to experience the Mythical Helicopter.”
Dan Quasar!!!!!
This is hilarious!
Bringer of death indeed!
Entry 160
“Monsieur!” the guide called, but he had spotted it as well. A cave, sunk high into the hillside. He shivered and not just from the malaria. He swung the wheel of the Reacher, burying the prow into the Niger’s muddy bank.
“Go Moonbeam!” The guide took the snazzy package and scampered up the cliff on all fours, reminding him of the beast in that Griffin Dunne movie. Moonbeam dissapeared inside for only seconds, before his body helicoptered from the sky, and smashed into the deck. He read the words carved in the dead man’s breast:
“NO UNSOLICTED MATERIAL. Dan Lazar.”
Dan Lazar's weekend house is in Timbukto? Who knew?
Entry 161
Eagle Eye
“Wing and claw… see it now?”
It’s a bird, then? A constellation? “It’s all about theme.” Jack the teacher, the always reacher, directs his moonbeam,
and Dan Lazar gilds the account with the molten wash
of his baritone wave.
“Look again.”
Snazzy! A griffin!
Beneath, the body shifts;
I feel feline muscles, restrained power.
I become the wind against a breast of fur and feathers,
even here in this airless space,
on this helicopter ride,
circling points
from star to star
WTF??
Entry 162
“Crap! My arm’s not long enough. Hand me that snazzy Thinga-Ma-Reacher.”
“Stealing Federal mail is a crime,” Dan Lazar said dolefully.
“I’m not stealing. I’m the moron who put it in this box.”
“You should have made sure the SASE was included before you let go.”
“Thank you, Captain Obvious. Any more scintillating observations?”
“Helicopter coming.”
Chopper blades cut the moonbeam I was angling by. I recognized the merciless griffin on the aircraft’s underbelly.
“It’s the AAR!” I gasped.
“You should have put the SASE--”
“No way! You turned me in!”
He shrugged. “It’s not just the writing.”
Captain Obvious!! Oh dog this made me laugh!
Entry 163
Kate always had a plan of the day. Today, it turned out, had a plan for her.
In the morning she planted a snazzy Moonbeam Coreopsis in her beloved garden.
She’d been languishing over whether to send her book query to Dan Lazar and finally hit “send.”
After finishing Griffin’s latest novel, she settled into a nap.
Kate awoke with a jolt. A helicopter hovered overhead. Something fell from the chopper and landed, with a thud, on her new plantings.
She felt like a character in a Jack Reacher novel — but this was real, and the story had just begun.
I hate prologues!
Entry 164
As the nitwit army advanced, Killer Yap, eyes glistening in the moonbeams and curly coat flowing like a regal griffin's mane, beckoned Dan Lazar to reload the snazzy, fully-automatic clue gun mounted in the back of the Reacher 760, Yap's state-of-the-art helicopter
gunship.
Lazar preferred to sip his gin.
Nitwit army!!!
Entry 165
Moonbeam leaned across the table.
"Don't be a reacher, squirt!" Griffin exploded. "You want the salt, ask for it." Moonbeam glared, her irises whirling in the ceiling fan's reflection like helicopter rotors.
"I'm no beggar," she hissed. She turned to Dan. "Lazar gets anything he wants, thinks he's in charge. Not any more." Her .38 cracked twice, and both Dan and Griffin lay dead. Avoiding the diseased blood pooling on the snazzy carpet, she calmly salted her fries and left.
Geeze louise, he's dead again.
Entry 166
Hoboken Haiku: R&R
"Jack Reacher or John Rain, who'd win?
"Just tell me about the job Gus."
I teach poetry at Hoboken Community College. Working extra for Gus supplements my income.
Gus described the job. I took it.
I leaned into the open car window, "Snazzy tattoos. A griffin and helicopter?"
"Yeah."
He was still looking down my blouse when I jammed the syringe into his arm.
Just another needle mark among many. The coroner would figure overdose.
Job's done. Haiku isn't. Dan Lazar passed on ' Moonshadows.' Reacher vs Rain? Heh. They aren't real.
I closed my laptop and went to get laid.
Reacher, Rain, and Joe Pike. For that I'd buy a tv and get cable and watch the WWF.
Entry 167
“Come on, Dan! What do you want to pack?” Nathan opened his backpack and made room for Dan’s unopened Christmas present - a Snazzy Shooter helicopter.
“Where’s your Griffin shirt?” Nathan rummaged around the floor of the closet, and finally found Dan’s favorite sweatshirt. He started to pack it, then changed his mind and pulled it over his sweater.
“We’ll bring this too.” Nathan gently removed Dan’s ‘Reacher’ award from under a pile of papers: High Flying Reader, Dan Lazar.
Nathan closed his brother’s door. “Let’s go.”
A moonbeam slanted through the window, and landed on Dan’s obituary.
yikes!!!!!! Not only dead but doing an Alice Sebold number it looks like.
Entry 168
“We’re taking fire!”
Dan Lazar banked the helicopter hard to the right. An RPG shot past the aircraft, roaring like some mythological beast come to life, a griffon trailing smoke and fire into the night.
Next to him, Ronald Massey whistled. "That’s some snazzy flyin’.” He reached up, flipping a switch on the overhead console. Massey was always reaching to flip a switch, turn a knob, press a button. If questioned, he’d only shrug. “What can I say? I’m a natural born reacher.”
Beneath them, the desert stretched across horizon, a sea of sand lit by moonbeams and stars.
Griffon is a dog, not a griffin. DQ'ed for word violation.
Entry 169
The Fantasy
Daniel Lazar sighed, reaching for the next slush manuscript. Reading was a
low priority, but it must be done. The thin sheaf of onionskin was mounted in a snazzy purple leather binder, emblazoned with the Griffin family crest.
Tempted to reject on format alone, he forced himself to read the first
page.
“Miss Reacher,” he screamed to his assistant. “I need a helicopter!.”
Lazar rushed aboard, clutching the cover page, as the beating blades cleared
traffic in front of the brownstone.
Pointing to the address, he yelled, “Take me to her!” as they rose through the
streaming moonbeams.
I believe this is actually how Dan does sign his clients.
Entry 170
Literary wunderkind Dan Lazar arranged the midnight reception at the House of Seven Gables. In conversational knots, authors surrendered to the otherworldliness of the colonial milieu. Grimoires. Griffin. Spooks. Satan. We inspired sycophants silently spun plots like helicopter blades. Later, I found Dan stoking kitchen hearth coals with an antique iron reacher.
“Snazzy blazer, pal,” I said, despite that it was not. Without acknowledgement, Dan turned
and dashed outside, me right behind.
“There is no Pyncheon elm!” he cried. Awash in moonbeam, edged in shadow, sober as Hawthorne’s portrait, he wandered to a blighted chestnut, to stand against the day.
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Entry 171
"In Bed with Dan Lazare"
Dan Lazare--not Dan Lazar--loves his last name. Letters mostly common and soft, but for that sharp "z", like a griffin's beak surrounded by feathers, or the moonbeam couched in diffuse light that shot through the tiny hole of a window above his bed. The window had been an impulse decision, which seemed snazzy at the time, but now was rather silly and useless and annoying and required a special reacher to close the tiny blinds. Lying on his back in his bed, he stares at the window and cringes. In the distance, a helicopter is heard.
this has a certain unexplainable charm.
Plus, Dan's not dead.
Entry 172
He was a tall man, dressed in the latest snazzy style. He boarded the helicopter as he had done a hundred times before, confident and deliberate in every movement.
They took off and flew to the west. He looked out the window as they passed his building and saw the beak of a griffin reflecting a moonbeam.
“There in twenty minutes, Mr. Child.”
“That’s fine. Dan Lazer should be there by then.”
He leaned back and picked up a book, his latest in the Reacher series. He paged to the inscription.
“To my new agent, Fondly, Lee.”
uh oh, now I'll have Emma on my ass too. Great.
Entry 173
A thin pale light lay across the bloodied face of my old friend Dan Lazar. More accustomed to streetlamps than moonbeams, I crouched down to get a better look.
“How did you find him, Snaz?”
Snazzy Griffin rubbed her eyes. Her voice was thick.
“I… I heard a helicopter, flying low, and I went outside to see who it was,” she said. A soft night breeze caught her loose cotton dress, swirling it around her bare legs. It teased my nose with hints of spring, of coconut lotion, of the metallic tang of fresh blood. “Reacher, I saw him fall.”
Dead again!
Entry 174
Snap! Moonbeam's snazzy hit the target like a fork of lightning. Hidden under the purplish bulbao stones, Koyla felt his blood drain to his toes. He became a black-eyed wraith with death ten minutes away, as he watched the snazzy's webbed layers wrap, then tighten, around the prize. It was all over for the helicopter.
"Oye, Puds!" Moonbeam called, "Where dat dan lazar?"
"Ah dinno," Puddlestump shouted back, "Wayt, wayt, hah, dar iss she!"
Puds lifted a tri-part leg over the griffin, stretched, and failed.
"Urggh, EmBe, ah caint reacher!" she gurgled.
I'm gurgling too.
Entry 175
Dan Lazar looked up from the manuscript as the Author dropped her snazzy jacket and bolted across the darkened yard.
“If she makes it, you buy this thing. That’s the deal.”
The Publisher just nodded.
As the clouds parted, a stray moonbeam illuminated the great golden mane of the griffin crouched and waiting under the starless sky.
“Here we go again,” Lazar sighed, throwing the manuscript on the bloodied pile.
“You don’ know Jack,” said the Publisher. “She’ll make it if she kin reacher’ helicopter in time.”
oddly compelling, and clearly the sort of thing authors imagine happen ALL the time.
Entry 176
A helicopter circled overhead, cutting the moonbeams with shadow. Dan Lazar cursed the blinking tracker strapped to his left ankle. Today had gone to hell.
"Mr. Lazar!" boomed a magnified voice. "The stairwell to the roof has been blocked. There's nowhere for you to go!"
"Of course there is-down!"
Dan leaped from the high-rise. "Reacher!"
His nagging mother told him how stupid a name this was for a rescue griffin. Dan thought it was rather snazzy. True to its name, Reacher zoomed toward him and extended a taloned foreleg.
Dan jerked upward as the griffin took hold. "Thanks."
Dan Lazar, superhero!
Entry 177
Snazzy climbed into her helicopter and dropped the crumpled letter onto the seat. "Take your time, Griffin. I'm not in a hurry."
They rose into the night sky. Snazzy's vision blurred with unshed tears.
Your prose is an embarrassment. Don't query me again.
The letter was signed by the man himself. Dan Lazar. The man would edit Jack Reacher.
"All men are pricks!" The pilot turned his head. "Not you Griffin."
Snazzy opened the door. The Statue of Liberty slid gracefully past.
Griffin snatched at her wrist.
Snazzy flipped off her Prada's and took a swan dive through a moonbeam.
Well, at least it's not Dan who's dead but really y'all, I'm getting a trifle worried by your obsessions here.
Entry 178
Striking was the woman who flicked filth from beneath her fingernails, watching the helicopter speed away with the meddlesome Detective Reacher. He would die mid-flight from the poison so daintily slipped into his scotch. Such an uncouth drink; nothing like gin.
Of course, his death was more artful than the first. The bludgeoning of Dan Lazar bordered on crass, not to mention unsightly. She shook her head – a snazzy pair of stilettos ruined.
A stone griffin lurked in the shadows, a moonbeam in its knowing eye. She winked at it.
Mr. Clooney would be next. Rejection had its price.
Heresy!!! Mr. Clooney has never rejected Miss Snark! He just hasn't excercised his option yet!!!
Entry 179
Dan Lazar had one dream: to become a Snazzy Moonbeam. Ken Reacher, the band's slide whistler, was a god among Lilliputians. Griffin Tides played the recorder with an alacrity only known in textbooks. John Snees, well, he was John Snees.
They were the real deal -- they toured. Lazar had all five of their mp3s and knew he was a perfect addition.
They were slated to blast Skokie into the stratosphere on Tuesday morning. One song and two Aquafinas in, Lazar jumped onstage with his signature move -- hands rhythmically beating his chest like a helicopter.
Snazzy Moonbeam played on.
Dan Lazar, rock god!
Entry 180
"Any last words?"
"Dan Lazar." The prisoner's words came out like a curse.
The executioner nodded once before finishing his job. Turning, his mind already on the paperwork before him, he noticed Snazzy running toward him. The Griffin helicopter was still waiting on the edge of the cliff, the rest of the team inside. No one had wanted to witness the execution.
"We were wrong," Snazzy said. "He wasn't the Moonbeam Reacher…did he say anything?"
"Nothing."
"He must've known the Moonbeam Reacher's identity. Now we'll never know. Are you coming, Lazar?"
The executioner nodded, his face firm. "Count me in."
ohhh, not only not dead, but not dead due to evil evil evil ways!
Entry 181
Griffin Reacher busted out the jalopy’s headlights with a baseball bat. He pulled at the exposed lights, grasping the bulbs by the neck, drawing them carefully out of the sockets. A moonbeam spotlighted his creations that hung like a Halloween ghoul’s dangling eyeballs. Thoughts spun around his head; his ears vibrated with the imagined noise of helicopter propellers. The last step was rubbing, dripping, and splattering blood red paint on the body of the vehicle as though it was a Jackson Pollock painting. Griffin pushed the snazzy clunker into Dan Lazar’s yard. His rejection letter was under the wiper blade.
Dan Lazar has a yard?
way cool!
Entry 182
Captain Dan Lazar stood on the wet tarmac under a full moon and admired the sleek black beast. The Griffin Attack Helicopter was a marvel of efficiency and technology. It looked vicious even sitting still and quiet, a sallow moonbeam reflecting off its snazzy carapacian hide. The Griffin seemed nothing more than a malevolent, greedy insect – no mind, no mercy, no qualms about murder. Well, it'd get its wish for blood tonite, even if he was already sick to his stomach with the thought of this nasty mission.
"Fire her up, Lieutenant Reacher," Lazar said, "its time to go..."
Captain Dan Lazar! I wonder if he's related to Captain Underpants?
Entry 183
Paradise Found
Dan Lazar stapled the last of his signs to the post.
Lost Dog. Wearing snazzy red collar. Name: Reacher.
He thought of his bad black lab, gone for two days, probably filthy from getting in trashcans, eating whatever he could find, but rolling in it first. Taunting traffic. Dan pictured the dog at night, dancing in a moonbeam, fighting a griffin only he could see, chasing his tail, helicopter ears spinning out.
Quite sweet.
Miss Snark of course, is anti-sweet.
Entry 184
The thought of touching even a skin cell of a germ-ridden literary agent unnerved Howie Mandel, which is why he rammed his snazzy extendable reacher into Dan Lazar’s face to wake him. Even through a headache that screamed like a griffin drowning in battery acid, Dan knew he was in a helicopter.
“I have 26 parachutes,” Mandel said, gesturing toward a gaggle of knapsack-sporting fashion models illuminated by a moonbeam reflecting off the game show host’s head. “But only one works. Or, you could just represent my mysophobia-erotica novel. Deal or no deal?”
Dan surrendered. “How about ‘no whammies’?”
I had to look up mysophobia but it turned out to be germane.
Entry 185
Dan Lazar & Reacher: An Interview
Interviewer: Nice snazzy designer label suit…
DL: Thanks. Lunch meetings all day today.
R: Joe’s suit. Don’t ask.
Interviewer: Did you know the guy who fell off the Helicopter?
DL: Read about him.
R: Yes. Just got one thing to say: You do not mess with the Special Investigators.
Interviewer: What do you think of when you hear the word griffin?
DL: An eagle and a lion.
R: The desert.
Interviewer: Moonbeam?
Silence.
Interviewer: Ok. Thank you.
DL: No trouble.
R: Yeah, just call.
Interviewer: But you don’t have a phone…
R: Bad luck.
Someone has read the book!!
Entry 187
Dan Lazar is the final obstacle between Reacher and publication. The former cop had faced dangerous opponents before, how tough could one literary agent be? He checks the clip of his automatic as he manoeuvers the helicopter toward Manhattan. Within minutes, Reacher bursts through the snazzy doors of Writer’s House demanding to see the agent.
“No,” the nightwatchman roars, the griffin on his baton glinting in the ray of a moonbeam.
Reacher fires his weapon and the guard falls. Racing past the inner doors, Reacher is knocked unconscious by the wily agent.
“That’s how tough,” Lazar sneers.
yea!!!!!!! Dan Lazar kicks ass (finally!)
Entry 188
“Definitely Reacher.”
All the signs were there. The body, sprawled beneath the lazy whoosh of helicopter blades. A stray moonbeam illuminated the head, face up, a snidely derisive look still upon it. The tang of decaying manuscripts whispered through the darkness.
“Poor Dan. I warned him, If you’re going to give writers brutal feedback, hide your identity.”
“That’s Dan Lazar?” The kid gulped, his greenish pallor clashing with his snazzy puce tie.
“How’d you know it was Reacher?”
“See the griffin graffiti? That’s Reacher’s query. In a world that can envision an griffin, he’s miffed he can’t get published.”
I love the smell of decaying manuscripts in the morning!
Entry 189
“Thet-thar nucular Reacher am gonna blow, jess like Three Mile Island!”
Portia adjusted her rhinestone #1 Bitch pin, as if wanting to look snazzy for the occasion.
“Whut brand o’ moonbeam beverage you imbibin’ Portia?”
The fuzzy pooch in her purse groaned.
“Aw Dan, lazar the damn thing with yer fancy-ass machine quick-like. Don’t yew smell that? It’s gonna blow!”
If he played along...Dan snuggled closer.
“Hel, i’ copter feel, Griffin!” Portia reflexively squeezed the dog.
Griffin yelped, farted, then grinned with relief.
“Dammit, tew late,” said Portia, breathing through her red painted mouth.
“Some veterinarian yew are.”
Entry 190
I'm a double-agent. Literary by daylight, secret by moonbeam. The name's Dan Lazar, but call me 'Griffin.' The Russians already do. Oh, in the end I pledge allegiance to no one but myself, but at the moment, the GRU has my bank account number and undivided attention. In a few moments, a helicopter will take me and ten years of secrets to Moscow, then on to ritzy houses, snazzy women, and suitably aloof French waiters. It's a reacher to assume no one will be suspicious—a literary agent making millions?—but in the Riviera, no one asks questions.
Gainsville Regional Utilities need a secret agent?
Who knew!
Entry 191
Dan Lazar pulled out his Jack Reacher novel and began to read while the helicoptor lifted into the night air. This annoyed Miss Snark, who'd been waiting impatiently all evening for a critique of her snazzy new outfit.
She flicked the offending novel from his fingers. It sailed through the open door, its flapping pages caught in the light of a moonbeam. With the ferocity of a griffin, she growled, "Pay attention to me, dammit."
Her manicured fingers curled around his linen collar, and she pulled the surprised agent to her, giving him a passionate kiss.
AAAAAAKKKKKKKKK!!!!!! Miss Snark kisses editorial ass, not AGENTS!!!
Entry 192
There once was the creature with frightening feature.
Teacher, called The Reacher.
He flew his helicopter.
Risk was his adopter.
He laughed in the face of fear.
He was snazzy,
His jeans so jazzy.
His grin, a dream, like the cat with cream.
It would seem, he's not part of a team.
Flying solo along the moonbeam,
with his companion, Jim Beam.
He penned his life's story, all guts and glory.
Queried Dan Lazar, words cut like a laser
Dan's sidekick, old Griffin saw his jaw bristle and stiffen,
as The Reacher's creature was featured.
Entry 193
“Snazzy,” Dan Lazar murmured. “No author’s taken me for a helicopter ride among the moonbeams.” His leg pressed against Reacher’s. The small hairs on Reacher’s neck stood up; was this how agents did foreplay?
“Have you considered writing a memoirs? A novel? I bet you have a great mcgriffin.” Lazar’s words slurred.
“That’s macguffin.”
“Eight thousand feet,” the pilot said over his shoulder.
Reacher leaned across Lazar to throw back the cargo door. Artic wind slapped both men’s faces.
Reacher wrenched the agent from his seat. “Tess O’Brien doesn’t like the deal on her last book. Too bad your contract’s iron-clad. She said this was the only way out.” Reacher gave a great heave and watched Lazar spiral away.
I told you to put those 30 day notices in your contract Dan!!!!!
Entry 194
The writer’s conference was over, but wanna-bes still circled like a helicopter over a car crash. The query letter boot camp was not a success. His snazzy shoes and painfully honest critiques had angered the so-called writers in Denver. Unfortunately, a griffin with a thick manuscript pointed to him. Dan Lazar glanced around for an exit. He made a desperate wish and a gossamer moonbeam descended from the Heavens. Dan stepped towards it, longing for escape. Alas, his Cole Haan caught a seam in the carpet. Dan stumbled and became a reacher, not a teacher. He fell. The mob applauded.
Mob indeed. Y'all are just blood thirsty!
IOM Entries 101-122-with comments
Entry 101
"Moonbeam loves the moon."
"Moonbear, mommy."
"What?" Mommy tried to ignore the constant whop-whopping of the helicopter making its...fifth circuit overhead.
The tot sighed. "Moonbear loves the moon."
She closed the book then tucked the blanket up to his ears—a polyester charm against evil.
"And I love you. Sleep time."
"Kiss Griffin." Dutifully, she kissed the stuffed mutant in snazzy pajamas and tiptoed out.
Never buy a house tucked between the penitentiary and state asylum for the criminally insane. Sage advice. But that Dan Lazar could sell anything. He even claimed he could sell fiction. What a reacher.
Dan Lazar is really Barbara Corcoran? Who knew!
Entry 102
The helicopter, an almost-invisible black-ops MoonBeam, should have carried Dan Lazar alive and well, not his battered and bloody corpse. How the hell could a corpse explain Lazar ignoring the favor he owed Reacher and selling The Hatpins of a Griffin--the memoir of Reacher’s long-dead snarky grandmother--for a million bucks? The agent (literary, not covert) had earned Reacher’s respect despite being a snazzy dresser, making the situation yet more curious. Oh, hell. The question became moot as the chopper, with a barking, coughing yap-yap-yap, lost altitude, engulfing Reacher in the painful flames of literal--not literary--annihilation.
Dan Lazar is a snazzy dresser, and yet still...dead!
Entry 103
It all came down to griffins. One griffin in particular actually. He was a hulking feathered figure incongruously named Moonbeam and he was rocketing around his aviary. Which shouldn't exist.
I am a pragmatic guy. I write mysteries like the Jack Reacher novels and include a SASE every time I submit to Dan Lazar. Griffins don’t practice helicopter hovers in my world. Moonbeam’s flight did not agree with my logic.
He landed finally in a storm of sand and feathers. The sunset caught the light of his snazzy rhinestone flight suit.
"So your next book is going to be fantasy?"
Rhinestone flight suit!!!
Miss Snark calls her seamstress!
Entry 104
Dan Lazar, high on opiates and believing he really was Jack Reacher, flew his snazzy helicopter through the moonbeam lit night as he tossed fistfuls of slush pile rejections across Manhattan and listened to CDs by Jimmy Griffin, Patty Griffin, and Johnny Griffin.
Miss Snark is going to need the opiates once Dan Lazar reads this IOM run.
Entry 105
Griffin gripped his Kalishinikov more tightly. He could hear rotors chopping the air into rapid basso-profundo pulses. They were getting louder.
“Steady, Reacher.” He looked at the civilian. Big guy, but could he handle that snazzy new moonbeam laser? The Pentagon thought so.
Reacher didn’t bother to take his eye from the sighting mechanism. “As a rock.”
The helicopter appeared over the ridge. A pearly white beam lanced out from Reacher’s station – and simply bounced off the fuselage.
Reacher swore. “Dan Lazar!” At least, that’s what it sounded like. Griffin was suddenly too busy returning fire to care.
Reacher is back in the Army?
I think I need my skates, Hell is freezing over!
Entry 106
They call me Reacher.
Helicopter blades whip the night air, thrashing moonbeams into dust.
Through murky binoculars, I see my mark, dressed in a snazzy little getup and wobbly stilettos. This can’t be right. She looks like Dan Lazar in drag, but I suppose every soul needs saving.
On my nod, the pilot descends. I extend my arm and reel her in.
I’ve got her, barely.
“Griffin, take us up,” I yell, as she struggles to escape.
A moonbeam grazes her neck. An Adam’s apple? It is Dan Lazar!
My grip unravels. I reach out, but it’s too late.
Dead again! Poor Dan!
Entry 107
As the world's most secret and expensive attack helicopter prototype jolted down through the jungle canopy, Griffin Reacher and Raza Land braced themselves. Perhaps the heist hadn't been such a good idea after all.
"If we survive the landing," Griffin shouted, "we'll need to fake our own deaths! Our former employer, the Moonbeam Consortium, won't be happy about the betrayal!"
"We'll need new aliases!" he continued. "You might consider a snazzy anagram. You could easily transform Raza Land into an inconspicuous Al Dazarn, or even Dan Lazar!
"Ooh, I like it!" yelled Raza as the ground rushed to meet them.
Dan Lazar, master thief!
Entry 108
Sexy Ass Sexy Everything (SASE)
She wore a snazzy bikini, sipping gin in Stilettos.
“What’s your name?”
“Dan Lazar — yours?”
Her oiled skin shone like moonbeam.
“What do you do, Danny?”
Why did she remind him of a griffin?
“Literary agent,” he said, “you?”
“I’m a writer,” she said. “Ever make love in a helicopter, Dannyboy?”
“Er — no,” he said. “Um, so what’s your book about?”
“It’s called ‘The Reacher,’” she said, “and it’s about a sexy woman who does a Hannibal Lecter on the agents who rejected her novel.” She smiled, hungrily.
Dan swallowed, then offered his representation.
He might be better off dead!
Entry 109
"This is a snazzy helicopter," said Dan Lazar.
"Yup," replied the pilot, sipping his beer.
"Are you okay to fly this thing?"
"Oh, yeah. The alcohol lessens the glare of the moonbeams."
"I didn't know that was a problem."
"Well, the moon makes it hard to see all the griffins flying around nowadays. Hell, back in '03 it got so bad that I mounted a mechanical reacher to the front of my chopper just to get them out of the way."
"I see," said Dan. "Well, this looks like my stop."
"We're in mid-air."
"I'll take my chances. Bye."
Miss Snark is glad she rides a broom after reading this.
Entry 110
Dan Lazar checked his watch. In less than twenty minutes, the helicopter would touch down at Griffin Airport. His whores, Snazzy and Moonbeam, were making out in the seat beside him.
"Hey, save some for Reacher. He's paying for it."
"Reacher's an ass," Moonbeam said.
Just then, a blade came loose from the chopper and sent the whirlybird hurtling toward the ground. Snazzy and Moonbeam died on impact. Lazar suffered severe brain damage, causing him to forget all about his glamorous life as a pimp, and instead he settled into the drudgery of the slush piles of New York.
yikes!!!!!
Entry 111
Hey Dan--
Lazar says the helicopter’ll be here at noon, but that’s a reacher.
--Griffin
Grif--
Noon or not, we need to be there on time.
--D
Dan--
We can’t get Miss Snark to reconsider?
--G
Grif--
For what--a gift of moonbeams and rainbows? It would be easier to get her to give up gin.
--D
Dan--
We’re gonna stand out snazzy in the daytime.
--G
Grif--
Just be on time. Lazar won’t wait for us.
--D
Dan--
Okay. Just be sure you bag Clooney the first time. I don’t need that damn KY biting me again.
--G
Excellent innovation for "Dan Lazar"!
Entry 112
Dan Lazer lunged for the corner griffin, and swung into the crevice behind the hideous carving. Safe from betrayal by searchlight or moonbeam, he marveled at his dilemma.
A slush pile memoir, shredded after he had read six lines, placed him in the cross hairs of the Feds and a foreign consortium.
Air pulsed from the helicopter as it swept by. Dan shuddered.
His experience with international intrigue was safely acquired through fiction. Books had not prepared him for this.
Maybe they had, he thought.
Yes. A snazzy plan. His lone opportunity to survive was something worthy of Reacher.
Alive! Dan's alive!
Entry 113
"What the devil-?!" the wrinkled man cried in the bright light. "Turn off the Moonbeam," he ordered, boarding his vehicle.
"Don't boss me around," growled Frank. "If it weren't for me, you wouldn't be 'The Snazzy' Dan Lazar. Right, Danny?" Contempt shone in his thin eyes.
"No need when the moon's out," Dan muttered.
"I'm the Reacher here," Frank asserted, straightening his back.
"My dear boy, as long as you remain like this," Dan chuckled, tapping his wand against Frank's side, "the world will only acknowledge me. Now get moving, griffin."
Like a helicopter, they rose into the night sky.
alrighty then....
Entry 114
"Who the hell is Dan Lazar?"
"A legendary creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle?"
"Noooo, that's a griffin!"
"Name the male protagonist of Lee Child's highly sucessful novels. Jack...?"
"Reacher!" Snazzy Moonbeam wiped the sweat from her brow and leaned into her buzzer. One more question and she had the million dollar first prize.
"What mode of transport--"
"Helicopter!"
The host shook his head. "I'll just finish the question... What mode of transport first hit the rails in 1804? The steam train."
Snazzy threw her Prada's at the TV screen. "Shit."
Well, at least Dan isn't dead!
Entry 115
"Helicopter or limo?" she asked.
Moonbeam on her hair, Dan Lazar knew this doll's secret.
Miss Snark was no griffin; no she could have been one of those snazzy babes in a Jack Reacher novel.
If Clooney doesn't show, tonight's the night, he thought.
As if!!!!
(sorry Dan but you know my heart belongs solely to Mr. Clooney)
Entry 116
When I was an actor, I worked as Griffin Dunne's stand-in, because we're the same height. I remember an exciting night shot in a helicopter and I got to fly over Manhattan with a fake moonbeam lighting my face. Griffin, playing Jack Reacher, snoozed in his trailer.
I wrote about this in my memoir and queried Dan Lazar, who promptly responded with: "Thanks, but this wasn't snazzy enough for me. Why not try Miss Snark? Maybe it'll make her laugh out loud." So I tried Miss Snark and I'm still waiting for a response. It's been over a year.
That will teach you to query via email won't it?
Entry 117
The helicopter winch lowered wannabe secret agent Dan Lazar toward the massive stone griffin. Lazar used the light from a moonbeam to work, because the dork left his flashlight (and snazzy secret decoder ring) on the chopper. He held his breath as he stretched to place the explosive charges. The griffin, ancient symbol of evil publishers, stared vacantly at the reacher. Lazar finished his work, then signaled his partner to reel him in. Instead, Miss Snark screamed, “Your slush pile is mine now, Loser Lazar!” He realized he’d been betrayed as she pressed the detonator button.
uh oh, Dan's dead again and this time Miss Snark is at fault.
Entry 118
"Hello?"
"Mr. Lazar, Arthur Treacher here"
"Reacher?"
"Treacher. Sidekick for Merv Griffin. We're sending a helicopter over to fetch you. Wear something snazzy. You're our first guest."
"Whatever." Dan Lazar rolled his eyes and moved to the closet. A moonbeam illuminated the parade of white stitched leisure suits, paisley shirts and Cuban heels.
"I never agreed to this," said Lazar.
"You wanted to be a world class literary agent. Now you have to pay." The devil popped an 8-track, cranked up Disco Inferno and smiled. "I love the seventies. Beats the hell out of hell."
Miss Snark loves this almost as much as she loves Satan.
Entry 119
Dan Lazar sprints across the tarmac to meet the descending helicopter. It lands soft as a moonbeam. Breathing through a tube in his nose and motionless on a blood soaked stretcher is Reacher. The medical team swarms around him, transferring him to a gurney and races it across the landing pad, into the brightly lit elevator. Reacher’s lip is bleeding, his eye is swollen shut and he can barely breathe. They tear open his snazzy shirt, and press new gauze into his bullet wounds. Reacher feels a pinch as another IV needle is inserted.
Lazar shouts, “Where is Agent Griffin?”
Thank dog Dan isn't dead!
Entry 120
Dan Lazar was the only person who could help her.
Overheard the helicopters were slicing through the moonbeams, snazzy-neon of the city streets. It was past curfew, watchdogs and mutated griffins out,
collecting dead,
collecting criminals,
collecting reachers,
like her.
fingertips outstretched,
trying to catch something,
Dan Lazar.
She was a go-between, from one person to another.
And it took too long through the back streets,
before she got to his door.
A dent in a alley on a sidestreet of nowhere.
"Dan." She murmured, as he opened, second hand that was hidden, unopening, "I need your help."
ohhhhh...this is nice work!
Entry 121
After the fifteenth query arrived, by helicopter this time, Dan Lazar started to steam.
Snazzy prose and imagery like 'the glittering bronze griffin standing in a moonbeam' was fine, but he'd rejected this author once, twice, five times - was he dense? Miss Snark said to query extensively, but this was ridiculous.
"Dear Mr. Reacher, Unfortunately..." He paused. To Hell with the form letter. "Enough is enough. If you trouble me with one more bad query, I will..." he looked up. Another helicopter hovered outside his window.
Grinning, he got his bazooka. What luck. He never thought he'd use it.
Yea!!!! Dan takes his revenge!
Entry 122
Who is Dan Lazar? That was the question that plagued Tom Griffin on the eve of battle. The thrum of the blades overhead and the rushing of the wind past the open door of the helicopter couldn't drown out the cacophony in Tom's own mind. Once again he held the letter up into the moonbeam that fell across his seat.
Anna's note was as frustratingly brief as it was ill-timed. It had arrived via courier, complete with the snazzy "signature required" instructions that had made the other men from Reacher Company take notice. What a way to receive divorce papers.
Dan Lazar, heartbreaker!
"Moonbeam loves the moon."
"Moonbear, mommy."
"What?" Mommy tried to ignore the constant whop-whopping of the helicopter making its...fifth circuit overhead.
The tot sighed. "Moonbear loves the moon."
She closed the book then tucked the blanket up to his ears—a polyester charm against evil.
"And I love you. Sleep time."
"Kiss Griffin." Dutifully, she kissed the stuffed mutant in snazzy pajamas and tiptoed out.
Never buy a house tucked between the penitentiary and state asylum for the criminally insane. Sage advice. But that Dan Lazar could sell anything. He even claimed he could sell fiction. What a reacher.
Dan Lazar is really Barbara Corcoran? Who knew!
Entry 102
The helicopter, an almost-invisible black-ops MoonBeam, should have carried Dan Lazar alive and well, not his battered and bloody corpse. How the hell could a corpse explain Lazar ignoring the favor he owed Reacher and selling The Hatpins of a Griffin--the memoir of Reacher’s long-dead snarky grandmother--for a million bucks? The agent (literary, not covert) had earned Reacher’s respect despite being a snazzy dresser, making the situation yet more curious. Oh, hell. The question became moot as the chopper, with a barking, coughing yap-yap-yap, lost altitude, engulfing Reacher in the painful flames of literal--not literary--annihilation.
Dan Lazar is a snazzy dresser, and yet still...dead!
Entry 103
It all came down to griffins. One griffin in particular actually. He was a hulking feathered figure incongruously named Moonbeam and he was rocketing around his aviary. Which shouldn't exist.
I am a pragmatic guy. I write mysteries like the Jack Reacher novels and include a SASE every time I submit to Dan Lazar. Griffins don’t practice helicopter hovers in my world. Moonbeam’s flight did not agree with my logic.
He landed finally in a storm of sand and feathers. The sunset caught the light of his snazzy rhinestone flight suit.
"So your next book is going to be fantasy?"
Rhinestone flight suit!!!
Miss Snark calls her seamstress!
Entry 104
Dan Lazar, high on opiates and believing he really was Jack Reacher, flew his snazzy helicopter through the moonbeam lit night as he tossed fistfuls of slush pile rejections across Manhattan and listened to CDs by Jimmy Griffin, Patty Griffin, and Johnny Griffin.
Miss Snark is going to need the opiates once Dan Lazar reads this IOM run.
Entry 105
Griffin gripped his Kalishinikov more tightly. He could hear rotors chopping the air into rapid basso-profundo pulses. They were getting louder.
“Steady, Reacher.” He looked at the civilian. Big guy, but could he handle that snazzy new moonbeam laser? The Pentagon thought so.
Reacher didn’t bother to take his eye from the sighting mechanism. “As a rock.”
The helicopter appeared over the ridge. A pearly white beam lanced out from Reacher’s station – and simply bounced off the fuselage.
Reacher swore. “Dan Lazar!” At least, that’s what it sounded like. Griffin was suddenly too busy returning fire to care.
Reacher is back in the Army?
I think I need my skates, Hell is freezing over!
Entry 106
They call me Reacher.
Helicopter blades whip the night air, thrashing moonbeams into dust.
Through murky binoculars, I see my mark, dressed in a snazzy little getup and wobbly stilettos. This can’t be right. She looks like Dan Lazar in drag, but I suppose every soul needs saving.
On my nod, the pilot descends. I extend my arm and reel her in.
I’ve got her, barely.
“Griffin, take us up,” I yell, as she struggles to escape.
A moonbeam grazes her neck. An Adam’s apple? It is Dan Lazar!
My grip unravels. I reach out, but it’s too late.
Dead again! Poor Dan!
Entry 107
As the world's most secret and expensive attack helicopter prototype jolted down through the jungle canopy, Griffin Reacher and Raza Land braced themselves. Perhaps the heist hadn't been such a good idea after all.
"If we survive the landing," Griffin shouted, "we'll need to fake our own deaths! Our former employer, the Moonbeam Consortium, won't be happy about the betrayal!"
"We'll need new aliases!" he continued. "You might consider a snazzy anagram. You could easily transform Raza Land into an inconspicuous Al Dazarn, or even Dan Lazar!
"Ooh, I like it!" yelled Raza as the ground rushed to meet them.
Dan Lazar, master thief!
Entry 108
Sexy Ass Sexy Everything (SASE)
She wore a snazzy bikini, sipping gin in Stilettos.
“What’s your name?”
“Dan Lazar — yours?”
Her oiled skin shone like moonbeam.
“What do you do, Danny?”
Why did she remind him of a griffin?
“Literary agent,” he said, “you?”
“I’m a writer,” she said. “Ever make love in a helicopter, Dannyboy?”
“Er — no,” he said. “Um, so what’s your book about?”
“It’s called ‘The Reacher,’” she said, “and it’s about a sexy woman who does a Hannibal Lecter on the agents who rejected her novel.” She smiled, hungrily.
Dan swallowed, then offered his representation.
He might be better off dead!
Entry 109
"This is a snazzy helicopter," said Dan Lazar.
"Yup," replied the pilot, sipping his beer.
"Are you okay to fly this thing?"
"Oh, yeah. The alcohol lessens the glare of the moonbeams."
"I didn't know that was a problem."
"Well, the moon makes it hard to see all the griffins flying around nowadays. Hell, back in '03 it got so bad that I mounted a mechanical reacher to the front of my chopper just to get them out of the way."
"I see," said Dan. "Well, this looks like my stop."
"We're in mid-air."
"I'll take my chances. Bye."
Miss Snark is glad she rides a broom after reading this.
Entry 110
Dan Lazar checked his watch. In less than twenty minutes, the helicopter would touch down at Griffin Airport. His whores, Snazzy and Moonbeam, were making out in the seat beside him.
"Hey, save some for Reacher. He's paying for it."
"Reacher's an ass," Moonbeam said.
Just then, a blade came loose from the chopper and sent the whirlybird hurtling toward the ground. Snazzy and Moonbeam died on impact. Lazar suffered severe brain damage, causing him to forget all about his glamorous life as a pimp, and instead he settled into the drudgery of the slush piles of New York.
yikes!!!!!
Entry 111
Hey Dan--
Lazar says the helicopter’ll be here at noon, but that’s a reacher.
--Griffin
Grif--
Noon or not, we need to be there on time.
--D
Dan--
We can’t get Miss Snark to reconsider?
--G
Grif--
For what--a gift of moonbeams and rainbows? It would be easier to get her to give up gin.
--D
Dan--
We’re gonna stand out snazzy in the daytime.
--G
Grif--
Just be on time. Lazar won’t wait for us.
--D
Dan--
Okay. Just be sure you bag Clooney the first time. I don’t need that damn KY biting me again.
--G
Excellent innovation for "Dan Lazar"!
Entry 112
Dan Lazer lunged for the corner griffin, and swung into the crevice behind the hideous carving. Safe from betrayal by searchlight or moonbeam, he marveled at his dilemma.
A slush pile memoir, shredded after he had read six lines, placed him in the cross hairs of the Feds and a foreign consortium.
Air pulsed from the helicopter as it swept by. Dan shuddered.
His experience with international intrigue was safely acquired through fiction. Books had not prepared him for this.
Maybe they had, he thought.
Yes. A snazzy plan. His lone opportunity to survive was something worthy of Reacher.
Alive! Dan's alive!
Entry 113
"What the devil-?!" the wrinkled man cried in the bright light. "Turn off the Moonbeam," he ordered, boarding his vehicle.
"Don't boss me around," growled Frank. "If it weren't for me, you wouldn't be 'The Snazzy' Dan Lazar. Right, Danny?" Contempt shone in his thin eyes.
"No need when the moon's out," Dan muttered.
"I'm the Reacher here," Frank asserted, straightening his back.
"My dear boy, as long as you remain like this," Dan chuckled, tapping his wand against Frank's side, "the world will only acknowledge me. Now get moving, griffin."
Like a helicopter, they rose into the night sky.
alrighty then....
Entry 114
"Who the hell is Dan Lazar?"
"A legendary creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle?"
"Noooo, that's a griffin!"
"Name the male protagonist of Lee Child's highly sucessful novels. Jack...?"
"Reacher!" Snazzy Moonbeam wiped the sweat from her brow and leaned into her buzzer. One more question and she had the million dollar first prize.
"What mode of transport--"
"Helicopter!"
The host shook his head. "I'll just finish the question... What mode of transport first hit the rails in 1804? The steam train."
Snazzy threw her Prada's at the TV screen. "Shit."
Well, at least Dan isn't dead!
Entry 115
"Helicopter or limo?" she asked.
Moonbeam on her hair, Dan Lazar knew this doll's secret.
Miss Snark was no griffin; no she could have been one of those snazzy babes in a Jack Reacher novel.
If Clooney doesn't show, tonight's the night, he thought.
As if!!!!
(sorry Dan but you know my heart belongs solely to Mr. Clooney)
Entry 116
When I was an actor, I worked as Griffin Dunne's stand-in, because we're the same height. I remember an exciting night shot in a helicopter and I got to fly over Manhattan with a fake moonbeam lighting my face. Griffin, playing Jack Reacher, snoozed in his trailer.
I wrote about this in my memoir and queried Dan Lazar, who promptly responded with: "Thanks, but this wasn't snazzy enough for me. Why not try Miss Snark? Maybe it'll make her laugh out loud." So I tried Miss Snark and I'm still waiting for a response. It's been over a year.
That will teach you to query via email won't it?
Entry 117
The helicopter winch lowered wannabe secret agent Dan Lazar toward the massive stone griffin. Lazar used the light from a moonbeam to work, because the dork left his flashlight (and snazzy secret decoder ring) on the chopper. He held his breath as he stretched to place the explosive charges. The griffin, ancient symbol of evil publishers, stared vacantly at the reacher. Lazar finished his work, then signaled his partner to reel him in. Instead, Miss Snark screamed, “Your slush pile is mine now, Loser Lazar!” He realized he’d been betrayed as she pressed the detonator button.
uh oh, Dan's dead again and this time Miss Snark is at fault.
Entry 118
"Hello?"
"Mr. Lazar, Arthur Treacher here"
"Reacher?"
"Treacher. Sidekick for Merv Griffin. We're sending a helicopter over to fetch you. Wear something snazzy. You're our first guest."
"Whatever." Dan Lazar rolled his eyes and moved to the closet. A moonbeam illuminated the parade of white stitched leisure suits, paisley shirts and Cuban heels.
"I never agreed to this," said Lazar.
"You wanted to be a world class literary agent. Now you have to pay." The devil popped an 8-track, cranked up Disco Inferno and smiled. "I love the seventies. Beats the hell out of hell."
Miss Snark loves this almost as much as she loves Satan.
Entry 119
Dan Lazar sprints across the tarmac to meet the descending helicopter. It lands soft as a moonbeam. Breathing through a tube in his nose and motionless on a blood soaked stretcher is Reacher. The medical team swarms around him, transferring him to a gurney and races it across the landing pad, into the brightly lit elevator. Reacher’s lip is bleeding, his eye is swollen shut and he can barely breathe. They tear open his snazzy shirt, and press new gauze into his bullet wounds. Reacher feels a pinch as another IV needle is inserted.
Lazar shouts, “Where is Agent Griffin?”
Thank dog Dan isn't dead!
Entry 120
Dan Lazar was the only person who could help her.
Overheard the helicopters were slicing through the moonbeams, snazzy-neon of the city streets. It was past curfew, watchdogs and mutated griffins out,
collecting dead,
collecting criminals,
collecting reachers,
like her.
fingertips outstretched,
trying to catch something,
Dan Lazar.
She was a go-between, from one person to another.
And it took too long through the back streets,
before she got to his door.
A dent in a alley on a sidestreet of nowhere.
"Dan." She murmured, as he opened, second hand that was hidden, unopening, "I need your help."
ohhhhh...this is nice work!
Entry 121
After the fifteenth query arrived, by helicopter this time, Dan Lazar started to steam.
Snazzy prose and imagery like 'the glittering bronze griffin standing in a moonbeam' was fine, but he'd rejected this author once, twice, five times - was he dense? Miss Snark said to query extensively, but this was ridiculous.
"Dear Mr. Reacher, Unfortunately..." He paused. To Hell with the form letter. "Enough is enough. If you trouble me with one more bad query, I will..." he looked up. Another helicopter hovered outside his window.
Grinning, he got his bazooka. What luck. He never thought he'd use it.
Yea!!!! Dan takes his revenge!
Entry 122
Who is Dan Lazar? That was the question that plagued Tom Griffin on the eve of battle. The thrum of the blades overhead and the rushing of the wind past the open door of the helicopter couldn't drown out the cacophony in Tom's own mind. Once again he held the letter up into the moonbeam that fell across his seat.
Anna's note was as frustratingly brief as it was ill-timed. It had arrived via courier, complete with the snazzy "signature required" instructions that had made the other men from Reacher Company take notice. What a way to receive divorce papers.
Dan Lazar, heartbreaker!
IOM 46-100 with comments
Entry 46
Though she was Snazzy Moonbeam, Diva Queen, in the evening, during the day she was a he named Dan Lazar. Dan owned a sporting goods store in Griffin, Georgia; Snazzy emceed the drag show at “The Reacher Round” bar in Atlanta. Two separate worlds, about to become one.
“Good Evening. I’m Snazzy Moonbeam, Diva Queen extraordinaire! The Reacher Round proudly presents The Helicopter Girls!” Offering soundless white-gloved applause, Snazzy graciously gave up the stage, headed into the crowd and up to the bar, sliding in next to a pair of kissing girls.
A hand touched her arm.
“Dad?”
nice work. Scary, but nice!.
Entry 47
“You presumptuous reacher! How dare you come here!”
He flinched, trying to ignore the small dog with the cigar. “Dan Lazar told me…”
“First of all, ‘moonbeam’, I don’t rep fantasy. Second, this is utter garbage! ‘Prince Griffin, Lord of the Moon Paths’? Sappy drivel!” Miss Snark snarled.
“M-my mother liked it,” he stammered, wondering if those really were brass knuckles the dog was slipping his onto paws and just why there was a hatch marked ‘Emergency Escape Helicopter’.
“Also, only Saint George looks snazzy in scrubs, take those off. Not here,” she added without even looking up
Those ARE brass knuckles...the kind that figure into Bad Luck and Trouble too.
Entry 48
Fucking moonbeams.
The papers slip from his hands to swirl among the helicopter seeds. The wind infects Central Park's Literary Walk with a white plague of purple prose.
Alabaster moonbeams!
"Dan Lazar."
A griffin stands before him: beaked nose, hair coiffed into wings, voice sharpened to a talon.
"Uh, yeah?"
She digs into a snazzy Burberry handbag, removing a stack of legal pads. "Reacher here wants you for her how-to. It's entitled Bitch's Brew: Homeopathic Remedies From Park Avenue's Pooch Princess."
Dan directs his gaze to the bulldog, grinning like a gargoyle.
"We're willing to grant an exclusive."
Fucking moonbeams.
Reacher is a dog! Thankfully Lee Child is off at the Virginia Festival of the Book and will NEVER see this.
Entry 49
Mary Victor took off hurriedly in her snazzy new ultra-light helicopter. She was late because she had tried hard to not awaken from her dream about Dan Lazar, who had been snatched out of the moonbeam he was standing in and carried away by a griffin. Grinning delightedly as she flew, she planned a new short story about griffins invading D.C., though admittedly publishing it might be a bit of a reacher. Mary sighed when she landed in the employee heliport at the Agency. She decided her crabby boss would be the first victim in her story and smiled snarkily.
Miss Snark is quite glad to not have employees!
Entry 50
Jacqui Reacher was surprised when the helicopter landed on her lawn.
She was even more surprised when agent Dan Lazar, in a snazzy Armani flight suit, emerged from the cockpit.
“I usually travel by griffin-drawn chariot, but I wanted to get this here ASAP.” Dan handed her a familiar number ten SASE.
Breathless, Jacqui read the letter inside.
“Thanks for sending me your novel, MOONBEAM MCBRIDE SETS HER HAIR ON FIRE, but this project is not right for me at this time.”
Jacqui stifled her disappointment. “Thanks Dan,” she said. “It's true. You give great rejection.”
I love this! Armani flight suit!...AND a flaming coiffure, although it's sadly off the page.
Entry 51
When Dan Lazar arrived in his snazzy helicopter to a secret meeting with the head of Animal Authors’ Representatives he expected to see his old pal Killer Yapp. But last night the members held a meeting in the Central Park Zoo. The two rivals - Eagle Reacher and Lion Mozzarella agreed to share the responsibilities. It didn’t help that a single moonbeam was the sole source of light. The widely quoted message, tapped by Rabid Squirrel in Morse code, claimed that a griffin had been chosen and that it spelled doom for the all important nuts and seeds catalog publishing.
cheesy, very cheesy.
Entry 52
Dan Lazar sat in the moonlit helicopter teleport waiting to take control of the Snazzy 3000®. His designated moonbeam lead to MoonStation 15. "Why am I doing this?" he wondered aloud.
"Because you can't resist a challenge, Lazar!" Margaret Starshine said, eyeing him. She stood next to the flying griffin, the legendary Symbol of the Snazzy 3000®'s line of helicopters. "Ever since '15 when you got a taste of adventure."
"So they sent you?" Lazar asked, feigning indifference.
"I'll be your asteroid reacher on this trip. Guess they don't trust you," Starshine said, fingering the fierce griffin on her uniform.
"Why am I doing this"...I think that might be exactly what I'm thinking.
Entry 53
“Reacher.” Dan Lazar screeched through vocal chords rubbed raw in panic. “Don’t let ‘er die.”
Beth darted out, gulping in the dirt and stench. Moonbeam yipped, his shaggy coat slick with soot as she tightened her grasp.
Climbing onto the ledge, she grabbed hold of the griffin, apologizing for past references of ugly uselessness.
“You’re quite snazzy,” she prattled on, “if we get outta this, I’ll fill my next place with, umn, whatever the hell you are.”
Tree tops swooned in the breeze. A lone helicopter spun from its branch as Beth followed its spiraling descent to the pavement below.
I like the use of Moonbeam as a name!
Entry 54
One morning, Dan Lazar flew a snazzy young writer, Griffin Moonbeam Reacher III, to Miss Snark’s office in his private helicopter.
“Now, remember,” Dan said. “Be sure to address her properly, just as you would in a query letter.”
Griffin nodded and left the rooftop heliport but returned quickly, appearing quite disheveled and weary.
“That was fast,” Dan said. “What happened?”
“Well, sir,” panted Griffin, “I've never addressed an agent before. Getting the stamp on her forehead was easy enough, but all that kicking and flailing she did while I stuffed her through the mail slot was a bit unnerving.”
Miss Snark is vastly amused.
Entry 55
"Git this monster under control!" Theobold "Tex" Tsakis shouted. "I cain't reacher."
Samuel "Snazzy" Snarr twisted the throttle, but the helicopter, the latest in the Griffin XIX Series, shuddered and yawed.
"They must've hit the fuel line," Snazzy yelled. "We've got no lift."
From three o'clock, the Dan La-zar 183 lived up to its name, shooting a second bolt like a lethal moonbeam.
"Goddam, Snazzy," Tex hollared. "Why did we leave the parachutes in the back?"
"Because the yellow doesn't go with these brown flight suits, you idiot. Haven't you learned anything from seven days of shooting 'Queer Eye'?
Dan Lazar, missile man!
Entry 56
Moonbeam kicked Dan Lazar's body; retribution for sixteen flights of stairs. She pushed a finger into a hole in his snazzy Hawaiian shirt. It went through the bone.
A news helicopter roared by, hovering near the building. Moonbeam crunched across the gravel and looked over the edge. The corner of her mouth twitched upward.
"Drop the gun," she shouted, dropping her .22 onto the ledge next to the jumper. The cameraman extended his microphone reacher toward the conversation.
"Take my hand!" Moonbeam pried the jumper's fingers from the griffin. His eyes widened as he slid downward. "Thanks, man," she whispered.
I'm not sure I get this.
Entry 57
A silver moonbeam slanted across the lawn where Dan Lazar and Griffin O'Neal lay guzzling homemade gin. A regular Tuesday.
"Can't b'lieve Clooney signed with tha tramp, Snark," Lazar grumbled. "I coulda sold his erotic memoirs for more'n her."
"Clooney's a sonofabitch," said O'Neal. "Juss cuz he's gotta snazzy jet. Thinks he's God."
Lazar patted his buddy's shoulder. "Hey, you gotta helicopter."
"No," O'Neal shot back. "I gotta helicopter RIDE to the hosspital when I O.D.'ed."
"Oh."
"Saw Missnark in detox. Wantedta make out with her, but I couldn' reacher."
"Why?"
"Straightjacket."
"Yours?"
"Hers."
Miss Snark always carries a hatpin for straitjackets. That's one of the first things Grandmother Snark insisted on when enrolling Miss Snark in the Gin and Tonic Finishing School for Young Ladies of Salubrious Heritage.
Entry 58
Last time I saw Reacher he was running for that snazzy helicopter I’d heard about out at Central Command. Dan Lazar built her; shit, he called that sleek, black baby “the griffin.” Man could feel the smooth lines of that doll; arms like eagle wings, body like a lion; legs like that dish I met outside Tokyo in forty-five. Some night; one bright moonbeam and sweet jasmine. Dame couldn’t hold a candle to the baby I was looking at again; she’s gonna get me outta here and into the worst fighting the big guy’s are sending me to: Pynnogjung. Korea.
Who knew Tom Clancy read Miss Snark's blog??
Entry 59
Nouveau
"Y'all won't believe where I got this snazzy hat!!" she said, her entrance clamor to the parlor surpassing the sheer volume of her ensemble. Alyson was a reacher; new money always was. She didn't fit in. You could almost see her arms helicopter, propelling her beyond the point where others would halt. The bafflement was that she'd don the regality of a griffin around our husbands. "Moonbeam, get away from that," came Mrs. Worthington's disdain as she beckoned her butler from Alyson. She had all the subtlety of Dan Lazar on a Clamato bender, but none of the tact.
Clamato bender!!!
Entry 60
"Snazzy tattoo," she said, tracing the outline of the eagle/lion on Reacher's forearm. "What is it?"
"A griffin, and that tickles." Reacher downed his shot. "Knock it off."
"Ooh, I love a ticklish man." The girl with pink hair walked her fingers up his arm.
Knocking her hand away, Reacher stood to leave. "Christ, you're annoying." He turned away and paused in the doorway, scanning the empty dirt road. Hearing the reassuring whir, he nodded.
"Call me," the girl yelled after him. "Moonbeam Phillips! I'm in the book!"
In the helicopter, Dan Lazar shot Reacher a raised eyebrow.
"Don't ask."
Don't ask...do tell.
Entry 61
Helicopter hovers.
"Looks snazzy," the pilot says, pointing to the Reacher Building.
The griffin atop the nearest buttress captures a moonbeam.
"No. It's superb," murmurs Dan Lazar, conscious any discussion of the aesthetics of Le Corbusier, van der Rohe, Saarinen, and the semiology of postmodern architectural criticism would only delay his enjoyment of the Prime Rib Au Jus Cabernet, garlic mashed potatoes, and napoli vegetables attente sur sa table privée in the building's penthouse restaurant. An elegant meal, he thinks, yet one that stops short of pretension.
Miss Snark looks askance at her homestyle tofu and veg.
and calls for reservations at the Reacher Building Skylight Bar and Grille.
Entry 62
Griffin, Indiana’s population had, between last moonbeam and first sunlight, grown from 171 to 173.
They knew: he was Danish. He was a leper. They labeled him aptly ‘Dan Lazar.’
His wife – who’d been cleanly decapitated by helicopter blades at least six years prior – began an affair with a snazzy used car salesman who said things like ‘hooch,’ and ‘broad,’ and who did not have leprosy.
Dan the lazar found his comfort in the form of a cruel pun each time he answered the phone: “Nah, she’s off givin’ head in a parkin’ lot. Ya can reacher at the dealership.”
ewwwwwwwwwwwww on every single level, and yet also, funny.
Entry 63
“Holy Snark!” Dan Lazar said, wide-eyed. He turned to his left and faced Lee Child who piloted the private Helicopter. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t that Jack Reacher that just whipped by us? As in your fictional character."
Child remained silent, dressed in his snazzy suit coat and wool derby cap, but a knowing smirk grew on his face. It was as if he expected this all along. Like he knew Reacher, riding atop a legendary griffin, would follow the same moonbeam they did in search of answers that seemed just out of reach.
Great first paragraph...then splat.
Entry 64
Dan Lazar. Famous literary agent. Bon vivant. Dead man.
Moonbeam McSwail eased her way around the smirking griffin perched along the narrow ledge outside Lazar's snazzy penthouse. A helicopter buzzed nearby. She flattened herself against the wall, cursing softly till it flew off.
Thank God.
She'd escaped the coal dust of Reacher, West Virginia and arrived in town with little besides her virtue and a carefully hoarded bottle of Bombay Sapphire. Lazar had unrepentantly stolen her gin and innocence, both.
Well. Mr. Literary Agent about to learn how hillbilly girls handled gin thieves.
With duct tape. Stiletto heels. Battery acid.
I'm sensing a developing revenge motif here.
Entry 65
Dan Lazar held the helicopter steady while Reacher steadied himself by the open door. A moonbeam reflected off Reacher's snazzy weapon, as he prepared to fire at the oncoming griffin.
Blue fire erupted from the mouth of the laser and sliced toward the mythical creature. The stench of crisped feathers accompanied the beast's list to the right.
Lazar maneuvered to maintain Reacher's line of fire. The second blast sent the creature plummeting toward earth.
Lowering the weapon, Reacher pointed in the direction the griffin arrived from. "Let's find its aerie and finish this."
Well, at least no one's killing off Dan in this one!
Entry 66
THE AGENT
An apocryphal winged griffin makes a reacher’s frail
hopes stiffen -
The query rebounds faster than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
In terms upbeat and jazzy comes a message less than
snazzy –
I'm a helicopter circling far beneath his rising star.
Tell me what thy earthly name is, asks a moonbeam of
the star.
Quoth the agent, “Dan Lazar.”
Thank goodness Dan Lazar is not from Nantucket!
Entry 67
Dan Lazar was neither simple nor a savant, which suited him fine until his brother came to visit.
He had always been overshadowed by the attractive, Rhodes scholar, griffin brother his parents had adopted from Romania.
Reacher was a ladies man, riding on moonbeams and playing the game like no other. One night, like a helicopter, he descended into Dan's apartment through the window. A green homburg hat with a red feather topped his head. The air hinted of gin.
"Well don't you look snazzy," Dan said.
"The ladies come for the hat but stay for the talons," he replied.
Amazing what 100 words can do, isn't it.
Entry 68
Damn it. I only wanted to reason with him, explain my plot, and show some snazzy illustrations, since he obviously isn't smart enough to grasp the concept without pictures. But now that bull-headed Dan Lazar is bleeding out on his floor instead, and I'm stuck running from the Griffin Police. I'm dodging moonbeams and the light from their freakin' helicopter, all because he had to be childish and snarky and say I had no voice. Bastard.
"Get down on the ground, Reacher, or we'll send the dog!"
Crap. I knew I should have written about dancing chickens instead.
You guys are starting to scare me on this revenge motif thing.
Entry 69
“DID YOU KNOW DEEDEE REACHER?”
“Did he reach her?”
“DEEDEE REACHER.”
“The hotsy totsy caught with Merv Griffin in a Crosley Moonbeam biplane?”
“YOU KNEW HER, RIGHT?”
“Who wants to know?”
“DAN LAZAR.”
“Swifty’s boy?”
“GREAT-GRANDSON.”
“What’s he want with DeeDee? She died in forty-eight. Helicopter accident.”
“HE WANTS YOU TO WRITE A MEMOIR.”
“I told DeeDee, ‘Stay outta planes.’”
“ABOUT HOLLYWOOD.”
“They’re bad luck and trouble.”
“WILL YOU TALK WITH HIM?”
“She was beautiful in her snazzy dress with that silver moonbeam. And when she danced …”
“GRANDPA? You asleep?”
…
“Maybe tomorrow, Mr. Lazar.”
ohhh....clever connection to Swifty Lazar!
Entry 70
It was all over - because of Dan Lazar and some helicopter . First place was mine. I was certain no one could catch me, even if they found a way to harness moonbeams. No one thought to use the waterway. But I've always been a reacher. Nothing like victory via sailboat - especially one as snazzy as the one I managed to commandeer. How did Dan Lazar get a helicopter, anyway? He'd once asked me if griffins were real, and where to get one. I'd discounted him as flying high – looks like I was right about one thing.
Its a Mad Mad Mad Mad World indeed.
Entry 71
Helen’s heartbeat matched the intensity of the traffic helicopter’s thumping rotors as she exited the cab in front of Random House. She admired the grand edifice, (complete with granite griffins) wondering if the pile-up on 5th Avenue would make the news.
Later, she rehashed meeting Dan Lazar (her snazzy agent) and stroked his business card for the hundredth time.
“We’d like to publish you,” he’d said.
Later still, a stretch of moonbeam graced her dream-filled bed; wherein she was a published author, autographing her novel while the bookseller used a Reacher to bring down more copies from the shelves above.
ummm...agents don't say "we'd like to publish you". We're happy to figure in your visualizations for success but "we'd like to represent you" is what we say.
And Random House is at 1745 Broadway last time I checked.
Entry 72
Dan Lazar lowered the binoculars and rubbed his eyes. He punched a number into his cell and prayed Reacher would pick up.
“Helicopter over here pronto,” Dan breathed. “It’s the scoop of a lifetime.”
“What’s up?”
“You gotta see to believe. Meet me at the Moonbeam Bay overlook.”
Thirty minutes later the station’s snazzy new chopper settled in the deserted parking area. Reacher scuttled bent-backed to join Dan at the cliff’s edge.
“What’s so all-fired important you couldn’t tell me over the phone?”
“That,” said Dan, pointing to a griffin nesting in a snarl of driftwood on the beach below.
Dan has an eagle eye for the good stuff, no doubt about it.
Entry 73
Dan Lazar was a spiritual atheist. He worshipped nothing except snazzy Hawaiian shirts with orchids propagating on beds of fiddlehead fern and Roxbury Lanes. A timid pilgrim to its glossy altar of three- fingered balls and crashing kingpins, he savored the musk of rented
shoes and secondhand smoke. Each time he rolled a strike, he imagined himself a cunning beast, a griffin hovering like a visceral helicopter atop a supple divorcée.
Moonbeam Reacher studied Dan from a lanefront table. He narrowed his eyes, downed another Heineken, and screwed its bottle cap into a table salt mosaic. No looking back.
Give a whole new sensibility to three strikes and you're out, doesn't it.
Entry 74
The weary griffin sat watch outside, moonbeam dancing off her wings and piercing through the window to the room she watched and the man inside. Dan Lazar slept, broken leg elevated, his snazzy Reacher, a temporary necessity, propped up nearby. He thrashed in the bed – his dreams shot through with visions of the helicopter crash – the propellers, and had that been feathers? Vague memories of being supported in the air and his bumpy landing and the harsh noise of an eagle's cry. And his sleeping brain formed the word he didn't dare think of in light of day: "Mom?".
He broke his leg kicking Miss Snark I'm pretty sure.
Entry 75
An overcast sky, a new moon: It's under these conditions you're most likely to spot the Grim Reacher slinking through your neighborhood, eyeing his next challenge. Obsessed with the intangible, the locked away, the closely guarded, the Grim Reacher snatches diaries, unspoken words, fleeting facial expressions. Moving helicopter blades, a single moonbeam, lost time. He keeps his treasures in a bone-studded labyrinth, where a giant griffin stands watch at all times.
I'm telling you this, Dan Lazar, because you're next. Yes, you, in the snazzy suit! He's after your attention, your approval. You are his most ambitious target yet.
oh my!
Entry 76
“No one would know that but Dan Lazar.” Moonbeam hissed. Her disposition had never been sunny, but she seemed worse than usual. Jacque fought back the urge to let his fist slip and send her and her snazzy new manuscript into orbit.
“He lived in the 21st century for dog sakes. Take a motrin.” He countered.
“Pull over.” She gestured toward the Griffin Ozone Reacher Experiment (GORE).
“Lunatic. We’re not taking a helicopter to the LBF.”
“What?” She demanded. It would be easier to land an off-shore oil driller on an asteroid than it would be to deter her.
I've heard Dan Lazar can land off shore oil drillers on asteroids while blindfolded AND reading query letters.
Entry 77
He snivelled exquisitely whilst I lay into him with my moonbeam cannon. The spectacular rays enveloped his sanity, crushing it in a snazzy pattern of silver light. Dan Lazar had no chance of escape this time--by griffin or otherwise--and he would die well before The Reacher came.
This rooftop, bathed in summoned moonlight, played host to all my fears of reprisal from Lazar's cronies. The headless mob would seek retribution. As I took in the beautiful rattling of Lazar's dying body, I heard my fear become realized. The steady whuf-whuf of The Reacher's Helicopter grew louder as it approached.
geeze, poor Dan, dead again. He's worse off than Kenny!
Entry 78
Dan Lazar watched the helicopter lift. The griffin was on board. Or so they said, “Find the Griffin, before the helicopter leaves the city.” Who were they? The CIA? Teenagers wasted on moonbeam? It didn’t matter. What would Jack Reacher do? Dan pulled a snazzy move, grabbed a pontoon and swung into the cabin. There was no mythical creature there. Just a Pakistani with a gun.
“Where’s the griffin?,” Dan said.
“Look it up. The other definition is newcomer – white man from the west. The griffin is you.”
He pulled the trigger. Dan dropped toward river. They never found the body.
We need an MP3 for Another One Bites The Dust and Dan Lazar is the Number One.
Entry 79
A moonbeam through the window illuminated my coffee.
"I want you to follow Dan Lazar," I said.
Griffin snorted in his latte. "Stalking literary agents now? Real snazzy."
"I'll get representation or die trying."
"Yanno, you've only got one shot with Lazar," he said. "A run-in with the mob might not be right for him."
"Well, I know you can be a real persuader."
A helicopter droned outside.
"That's your chopper." I pushed the manuscript across the table. "You know what to do. Hell, be like Reacher."
Griffin raised a brow. "That could mean bad luck… and trouble."
It does mean that without fail and to the enemy**
Entry 80
Inter-Office Memo
To: Dan Lazar
From: Billing
Your latest expense report has been summarily denied. We appreciate your efforts to woo J.K. Rowling to Writer’s House – but enough is enough.
Snazzy dinners are one thing, but helicopter rides over Diagon Alley? Mani-pedis at the Moonbeam Mall? And what the hell is a griffin?
Even if we believed these were all necessary expenses, our accounting system is not equipped to handle direct deposits to Gringotts Bank.
Next time you want to impress a potential client, I suggest a good ol’ fashioned reacher-round. That’s how Zuckerman landed Ken Follett.
I think Dan and I have the same accountant!
Entry 81
Dan Lazar reads novels
Never a rhyme
But the minutes are ticking
I’m out of time.
No words, sentences
Can enter my mind
I’m thinking about my pet
That I did find.
About my griffin neither
Lion nor bird
But a mix of the two
Kind of absurd.
Covered with feathers
So soft and snazzy
His call in the wild
Is upbeat and jazzy.
He whizzes like a helicopter
Through the air
Chasing moonbeams in circles
With nary a care.
And when he is tired
He lands on my wall
A reacher is needed
He won’t come when I call.
at least Dan isn't dead in this!
Entry 82
"Moonbeam, the rope!" Sonny Reacher shouted down to his daughter while her little monster, Snazzy, whined in the rear of the purloined helicopter.
Dan Lazar was at the controls, struggling against a fierce wind, hovering as low as he dared over the highest point on the island of Rhodes. The rescue line danced across the boulders, but Moonbeam refused to clamber from between them.
"I'm going down," Sonny announced. He started his rappel, but halted halfway when a four-clawed hand shot from among the rocks, snagged the line and snapped it taut. The Griffin started to climb.
Dan Lazar, Colossus of Rhodes!
Entry 83
Snazzy Lazar was a helluva helicopter pilot, but his son, Dan Lazar, had no intention of following in his Dad’s cockpit. While Snazzy whirled across a blackened sky, daredevil Dan zoomed through moonbeams on his griffin, Reacher.
That is, until Reacher joined the Army, and left Dan grounded.
“While you’re playing soldier,” Dan cried, “I’ll dream up my own damn moonbeam.”
Reacher went on to command a team of gargantuan griffins whose job it was to destroy missiles hidden deep within enemy territory.
But each time Reacher found one, it was mysteriously pulverized by a Lazar beam.
Lazar beam!
Entry 84
The sky was hard to see against the rooftop floodlights, but I heard the telltale thump-thump overhead. Would this be Reacher’s helicopter? Dan Lazar hocked a louie to the street below.
“Nah,” he said. “Just Miss Snark, again.”
Suddenly there she was, all chic and snazzy, alighting like a moonbeam from the whirring griffin. Being sans culottes as usual, she didn’t wave — both hands struggled to keep her wind-blown dress below her famous knees — but she smiled at me demurely. (Later, over drinks, she chided me on this. “Demurely? But adverbs are so lazy! You should avoid them, mostly.”)
Miss Snark has famous knees?
Who knew!
Entry 85
The snazzy Apache helicopter skated through the moonbeam. Without warning, an explosion shattered the night. Weapons and fuel ignited. The impact tossed the unseen barrier downward. The airmen weren't as lucky. They were trapped inside the inferno.
Major Dan Lazar searched in widening circles, his frustration growing. They hadn't hit the hills and there was nothing else to hit. There. He saw blood. Curled in the exposed roots of the mangrove tree was a huge, injured beast. Using his reacher, Dan tentatively prodded the creature. It flinched instinctively, stretching out it's huge wings. Dan gasped. It was a griffin.
Finally, Dan Lazar in a heroic role!
Entry 86
A moonbeam gleamed as Reacher crept toward Dan Lazar. “Did you get it?”
Lazar jerked his head toward the door. “On the roof.”
“We don’t need it any more.”
“Do you have any idea how much trouble I went to, getting that thing?”
“Yeah, but I got a griffin.”
“That’s it,” Lazar said. “I’ve heard one too many of your mythical beast stories. I’m out of here.”
Reacher shrugged. As Lazar stepped into the stairwell, lion paws padded down the alley.
Lazar was still trying to start the helicopter as they soared overhead. “Snazzy machine,” the griffin remarked, “but unreliable.”
Amazingly complete sketch here!
Entry 87
KY licked Snazzy Moonbeam’s face, dragging her back to consciousness. She lifted her skirt, removed a flask from her stocking and threw back a slug of gin. The gash on her head felt like a helicopter blade had taken a swipe at her.
Who had clocked her and why?
She struck a match on the bottom of her stiletto and lit her cigarette. Faster than Dan Lazar rejecting an e-query she knew!
“Dear Dog! Griffin Reacher! The author whose hook I publicly trashed!”
KY smacked his jaws. “He’s taken care of, Miss Snark.”
“Good dog.”
Her secret identity remained safe.
Miss Snark is secretly named Snazzy Moonbeam?? Shades of Frank Zappa!
Entry 88
Dan Lazar stood, looking less than snazzy after the plastic surgeon unraveled the bandages. Turning, he frowned in the mirror. It was his own fault really, not making sure they were on the same page. Instead of Icarus he looked more like a griffin, now needing a reacher to scratch his ass.
Since childhood he dreamt of gliding through the air on a moonbeam. During his maiden flight he tangled with a gaggle of bats, his eyes no match for echo location. To his detriment he miscalculated, broke free, and was mauled by an oncoming helicopter.
Well, at least he's not dead!
Entry 89
Eddie swam silently through the reedy pond. Spying the helicopter's searchlight, he dove.
He tried to count to one hundred, to wait out the searchers. But the image of Griffin's dead body, illuminated with moonbeams, seemed more real in the pool's depths.
Eddie escaped to the surface. Blinded by light, he couldn't see his captor. He didn't need to. Eddie knew Dan Lazar's voice. He would never forget it.
Eddie headed for the bank, to be taken to Reacher. Maybe Dan would let him change into a snazzy outfit on the way, for old times sake.
Well, at least Dan's not dead here either.
Entry 90
"THE Dan Lazar?" Her eyes lit up like moonbeams.
"No, not that Dan Lazar. He's all personal helicopters and caviar," I shrugged. My dates always start with disappointment.
The waiter brought fortune cookies before we'd even ordered. A griffin was stamped upon the note:
CODEWORD: SNAZZY
Breach
"Hey," said Blondie Golightly, "You don't eat the fortune."
"I'm sorry; I must leave," I said.
The helicopter on the roof wasn't private. My handler gave me a photograph.
"Reacher?" he asked.
"Must I say it?"
"The code phrase is compulsory."
"All right," I said while reaching for the rifle, "Let's Wang Chung."
Miss Snark is amused.
Entry 91
Normally Dan Lazar would have been elated to get his hands on a snazzy new helicopter. Running his hands along the shiny skin of this new bird he realized it was under armed for the task at hand. If he were going to ride this beast into the valley with little more than a moonbeam to guide him he would need a lot more fire power. The last three vessels that Reacher sent in never came back and Dan had no intention of flying in to face the griffin armed with a prayer and a pop gun.
nice!
Entry 92
"Hey,Toots, you look pretty snazzy in those stilettos."
I turned, startled. It was Dan Lazar.
"You too," I lied. His Hawaiian shirt sported nude wahines and moonbeams on a purple background. "Are we waiting for the same helicopter?"
Dan threw his chewed stogie over the railing. "Guess so, just you and me, Baby. Reacher's with Barbara Bauer and Griffin signed with Publish America."
I heard the sound of the Fox News chopper. I once told Dan if he was the last agent in America I still wouldn't date him. Funny how wrong you can be when push comes to shove.
Miss Snark is rolling on the floor. Killer Yapp swallowed his stogie. Even Grandmother Snark, genteel to the end, is laughing like a loon.
Entry 93
People say that knowledge is power. I'm finally going to have both. And the literary career I’ve dreamed of, too. What a piece of luck.
I turn the postcard over again. Check the address. It isn’t as snazzy as those cards in the Griffin and Sabine books, all artistic, covered with moonbeams and such. This one shows a helicopter, an OH-58A, like they used back in Vietnam. But the meaning is clear, even through my methadone fog.
Dan Lazar will finally believe me. He’ll represent my memoir. I have proof. Griffin Moss has left Sabine for Jack Reacher!
Intrepid mingling of titles and meanings!
Entry 94
It’s 9pm. This is North American Indian News, and I’m Moonbeam with your latest headlines.
New technology will get a boost this year in the form of a special fair for laser technology. The event will be called “Laizzes Fair” and will be hosted by the tribe of Dan, said newly-named tribal chief, Dan Lazar. The snazzy publicist and media liaison was formerly known as Dan People-Reacher.
But not everyone is happy about this announcement. Dan Preserver is planning to protest the event. “It’s bad enough that griffins are being replaced by helicopters,” he says. “Now this.”
Laizzes Fair!!!!
Entry 95
Dan Lazar jerked the steering stick and slid his snazzy new helicopter onto the moonbeam, waiting for the reacher arm to add enough thrust to send him into the atmosphere overhead.
Voices sounded over the radio implanted in his left ear.
"That red griffin is big as a dreadnaught. Watch its tail, Macy. Watch its..."
Macy's scream echoed in Lazar's ear even after the voice itself stopped. The battle was going badly, but as commander, he had his duty. G-force glued him to his seat as the reacher flung him skyward. The mythical creature filled his screen.
“Fuck!” he yelled.
Well, he's not dead!
Entry 96
Rescue and Recovery
Dan Lazar landed the helicopter in the dead zone surrounding the abandoned nickel mine and ordered the team to don their HAZMAT suits. He hoped they weren't too late for little Bobby Reacher.
Lt. Griffin led the team into the mine. A moonbeam illuminated each guard as he stepped through the adit. They reached Bobby after a two-hour slog through partially collapsed mine walls and standing water from prior flooding.
Griffin knelt by the boy. "He's barely alive."
Alive! Their dangerous trek was worth taking.
Bobby said one word before he died--snazzy.
Bobby's only dead once, he's got a long way to go to equal the number of dead Dan Lazars!
Entry 97
Griffin kept to darkness and the cover of trees. She darted between shadows and pools of silver moonbeam.
Overhead the helicopter noise chopped doplars. Dan Lazar, acclaimed taxidermist and collector of mythical creatures, was circling the sky, hunting.
Searchlights washed over the canopy of foliage, grounding in places between. Griffin was aware of Lazar's sunlight allergy, and awaited dawn horizon's snazzy bruising.
Time passed.
Night crossed the nexus to day.
But Lazar ignored the bleeding, yellow sky, always looking downwards.
And as the first rays reflected off the rotors, Griffin heard a scream, and knew that he would not reacher.
Dan is a vampire! That explains oh-so-much!
Entry 98
As instructed, Dan Lazar carried the carved griffin home in his pocket. A gin bottle rested against his door. Snazzy Snark must have left it. Should he ask her to join him? He’d rather hand it off now. Dog phobic, he used the Reacher to knock on her door. No answer. He left a note and retreated to the fire escape, where he watched a moonbeam make its soft glide across the brick as he sipped gin from a paper cup. Crumpling, then tossing it aside, he made his way to the roof. The helicopter was here. Where was Snark?
Snark is trapped in a prison of her own making; held hostage by google heads and her own nitwittery at not limiting entries to the first 100.
Entry 99
FIT THE FIRST: ENTER THE GRIFFIN
The Griffin's blood coursed ever quick
Pushing forward through the squick
and grime-filled city skies
A moonbeam marks where his prey lies
(A helicopter pilot sees
This creature glide above the trees
and turns true tale to reacher then
Is published by Hyperion)
The splintering of glass awakes
Dan Lazar who stands then shakes
to see the Griffin making tracks
Through his snazzy knicks and knacks
The Griffin's blood coursed ever hot
Paws pressing Lazar to the spot
while asking him with voice so teary
"Why did you reject my query?"
I'm feeling the need to come and go, talking of Michelangelo.
Entry 100
Big night ahead. Time to saddle up.
He liked riding moonbeams to the stars on the back of a soaring griffin. Sure, Dan Lazar could have used the snazzy Belltronics Helicopter his grateful clients had given him, but he was a Reacher-of-Dreams and a lover of the old ways.
The waiting griffin was green, and unusually ill-tempered. “Uh-uh. You can forget that saddling-up crap! This trip ain’t happening!” A gust of moist, anchovy breath enveloped Dan’s head and a scatter of pizza boxes told where the missing cell phone and credit card had gone. He was left with no alternative.
Finally, Dan Lazar has been given grateful clients!!!
Though she was Snazzy Moonbeam, Diva Queen, in the evening, during the day she was a he named Dan Lazar. Dan owned a sporting goods store in Griffin, Georgia; Snazzy emceed the drag show at “The Reacher Round” bar in Atlanta. Two separate worlds, about to become one.
“Good Evening. I’m Snazzy Moonbeam, Diva Queen extraordinaire! The Reacher Round proudly presents The Helicopter Girls!” Offering soundless white-gloved applause, Snazzy graciously gave up the stage, headed into the crowd and up to the bar, sliding in next to a pair of kissing girls.
A hand touched her arm.
“Dad?”
nice work. Scary, but nice!.
Entry 47
“You presumptuous reacher! How dare you come here!”
He flinched, trying to ignore the small dog with the cigar. “Dan Lazar told me…”
“First of all, ‘moonbeam’, I don’t rep fantasy. Second, this is utter garbage! ‘Prince Griffin, Lord of the Moon Paths’? Sappy drivel!” Miss Snark snarled.
“M-my mother liked it,” he stammered, wondering if those really were brass knuckles the dog was slipping his onto paws and just why there was a hatch marked ‘Emergency Escape Helicopter’.
“Also, only Saint George looks snazzy in scrubs, take those off. Not here,” she added without even looking up
Those ARE brass knuckles...the kind that figure into Bad Luck and Trouble too.
Entry 48
Fucking moonbeams.
The papers slip from his hands to swirl among the helicopter seeds. The wind infects Central Park's Literary Walk with a white plague of purple prose.
Alabaster moonbeams!
"Dan Lazar."
A griffin stands before him: beaked nose, hair coiffed into wings, voice sharpened to a talon.
"Uh, yeah?"
She digs into a snazzy Burberry handbag, removing a stack of legal pads. "Reacher here wants you for her how-to. It's entitled Bitch's Brew: Homeopathic Remedies From Park Avenue's Pooch Princess."
Dan directs his gaze to the bulldog, grinning like a gargoyle.
"We're willing to grant an exclusive."
Fucking moonbeams.
Reacher is a dog! Thankfully Lee Child is off at the Virginia Festival of the Book and will NEVER see this.
Entry 49
Mary Victor took off hurriedly in her snazzy new ultra-light helicopter. She was late because she had tried hard to not awaken from her dream about Dan Lazar, who had been snatched out of the moonbeam he was standing in and carried away by a griffin. Grinning delightedly as she flew, she planned a new short story about griffins invading D.C., though admittedly publishing it might be a bit of a reacher. Mary sighed when she landed in the employee heliport at the Agency. She decided her crabby boss would be the first victim in her story and smiled snarkily.
Miss Snark is quite glad to not have employees!
Entry 50
Jacqui Reacher was surprised when the helicopter landed on her lawn.
She was even more surprised when agent Dan Lazar, in a snazzy Armani flight suit, emerged from the cockpit.
“I usually travel by griffin-drawn chariot, but I wanted to get this here ASAP.” Dan handed her a familiar number ten SASE.
Breathless, Jacqui read the letter inside.
“Thanks for sending me your novel, MOONBEAM MCBRIDE SETS HER HAIR ON FIRE, but this project is not right for me at this time.”
Jacqui stifled her disappointment. “Thanks Dan,” she said. “It's true. You give great rejection.”
I love this! Armani flight suit!...AND a flaming coiffure, although it's sadly off the page.
Entry 51
When Dan Lazar arrived in his snazzy helicopter to a secret meeting with the head of Animal Authors’ Representatives he expected to see his old pal Killer Yapp. But last night the members held a meeting in the Central Park Zoo. The two rivals - Eagle Reacher and Lion Mozzarella agreed to share the responsibilities. It didn’t help that a single moonbeam was the sole source of light. The widely quoted message, tapped by Rabid Squirrel in Morse code, claimed that a griffin had been chosen and that it spelled doom for the all important nuts and seeds catalog publishing.
cheesy, very cheesy.
Entry 52
Dan Lazar sat in the moonlit helicopter teleport waiting to take control of the Snazzy 3000®. His designated moonbeam lead to MoonStation 15. "Why am I doing this?" he wondered aloud.
"Because you can't resist a challenge, Lazar!" Margaret Starshine said, eyeing him. She stood next to the flying griffin, the legendary Symbol of the Snazzy 3000®'s line of helicopters. "Ever since '15 when you got a taste of adventure."
"So they sent you?" Lazar asked, feigning indifference.
"I'll be your asteroid reacher on this trip. Guess they don't trust you," Starshine said, fingering the fierce griffin on her uniform.
"Why am I doing this"...I think that might be exactly what I'm thinking.
Entry 53
“Reacher.” Dan Lazar screeched through vocal chords rubbed raw in panic. “Don’t let ‘er die.”
Beth darted out, gulping in the dirt and stench. Moonbeam yipped, his shaggy coat slick with soot as she tightened her grasp.
Climbing onto the ledge, she grabbed hold of the griffin, apologizing for past references of ugly uselessness.
“You’re quite snazzy,” she prattled on, “if we get outta this, I’ll fill my next place with, umn, whatever the hell you are.”
Tree tops swooned in the breeze. A lone helicopter spun from its branch as Beth followed its spiraling descent to the pavement below.
I like the use of Moonbeam as a name!
Entry 54
One morning, Dan Lazar flew a snazzy young writer, Griffin Moonbeam Reacher III, to Miss Snark’s office in his private helicopter.
“Now, remember,” Dan said. “Be sure to address her properly, just as you would in a query letter.”
Griffin nodded and left the rooftop heliport but returned quickly, appearing quite disheveled and weary.
“That was fast,” Dan said. “What happened?”
“Well, sir,” panted Griffin, “I've never addressed an agent before. Getting the stamp on her forehead was easy enough, but all that kicking and flailing she did while I stuffed her through the mail slot was a bit unnerving.”
Miss Snark is vastly amused.
Entry 55
"Git this monster under control!" Theobold "Tex" Tsakis shouted. "I cain't reacher."
Samuel "Snazzy" Snarr twisted the throttle, but the helicopter, the latest in the Griffin XIX Series, shuddered and yawed.
"They must've hit the fuel line," Snazzy yelled. "We've got no lift."
From three o'clock, the Dan La-zar 183 lived up to its name, shooting a second bolt like a lethal moonbeam.
"Goddam, Snazzy," Tex hollared. "Why did we leave the parachutes in the back?"
"Because the yellow doesn't go with these brown flight suits, you idiot. Haven't you learned anything from seven days of shooting 'Queer Eye'?
Dan Lazar, missile man!
Entry 56
Moonbeam kicked Dan Lazar's body; retribution for sixteen flights of stairs. She pushed a finger into a hole in his snazzy Hawaiian shirt. It went through the bone.
A news helicopter roared by, hovering near the building. Moonbeam crunched across the gravel and looked over the edge. The corner of her mouth twitched upward.
"Drop the gun," she shouted, dropping her .22 onto the ledge next to the jumper. The cameraman extended his microphone reacher toward the conversation.
"Take my hand!" Moonbeam pried the jumper's fingers from the griffin. His eyes widened as he slid downward. "Thanks, man," she whispered.
I'm not sure I get this.
Entry 57
A silver moonbeam slanted across the lawn where Dan Lazar and Griffin O'Neal lay guzzling homemade gin. A regular Tuesday.
"Can't b'lieve Clooney signed with tha tramp, Snark," Lazar grumbled. "I coulda sold his erotic memoirs for more'n her."
"Clooney's a sonofabitch," said O'Neal. "Juss cuz he's gotta snazzy jet. Thinks he's God."
Lazar patted his buddy's shoulder. "Hey, you gotta helicopter."
"No," O'Neal shot back. "I gotta helicopter RIDE to the hosspital when I O.D.'ed."
"Oh."
"Saw Missnark in detox. Wantedta make out with her, but I couldn' reacher."
"Why?"
"Straightjacket."
"Yours?"
"Hers."
Miss Snark always carries a hatpin for straitjackets. That's one of the first things Grandmother Snark insisted on when enrolling Miss Snark in the Gin and Tonic Finishing School for Young Ladies of Salubrious Heritage.
Entry 58
Last time I saw Reacher he was running for that snazzy helicopter I’d heard about out at Central Command. Dan Lazar built her; shit, he called that sleek, black baby “the griffin.” Man could feel the smooth lines of that doll; arms like eagle wings, body like a lion; legs like that dish I met outside Tokyo in forty-five. Some night; one bright moonbeam and sweet jasmine. Dame couldn’t hold a candle to the baby I was looking at again; she’s gonna get me outta here and into the worst fighting the big guy’s are sending me to: Pynnogjung. Korea.
Who knew Tom Clancy read Miss Snark's blog??
Entry 59
Nouveau
"Y'all won't believe where I got this snazzy hat!!" she said, her entrance clamor to the parlor surpassing the sheer volume of her ensemble. Alyson was a reacher; new money always was. She didn't fit in. You could almost see her arms helicopter, propelling her beyond the point where others would halt. The bafflement was that she'd don the regality of a griffin around our husbands. "Moonbeam, get away from that," came Mrs. Worthington's disdain as she beckoned her butler from Alyson. She had all the subtlety of Dan Lazar on a Clamato bender, but none of the tact.
Clamato bender!!!
Entry 60
"Snazzy tattoo," she said, tracing the outline of the eagle/lion on Reacher's forearm. "What is it?"
"A griffin, and that tickles." Reacher downed his shot. "Knock it off."
"Ooh, I love a ticklish man." The girl with pink hair walked her fingers up his arm.
Knocking her hand away, Reacher stood to leave. "Christ, you're annoying." He turned away and paused in the doorway, scanning the empty dirt road. Hearing the reassuring whir, he nodded.
"Call me," the girl yelled after him. "Moonbeam Phillips! I'm in the book!"
In the helicopter, Dan Lazar shot Reacher a raised eyebrow.
"Don't ask."
Don't ask...do tell.
Entry 61
Helicopter hovers.
"Looks snazzy," the pilot says, pointing to the Reacher Building.
The griffin atop the nearest buttress captures a moonbeam.
"No. It's superb," murmurs Dan Lazar, conscious any discussion of the aesthetics of Le Corbusier, van der Rohe, Saarinen, and the semiology of postmodern architectural criticism would only delay his enjoyment of the Prime Rib Au Jus Cabernet, garlic mashed potatoes, and napoli vegetables attente sur sa table privée in the building's penthouse restaurant. An elegant meal, he thinks, yet one that stops short of pretension.
Miss Snark looks askance at her homestyle tofu and veg.
and calls for reservations at the Reacher Building Skylight Bar and Grille.
Entry 62
Griffin, Indiana’s population had, between last moonbeam and first sunlight, grown from 171 to 173.
They knew: he was Danish. He was a leper. They labeled him aptly ‘Dan Lazar.’
His wife – who’d been cleanly decapitated by helicopter blades at least six years prior – began an affair with a snazzy used car salesman who said things like ‘hooch,’ and ‘broad,’ and who did not have leprosy.
Dan the lazar found his comfort in the form of a cruel pun each time he answered the phone: “Nah, she’s off givin’ head in a parkin’ lot. Ya can reacher at the dealership.”
ewwwwwwwwwwwww on every single level, and yet also, funny.
Entry 63
“Holy Snark!” Dan Lazar said, wide-eyed. He turned to his left and faced Lee Child who piloted the private Helicopter. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t that Jack Reacher that just whipped by us? As in your fictional character."
Child remained silent, dressed in his snazzy suit coat and wool derby cap, but a knowing smirk grew on his face. It was as if he expected this all along. Like he knew Reacher, riding atop a legendary griffin, would follow the same moonbeam they did in search of answers that seemed just out of reach.
Great first paragraph...then splat.
Entry 64
Dan Lazar. Famous literary agent. Bon vivant. Dead man.
Moonbeam McSwail eased her way around the smirking griffin perched along the narrow ledge outside Lazar's snazzy penthouse. A helicopter buzzed nearby. She flattened herself against the wall, cursing softly till it flew off.
Thank God.
She'd escaped the coal dust of Reacher, West Virginia and arrived in town with little besides her virtue and a carefully hoarded bottle of Bombay Sapphire. Lazar had unrepentantly stolen her gin and innocence, both.
Well. Mr. Literary Agent about to learn how hillbilly girls handled gin thieves.
With duct tape. Stiletto heels. Battery acid.
I'm sensing a developing revenge motif here.
Entry 65
Dan Lazar held the helicopter steady while Reacher steadied himself by the open door. A moonbeam reflected off Reacher's snazzy weapon, as he prepared to fire at the oncoming griffin.
Blue fire erupted from the mouth of the laser and sliced toward the mythical creature. The stench of crisped feathers accompanied the beast's list to the right.
Lazar maneuvered to maintain Reacher's line of fire. The second blast sent the creature plummeting toward earth.
Lowering the weapon, Reacher pointed in the direction the griffin arrived from. "Let's find its aerie and finish this."
Well, at least no one's killing off Dan in this one!
Entry 66
THE AGENT
An apocryphal winged griffin makes a reacher’s frail
hopes stiffen -
The query rebounds faster than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
In terms upbeat and jazzy comes a message less than
snazzy –
I'm a helicopter circling far beneath his rising star.
Tell me what thy earthly name is, asks a moonbeam of
the star.
Quoth the agent, “Dan Lazar.”
Thank goodness Dan Lazar is not from Nantucket!
Entry 67
Dan Lazar was neither simple nor a savant, which suited him fine until his brother came to visit.
He had always been overshadowed by the attractive, Rhodes scholar, griffin brother his parents had adopted from Romania.
Reacher was a ladies man, riding on moonbeams and playing the game like no other. One night, like a helicopter, he descended into Dan's apartment through the window. A green homburg hat with a red feather topped his head. The air hinted of gin.
"Well don't you look snazzy," Dan said.
"The ladies come for the hat but stay for the talons," he replied.
Amazing what 100 words can do, isn't it.
Entry 68
Damn it. I only wanted to reason with him, explain my plot, and show some snazzy illustrations, since he obviously isn't smart enough to grasp the concept without pictures. But now that bull-headed Dan Lazar is bleeding out on his floor instead, and I'm stuck running from the Griffin Police. I'm dodging moonbeams and the light from their freakin' helicopter, all because he had to be childish and snarky and say I had no voice. Bastard.
"Get down on the ground, Reacher, or we'll send the dog!"
Crap. I knew I should have written about dancing chickens instead.
You guys are starting to scare me on this revenge motif thing.
Entry 69
“DID YOU KNOW DEEDEE REACHER?”
“Did he reach her?”
“DEEDEE REACHER.”
“The hotsy totsy caught with Merv Griffin in a Crosley Moonbeam biplane?”
“YOU KNEW HER, RIGHT?”
“Who wants to know?”
“DAN LAZAR.”
“Swifty’s boy?”
“GREAT-GRANDSON.”
“What’s he want with DeeDee? She died in forty-eight. Helicopter accident.”
“HE WANTS YOU TO WRITE A MEMOIR.”
“I told DeeDee, ‘Stay outta planes.’”
“ABOUT HOLLYWOOD.”
“They’re bad luck and trouble.”
“WILL YOU TALK WITH HIM?”
“She was beautiful in her snazzy dress with that silver moonbeam. And when she danced …”
“GRANDPA? You asleep?”
…
“Maybe tomorrow, Mr. Lazar.”
ohhh....clever connection to Swifty Lazar!
Entry 70
It was all over - because of Dan Lazar and some helicopter . First place was mine. I was certain no one could catch me, even if they found a way to harness moonbeams. No one thought to use the waterway. But I've always been a reacher. Nothing like victory via sailboat - especially one as snazzy as the one I managed to commandeer. How did Dan Lazar get a helicopter, anyway? He'd once asked me if griffins were real, and where to get one. I'd discounted him as flying high – looks like I was right about one thing.
Its a Mad Mad Mad Mad World indeed.
Entry 71
Helen’s heartbeat matched the intensity of the traffic helicopter’s thumping rotors as she exited the cab in front of Random House. She admired the grand edifice, (complete with granite griffins) wondering if the pile-up on 5th Avenue would make the news.
Later, she rehashed meeting Dan Lazar (her snazzy agent) and stroked his business card for the hundredth time.
“We’d like to publish you,” he’d said.
Later still, a stretch of moonbeam graced her dream-filled bed; wherein she was a published author, autographing her novel while the bookseller used a Reacher to bring down more copies from the shelves above.
ummm...agents don't say "we'd like to publish you". We're happy to figure in your visualizations for success but "we'd like to represent you" is what we say.
And Random House is at 1745 Broadway last time I checked.
Entry 72
Dan Lazar lowered the binoculars and rubbed his eyes. He punched a number into his cell and prayed Reacher would pick up.
“Helicopter over here pronto,” Dan breathed. “It’s the scoop of a lifetime.”
“What’s up?”
“You gotta see to believe. Meet me at the Moonbeam Bay overlook.”
Thirty minutes later the station’s snazzy new chopper settled in the deserted parking area. Reacher scuttled bent-backed to join Dan at the cliff’s edge.
“What’s so all-fired important you couldn’t tell me over the phone?”
“That,” said Dan, pointing to a griffin nesting in a snarl of driftwood on the beach below.
Dan has an eagle eye for the good stuff, no doubt about it.
Entry 73
Dan Lazar was a spiritual atheist. He worshipped nothing except snazzy Hawaiian shirts with orchids propagating on beds of fiddlehead fern and Roxbury Lanes. A timid pilgrim to its glossy altar of three- fingered balls and crashing kingpins, he savored the musk of rented
shoes and secondhand smoke. Each time he rolled a strike, he imagined himself a cunning beast, a griffin hovering like a visceral helicopter atop a supple divorcée.
Moonbeam Reacher studied Dan from a lanefront table. He narrowed his eyes, downed another Heineken, and screwed its bottle cap into a table salt mosaic. No looking back.
Give a whole new sensibility to three strikes and you're out, doesn't it.
Entry 74
The weary griffin sat watch outside, moonbeam dancing off her wings and piercing through the window to the room she watched and the man inside. Dan Lazar slept, broken leg elevated, his snazzy Reacher, a temporary necessity, propped up nearby. He thrashed in the bed – his dreams shot through with visions of the helicopter crash – the propellers, and had that been feathers? Vague memories of being supported in the air and his bumpy landing and the harsh noise of an eagle's cry. And his sleeping brain formed the word he didn't dare think of in light of day: "Mom?".
He broke his leg kicking Miss Snark I'm pretty sure.
Entry 75
An overcast sky, a new moon: It's under these conditions you're most likely to spot the Grim Reacher slinking through your neighborhood, eyeing his next challenge. Obsessed with the intangible, the locked away, the closely guarded, the Grim Reacher snatches diaries, unspoken words, fleeting facial expressions. Moving helicopter blades, a single moonbeam, lost time. He keeps his treasures in a bone-studded labyrinth, where a giant griffin stands watch at all times.
I'm telling you this, Dan Lazar, because you're next. Yes, you, in the snazzy suit! He's after your attention, your approval. You are his most ambitious target yet.
oh my!
Entry 76
“No one would know that but Dan Lazar.” Moonbeam hissed. Her disposition had never been sunny, but she seemed worse than usual. Jacque fought back the urge to let his fist slip and send her and her snazzy new manuscript into orbit.
“He lived in the 21st century for dog sakes. Take a motrin.” He countered.
“Pull over.” She gestured toward the Griffin Ozone Reacher Experiment (GORE).
“Lunatic. We’re not taking a helicopter to the LBF.”
“What?” She demanded. It would be easier to land an off-shore oil driller on an asteroid than it would be to deter her.
I've heard Dan Lazar can land off shore oil drillers on asteroids while blindfolded AND reading query letters.
Entry 77
He snivelled exquisitely whilst I lay into him with my moonbeam cannon. The spectacular rays enveloped his sanity, crushing it in a snazzy pattern of silver light. Dan Lazar had no chance of escape this time--by griffin or otherwise--and he would die well before The Reacher came.
This rooftop, bathed in summoned moonlight, played host to all my fears of reprisal from Lazar's cronies. The headless mob would seek retribution. As I took in the beautiful rattling of Lazar's dying body, I heard my fear become realized. The steady whuf-whuf of The Reacher's Helicopter grew louder as it approached.
geeze, poor Dan, dead again. He's worse off than Kenny!
Entry 78
Dan Lazar watched the helicopter lift. The griffin was on board. Or so they said, “Find the Griffin, before the helicopter leaves the city.” Who were they? The CIA? Teenagers wasted on moonbeam? It didn’t matter. What would Jack Reacher do? Dan pulled a snazzy move, grabbed a pontoon and swung into the cabin. There was no mythical creature there. Just a Pakistani with a gun.
“Where’s the griffin?,” Dan said.
“Look it up. The other definition is newcomer – white man from the west. The griffin is you.”
He pulled the trigger. Dan dropped toward river. They never found the body.
We need an MP3 for Another One Bites The Dust and Dan Lazar is the Number One.
Entry 79
A moonbeam through the window illuminated my coffee.
"I want you to follow Dan Lazar," I said.
Griffin snorted in his latte. "Stalking literary agents now? Real snazzy."
"I'll get representation or die trying."
"Yanno, you've only got one shot with Lazar," he said. "A run-in with the mob might not be right for him."
"Well, I know you can be a real persuader."
A helicopter droned outside.
"That's your chopper." I pushed the manuscript across the table. "You know what to do. Hell, be like Reacher."
Griffin raised a brow. "That could mean bad luck… and trouble."
It does mean that without fail and to the enemy**
**other Reacher novel titles
Entry 80
Inter-Office Memo
To: Dan Lazar
From: Billing
Your latest expense report has been summarily denied. We appreciate your efforts to woo J.K. Rowling to Writer’s House – but enough is enough.
Snazzy dinners are one thing, but helicopter rides over Diagon Alley? Mani-pedis at the Moonbeam Mall? And what the hell is a griffin?
Even if we believed these were all necessary expenses, our accounting system is not equipped to handle direct deposits to Gringotts Bank.
Next time you want to impress a potential client, I suggest a good ol’ fashioned reacher-round. That’s how Zuckerman landed Ken Follett.
I think Dan and I have the same accountant!
Entry 81
Dan Lazar reads novels
Never a rhyme
But the minutes are ticking
I’m out of time.
No words, sentences
Can enter my mind
I’m thinking about my pet
That I did find.
About my griffin neither
Lion nor bird
But a mix of the two
Kind of absurd.
Covered with feathers
So soft and snazzy
His call in the wild
Is upbeat and jazzy.
He whizzes like a helicopter
Through the air
Chasing moonbeams in circles
With nary a care.
And when he is tired
He lands on my wall
A reacher is needed
He won’t come when I call.
at least Dan isn't dead in this!
Entry 82
"Moonbeam, the rope!" Sonny Reacher shouted down to his daughter while her little monster, Snazzy, whined in the rear of the purloined helicopter.
Dan Lazar was at the controls, struggling against a fierce wind, hovering as low as he dared over the highest point on the island of Rhodes. The rescue line danced across the boulders, but Moonbeam refused to clamber from between them.
"I'm going down," Sonny announced. He started his rappel, but halted halfway when a four-clawed hand shot from among the rocks, snagged the line and snapped it taut. The Griffin started to climb.
Dan Lazar, Colossus of Rhodes!
Entry 83
Snazzy Lazar was a helluva helicopter pilot, but his son, Dan Lazar, had no intention of following in his Dad’s cockpit. While Snazzy whirled across a blackened sky, daredevil Dan zoomed through moonbeams on his griffin, Reacher.
That is, until Reacher joined the Army, and left Dan grounded.
“While you’re playing soldier,” Dan cried, “I’ll dream up my own damn moonbeam.”
Reacher went on to command a team of gargantuan griffins whose job it was to destroy missiles hidden deep within enemy territory.
But each time Reacher found one, it was mysteriously pulverized by a Lazar beam.
Lazar beam!
Entry 84
The sky was hard to see against the rooftop floodlights, but I heard the telltale thump-thump overhead. Would this be Reacher’s helicopter? Dan Lazar hocked a louie to the street below.
“Nah,” he said. “Just Miss Snark, again.”
Suddenly there she was, all chic and snazzy, alighting like a moonbeam from the whirring griffin. Being sans culottes as usual, she didn’t wave — both hands struggled to keep her wind-blown dress below her famous knees — but she smiled at me demurely. (Later, over drinks, she chided me on this. “Demurely? But adverbs are so lazy! You should avoid them, mostly.”)
Miss Snark has famous knees?
Who knew!
Entry 85
The snazzy Apache helicopter skated through the moonbeam. Without warning, an explosion shattered the night. Weapons and fuel ignited. The impact tossed the unseen barrier downward. The airmen weren't as lucky. They were trapped inside the inferno.
Major Dan Lazar searched in widening circles, his frustration growing. They hadn't hit the hills and there was nothing else to hit. There. He saw blood. Curled in the exposed roots of the mangrove tree was a huge, injured beast. Using his reacher, Dan tentatively prodded the creature. It flinched instinctively, stretching out it's huge wings. Dan gasped. It was a griffin.
Finally, Dan Lazar in a heroic role!
Entry 86
A moonbeam gleamed as Reacher crept toward Dan Lazar. “Did you get it?”
Lazar jerked his head toward the door. “On the roof.”
“We don’t need it any more.”
“Do you have any idea how much trouble I went to, getting that thing?”
“Yeah, but I got a griffin.”
“That’s it,” Lazar said. “I’ve heard one too many of your mythical beast stories. I’m out of here.”
Reacher shrugged. As Lazar stepped into the stairwell, lion paws padded down the alley.
Lazar was still trying to start the helicopter as they soared overhead. “Snazzy machine,” the griffin remarked, “but unreliable.”
Amazingly complete sketch here!
Entry 87
KY licked Snazzy Moonbeam’s face, dragging her back to consciousness. She lifted her skirt, removed a flask from her stocking and threw back a slug of gin. The gash on her head felt like a helicopter blade had taken a swipe at her.
Who had clocked her and why?
She struck a match on the bottom of her stiletto and lit her cigarette. Faster than Dan Lazar rejecting an e-query she knew!
“Dear Dog! Griffin Reacher! The author whose hook I publicly trashed!”
KY smacked his jaws. “He’s taken care of, Miss Snark.”
“Good dog.”
Her secret identity remained safe.
Miss Snark is secretly named Snazzy Moonbeam?? Shades of Frank Zappa!
Entry 88
Dan Lazar stood, looking less than snazzy after the plastic surgeon unraveled the bandages. Turning, he frowned in the mirror. It was his own fault really, not making sure they were on the same page. Instead of Icarus he looked more like a griffin, now needing a reacher to scratch his ass.
Since childhood he dreamt of gliding through the air on a moonbeam. During his maiden flight he tangled with a gaggle of bats, his eyes no match for echo location. To his detriment he miscalculated, broke free, and was mauled by an oncoming helicopter.
Well, at least he's not dead!
Entry 89
Eddie swam silently through the reedy pond. Spying the helicopter's searchlight, he dove.
He tried to count to one hundred, to wait out the searchers. But the image of Griffin's dead body, illuminated with moonbeams, seemed more real in the pool's depths.
Eddie escaped to the surface. Blinded by light, he couldn't see his captor. He didn't need to. Eddie knew Dan Lazar's voice. He would never forget it.
Eddie headed for the bank, to be taken to Reacher. Maybe Dan would let him change into a snazzy outfit on the way, for old times sake.
Well, at least Dan's not dead here either.
Entry 90
"THE Dan Lazar?" Her eyes lit up like moonbeams.
"No, not that Dan Lazar. He's all personal helicopters and caviar," I shrugged. My dates always start with disappointment.
The waiter brought fortune cookies before we'd even ordered. A griffin was stamped upon the note:
CODEWORD: SNAZZY
Breach
"Hey," said Blondie Golightly, "You don't eat the fortune."
"I'm sorry; I must leave," I said.
The helicopter on the roof wasn't private. My handler gave me a photograph.
"Reacher?" he asked.
"Must I say it?"
"The code phrase is compulsory."
"All right," I said while reaching for the rifle, "Let's Wang Chung."
Miss Snark is amused.
Entry 91
Normally Dan Lazar would have been elated to get his hands on a snazzy new helicopter. Running his hands along the shiny skin of this new bird he realized it was under armed for the task at hand. If he were going to ride this beast into the valley with little more than a moonbeam to guide him he would need a lot more fire power. The last three vessels that Reacher sent in never came back and Dan had no intention of flying in to face the griffin armed with a prayer and a pop gun.
nice!
Entry 92
"Hey,Toots, you look pretty snazzy in those stilettos."
I turned, startled. It was Dan Lazar.
"You too," I lied. His Hawaiian shirt sported nude wahines and moonbeams on a purple background. "Are we waiting for the same helicopter?"
Dan threw his chewed stogie over the railing. "Guess so, just you and me, Baby. Reacher's with Barbara Bauer and Griffin signed with Publish America."
I heard the sound of the Fox News chopper. I once told Dan if he was the last agent in America I still wouldn't date him. Funny how wrong you can be when push comes to shove.
Miss Snark is rolling on the floor. Killer Yapp swallowed his stogie. Even Grandmother Snark, genteel to the end, is laughing like a loon.
Entry 93
People say that knowledge is power. I'm finally going to have both. And the literary career I’ve dreamed of, too. What a piece of luck.
I turn the postcard over again. Check the address. It isn’t as snazzy as those cards in the Griffin and Sabine books, all artistic, covered with moonbeams and such. This one shows a helicopter, an OH-58A, like they used back in Vietnam. But the meaning is clear, even through my methadone fog.
Dan Lazar will finally believe me. He’ll represent my memoir. I have proof. Griffin Moss has left Sabine for Jack Reacher!
Intrepid mingling of titles and meanings!
Entry 94
It’s 9pm. This is North American Indian News, and I’m Moonbeam with your latest headlines.
New technology will get a boost this year in the form of a special fair for laser technology. The event will be called “Laizzes Fair” and will be hosted by the tribe of Dan, said newly-named tribal chief, Dan Lazar. The snazzy publicist and media liaison was formerly known as Dan People-Reacher.
But not everyone is happy about this announcement. Dan Preserver is planning to protest the event. “It’s bad enough that griffins are being replaced by helicopters,” he says. “Now this.”
Laizzes Fair!!!!
Entry 95
Dan Lazar jerked the steering stick and slid his snazzy new helicopter onto the moonbeam, waiting for the reacher arm to add enough thrust to send him into the atmosphere overhead.
Voices sounded over the radio implanted in his left ear.
"That red griffin is big as a dreadnaught. Watch its tail, Macy. Watch its..."
Macy's scream echoed in Lazar's ear even after the voice itself stopped. The battle was going badly, but as commander, he had his duty. G-force glued him to his seat as the reacher flung him skyward. The mythical creature filled his screen.
“Fuck!” he yelled.
Well, he's not dead!
Entry 96
Rescue and Recovery
Dan Lazar landed the helicopter in the dead zone surrounding the abandoned nickel mine and ordered the team to don their HAZMAT suits. He hoped they weren't too late for little Bobby Reacher.
Lt. Griffin led the team into the mine. A moonbeam illuminated each guard as he stepped through the adit. They reached Bobby after a two-hour slog through partially collapsed mine walls and standing water from prior flooding.
Griffin knelt by the boy. "He's barely alive."
Alive! Their dangerous trek was worth taking.
Bobby said one word before he died--snazzy.
Bobby's only dead once, he's got a long way to go to equal the number of dead Dan Lazars!
Entry 97
Griffin kept to darkness and the cover of trees. She darted between shadows and pools of silver moonbeam.
Overhead the helicopter noise chopped doplars. Dan Lazar, acclaimed taxidermist and collector of mythical creatures, was circling the sky, hunting.
Searchlights washed over the canopy of foliage, grounding in places between. Griffin was aware of Lazar's sunlight allergy, and awaited dawn horizon's snazzy bruising.
Time passed.
Night crossed the nexus to day.
But Lazar ignored the bleeding, yellow sky, always looking downwards.
And as the first rays reflected off the rotors, Griffin heard a scream, and knew that he would not reacher.
Dan is a vampire! That explains oh-so-much!
Entry 98
As instructed, Dan Lazar carried the carved griffin home in his pocket. A gin bottle rested against his door. Snazzy Snark must have left it. Should he ask her to join him? He’d rather hand it off now. Dog phobic, he used the Reacher to knock on her door. No answer. He left a note and retreated to the fire escape, where he watched a moonbeam make its soft glide across the brick as he sipped gin from a paper cup. Crumpling, then tossing it aside, he made his way to the roof. The helicopter was here. Where was Snark?
Snark is trapped in a prison of her own making; held hostage by google heads and her own nitwittery at not limiting entries to the first 100.
Entry 99
FIT THE FIRST: ENTER THE GRIFFIN
The Griffin's blood coursed ever quick
Pushing forward through the squick
and grime-filled city skies
A moonbeam marks where his prey lies
(A helicopter pilot sees
This creature glide above the trees
and turns true tale to reacher then
Is published by Hyperion)
The splintering of glass awakes
Dan Lazar who stands then shakes
to see the Griffin making tracks
Through his snazzy knicks and knacks
The Griffin's blood coursed ever hot
Paws pressing Lazar to the spot
while asking him with voice so teary
"Why did you reject my query?"
I'm feeling the need to come and go, talking of Michelangelo.
Entry 100
Big night ahead. Time to saddle up.
He liked riding moonbeams to the stars on the back of a soaring griffin. Sure, Dan Lazar could have used the snazzy Belltronics Helicopter his grateful clients had given him, but he was a Reacher-of-Dreams and a lover of the old ways.
The waiting griffin was green, and unusually ill-tempered. “Uh-uh. You can forget that saddling-up crap! This trip ain’t happening!” A gust of moist, anchovy breath enveloped Dan’s head and a scatter of pizza boxes told where the missing cell phone and credit card had gone. He was left with no alternative.
Finally, Dan Lazar has been given grateful clients!!!
IOM #45
Call me Dan Lazar's Proctologist, or, The Reacher. Because he sits long hours, Dan's the Poster Boy for LBD... Lower Bowel Distress.
This visit, nervous and naked, Dan climbs aboard my renovated Griffin multi level rotating stirrup examining chair. Dan's lower lip quivers. I grab my happy face paisley latex gloves and roll ‘em beyond my elbow.
"Snazzy, uh Dan?" Dan's upper lip quivers.
Looking into Dan's err… problem, I turn my headset light to high. Dan mutters. "Doctor Moonbeam!" Laughing I bang the tilt trim button. Spread eagled, Lazar spins like a helicopter blade.
ick
Blogger Hates Me!
Blogger has locked me out of my account.
Not just word verification to post, but actually will not let me post.
They'll probably unblock it sometime over the weekend when they get around to it, but it means that I'm not going to be able to post all the IOM entries.
I will read them all, and I'll do one long post with the winner when I can actually get back onto the blog.
I'm really sorry for the disappointment! I knew if I did a lot of posts they would require word verification but on the old blogger, they'd at least let me keep posting!
Not just word verification to post, but actually will not let me post.
They'll probably unblock it sometime over the weekend when they get around to it, but it means that I'm not going to be able to post all the IOM entries.
I will read them all, and I'll do one long post with the winner when I can actually get back onto the blog.
I'm really sorry for the disappointment! I knew if I did a lot of posts they would require word verification but on the old blogger, they'd at least let me keep posting!
3.23.2007
IOM #44
"The Encounter"
HMS *Reacher* chased the enemy *Persuader* across four sectors the hard way and running blind. Close enough to fire the Dan Lazar several times but, without fail, bad luck and trouble.
Falling out of hyperspace, prey and predator approached the only habitable planet in the star system and dove into its atmosphere.
Suddenly, a loud *clang* from belowdecks. Deafening alarms screamed like an echo burning.
"The tripwire!" exclaimed Lady Moonbeam. "Intruders!"
Sub-lieutenant Winthope's moustache bristled. "One shot is all I need," the security officer growled, "or die trying."
"Snazzy," muttered Captain Sir George Smythe Griffin. "Prepare my helicopter."
alrighty then....
IOM #43
The enemy aspired to be Dan Lazar but he’s a one shot novelist, running blind, learning the hard way, without fail, that he is bad luck and trouble and falling over the tripwire of his syntax, in the echo, burning on the killing floor of publishing. His character mimicked Jack Reacher, arriving in a snazzy helicopter, persuader in his pocket, but really only the griffin at the cathedral door, frighteningly illuminated by a moonbeam, but not something to die trying to see. He tried being an agent but he went over to the dark side, and became a writer.
talk about cross genre flash fic.
IOM #42
Shelly wants to have Jack Reacher's babies. Well, it's not that she actually wants to have them; it's more the initial process that she's interested in.
She tried writing herself into Reacher's life, but all the agents rejected her ideas (she swears Dan Lazar almost accepted). She realizes she probably shouldn't have head-butted that librarian. Still, court-mandated therapy seems harsh. Well, it's not all bad, she thinks, as she stares at the moonbeam-colored walls of Dr. Griffin's snazzy office, rambling about sending Jack Jr. to summer survival camp to learn how to hang from the skids of an airborne helicopter.
talk about fan fic...yikes!
IOM #41
Dan Lazar glanced at the sun melting behind the Blue Ridge Mountains. The rotor wash from the search helicopter sputtered above him as he flicked on his headlamp. He shook his head. For all the snazzy machinery money could rent or buy, it wouldn't find twelve-year-old Griffin. Only a nose on the ground could locate a kid in Pisgah National Forest. Dan signaled his dog, Reacher. Four hours later, Reacher pointed. Moonbeams filtered through rhododendron leaves sheltering the missing boy. Dan spotted the mushrooms an instant later. "Not making Boy Scouts like they used to," Dan thought as Griffin moaned.
Reacher the dog!!!
IOM #40
Dan Lazar -- pronounced “laser,” unless you wanted bellyful of plasma -- kicked the still-warm tentacle of the dead Reacher.
“Looks like the Griffs got here ahead of us.”
“No shit,” his second in command yelled over the thundering helicopter blades. Even a raw cadet knew you always left the engine running in Reacher territory.
Lazar sniffed. Ammonia. And wintergreen. The telltale odors of a proton scatter beam. “Moonbeam,” the grunts called it, because of the silvery discharge. Another snazzy weapon the Griffins seem to invent as regularly as humans churned out porn vids.
Probably why they were winning the Genocide.
ohhh...awful, yet compelling.
IOM #39
By Monday, Dan Lazar’s trigger finger ached. One more minor hit before he trailed Jack “The Major” Reacher. Let’s bust up a church, said Miss Snark.
Moonbeam waited in the sloped lot outside the Snazzy Ali-KaBazzy Church of the Darryl Lect. Nice of her, but she was the last minor hit.
As the St. Mary’s helicopter picked up Moonbeam, Griffin smuggled The Major’s sperm bank donations out the church’s back door. Then, it made sense. The fragments, the sloped plot, the gin fizz. Dan Lazar holstered his gun and turned to Miss Snark. “Not right for me,” he sighed.
well, ok, there was no stated rule that the story should make actual, yanno..sense.
IOM #38
Dan Lazar’s breath caught. There it was. Taunting him from the showroom floor in a spotlight perfect as a moonbean. The helicopter he’d longed for since that first trip over the Hubbard Glacier. Its snazzy design sent his heart pounding like the blades of its Sikorsky rotors—whomp whomp whomp. He’d have to steal a few clients from that gin-swilling floozy to afford it. Definitely change the name…“Reacher?” Ick. But he’d keep the griffin painted in bold strokes on the side. Strong, powerful, mythic…yeah, he’d make quite the entrance in this baby. The 212 would never be the same.
floozy??
FLOOZY??
oh wait, maybe you didn't mean me.
IOM #37
"Reacher!"
The stooped man appeared instantly, his bowed head bobbing. "Sir?"
Dan groaned and rubbed his eyes. "No more helicopters, damnit! I know people think the decorated ones are snazzy, but bright purple moonbeams and dry gin martinis clash. I almost lost my dinner on that last banked turn." He threw his feet over the edge of the bed, hoping the hardwood floor would help stop the world from spinning. "Get me something to drink."
"Of course, Mr. Lazar. And the griffin?"
"He doesn't need anything." Dan flicked the covers off of his sleeping companion. "He was just leaving."
oh geeeeeze. You guys really want Lazar and Child to come gunning for me.
Pause! for a quick trip up to MIller Theatre
That's all for the first shift.
More after I come back from Friday night Smackdown at Miller Theatre.
there are 154 entries to go.
Ain't we got fun
More after I come back from Friday night Smackdown at Miller Theatre.
there are 154 entries to go.
Ain't we got fun
IOM #36
Tony spoke before she could tell him she was sleeping. "Hey, do you remember Bob Lazar?"
"Russian, built his own helicopter?
"Nope."
Claire yawned. "Invented that grabby thing, The Reacher? The Grabber?"
"No. Bob Lazar claimed he worked at Area 51."
"Ok. Your point?"
"Wasn't his brother Dan Lazar?" Tony always said things in a roundabout way.
"Dan Lazar? How would I know?"
"Dan Lazar claimed he ran around Buckingham palace wearing Merv Griffin's underwear and a bad toupee."
"Your point?"
"I got his mail."
"Anything good?"
"It contains boxer shorts and a wig, from Queen Elizabeth II."
"Snazzy."
This actually explains a LOT!
IOM #35
Dan Lazar tightened his harness and gave the pilot thumbs up. "Much obliged. Sometimes these cats throw fits." Dan slid the helicopter cargo door open as the pilot flew close to the griffin.
Dan unfolded his E-Z Reacher and attached a hunk of smelly meat to the hook. "Textbook maneuver. I couldn't have called it better myself. Now, all's I have to do is sprinkle moonbeam garnish on the meat and offer it."
"Yep." The pilot agreed, "Those griffins go for snazzy prey."
Dan offered the meat to the griffin. He hooted. "She ate the GPS transponder. Let's follow her."
EZ Reacher!
IOM #33
Dan Lazar, her fiance--without an é because he hadn't formally proposed--rolled onto his side. Earnest brown eyes searched her face. "Kate."
"Mmmm?" She lay on her back, watching helicopter seeds on the sugar maple twirl above her.
"Kate, I've got something for you." He dangled a snazzy box above her head.
She sat up, palms sweaty, stomach lurching. "Dan?" She clumsily opened the box, inside sat a moonbeam ring, a griffin etched into the band.
His lips twitched, holding back a smirk. "You reacher!" She punched him, pushed the ring onto her first finger. They collapsed back laughing.
I'm not sure what helicopter seeds are, but I find it hilarious that the idea of a proposal from Dan Lazar makes your stomach lurch.
Boy oh boy do I hope Dan thinks this is funny, or my AAR dues are going to mysteriously quadruple.
IOM #32
Yesterday, I got in trouble again. Twice.
I went to visit my mom at The Club and saw a snazzy guy grabbing her butt. I pointed and yelled "Reacher! Reacher!" Dan Lazar, the manager, made me leave.
Things were better later. At home. Mom wore her robe with the red griffin. I massaged her feet, and we drank tea.
But at night, a moonbeam followed me, so I snuck into the old folk's home again. I took off my pants and got into an empty bed. Helicopters flew by, and I started making helicopter noises as loud as I could.
Alrighty then.
IOM #31
The helicopter pilot yanked hard, swinging slantwise just in time to miss singeing the rotor blades on the passing lazar beam.
The golden culprit hovered nearby. A snazzy moonbeam glinted from its wings.
"I'm sorry," the griffin said. "I thought you were attacking me. What're you doing flying at night?"
"I'm part of the Reacher Group. Reaching for the stars," the pilot shouted.
"I see." The griffin cocked it's feathery head to one side. "So sorry I bothered you." He flapped his wings toward the east.
"Wait! Do you have a name?"
"Dan Lazar."
Should have guessed, the pilot thought.
Lazar beam!
Beam me up Dan-o!
IOM #30
Litjitzu Ninjas sizzled down rappelling ropes and onto the roof, still tacky and soft from a day of Sun; yet another fickle star that recently left the Apple for L.A.
Franzensan raised a handsignal and the helicopter lopped away, trailing ropes beneath it like slackened Mosquito legs.
Chabonsan lingered, fascinated by the snazzy granite griffin on the roofline. Franzensan snapped and they both tiptoed light enough to stand on moonbeam itself.
Dan Lazar snapped awake. "Who's there?"
"Ghost of Rejections Past," said the darkness.
"That's a reach."
"So, I'm a reacher. Now, admit your e-mail rejection is an Outlook autoresponse."
Oh dear dog, this is wonderful!!!!
Franzensan!
Chabonsan!!
!!!
IOM #29
With precise movements, Benjamin maneuvered his Reacher closer.
He’d met Dan Lazar just that afternoon on the sunny helipad to receive his instructions. “It’s a snazzy apparatus,” Dan had shouted over the chop of helicopter blades as he passed Ben the leather case, “It’s a little finicky, however. You’ll need to practice with it first.”
Now, perched above the city night on the barest of window ledges, Ben watched in horror as the moonbeam advanced across the face of the building and over the head of the sleeping griffin.
A single baleful eye opened. The Reacher clattered from the ledge.
baleful eye. Pretty much the standard eyeball here!
IOM #28
Agent Dan Lazar wearily rubbed his temples. She’d started off his headache again, like a dozen helicopter blades whirling inside his skull.
How could Miss Snark do this? Expose his name to the snarkling hordes? “If I ever find out who she is and how to reach’er, she’ll be sorry,” he muttered.
The pain was worse. He was on the verge of another of his blackouts.
A moonbeam glinted off something in the corner, snazzy red stilettos big enough to fit a griffin… or his own feet. To Dan’s horror, the countless lost hours of the blackouts suddenly made sense.
Oh this is hilarious!
Dan Lazar IS Miss Snark!!!!!
IOM #27
“His wife said he named his kid Dan Lazur Reacher,” the squat bald detective commented to his partner, ducking as they approached the helicopter.
“Who’d do that to their own son?” His partner, a tall, thin man with buzz cut hair asked rhetorically. “That name dates back to the time of Governor Moonbeam, Jerry Brown.”
“Well, they gave him a snazzy last ride,” the bald man unzipped the body bag, carrying the mutilated corpse, and peered distastefully at the victim’s face.
“Looks like the same cut marks the Griffin used on his other five victims,” his partner replied, looking away.
Disqualified for spelling.
I mean really now...Lazur?
IOM #26
One morning George woke up believing he was Dan Lazar. He wasn't, so when he went to Lazar's snazzy office he wasn't let in. George fired everyone and went to the rooftop to play in Lazar's personal helicopter. Unfortunately there was no helicopter, but a griffin told him to twirl around quickly instead.
A security guard came and threatened to called the cops on him.
"Where's my helicopter?" George asked, still twirling.
The guard called the cops and one was named Jack Reacher, so George laughed. Reacher put George in a cell with a psychopath named Moonbeam and laughed louder.
This is heresy on so many levels that Miss Snark feels the need for a cleansing gin.
IOM #25
It was midnight, and the sleeping author woke up with a start,
“Was I dreaming? Or did Dan Lazar just promise me his heart?
Shall I flag a helicopter? Should I board the nearest train?
Must I laminate my manuscript to keep it from the rain?
Oh, he’s such a snazzy agent, and a hottie-pie to boot,
If I must, I’ll mount a griffin in magnificent pursuit.
He’s a reacher, he’s a grabber, he’s a “good deal” kind of guy,
Oh, my spirit, how it’s dancing – like a moonbeam in the sky!”
Then reality encroached upon the writer’s feeble mind –
(I’d write more, but that’s my limit, and Miss Snark is SO not kind!)
I love this!
IOM #24
Harriet watched author Dan Lazar’s show on the Children’s TV Network. Today’s story was about a snazzy griffin, who wanted to fly a helicopter decorated with moonbeams. Heraldo had to overcome the fact that no one would let him, he wasn’t real.
Harriet was born small and distorted. She was invisible to her mother except at dinner. Harriet watched Heraldo claw the unbelievers with his reachers. They felt pain.
That night, at the hospital’s emergency room, Harriet was the center of everyone’s attention. The doctors sutured the bite on her mother’s arm. Harriet thanked Heraldo. And sent him small kisses.
WTF?? This one was already given a number and posted.
DISQUALIFIED FOR BLATANT NITWITTERY!!!!
IOM #23
"…the hair doubles as a motorcycle helmet," he said. Whirring rotors signaled an approaching helicopter. He turned to the dark-suited man in Dan Lazar sunglasses, the latest in snazzy literary eyewear.
The man raised a hand. A sliver of moonbeam caught his ring, a griffin with a spaceship in its mouth. A bundle hit the floor.
"A pleasure, Mr. Cruise…err…Reacher.”
The man gave him a look that could frost a gin pail, then dragged the woman away.
Killer Yap eyed the bundle. They'd always said Miss Snark would sell her grandmother for a date with George Clooney.
Miss Snark is laughing...but very very quietly. Grandmother Snark has ears like Jack Reacher!
IOM #22
I think I’ve lost her. The trouble is, she’s caught, and I don’t know how to reacher. Dan Lazar’s trapped her in his moonbeam gaze, and it’s all I can do to get her attention now and then. I’ve tried everything – snazzy jewellery, helicopter rides; nothing works. So now it’s time to stop playing and time to start griffin. I’ve finally figured things out – I’m going to take out the contract today. When I find her next, this is what I’ll say. “Stop gazing into his honey-brown eyes. I can offer you more; use your snarksense and sign with me.”
I frequently griffin.
IOM #21
"Fuck."
He gave the ailing '69 Valliant some gas. Nothing happened. Above him, the traffic helicopter circled, griffin-like. Damn news reachers--always fishing for a story. Well, there wasn't one here. Just a lonely, washed-up has-been stranded in the center lane of the by-pass, blocking traffic and trying to get himself killed.
That'd make good talk at the Moonbeam. He could hear it: "Damn snazzy Dan, Lazar Tag guru. Killed on his way to get some action. From a bitch."
Allie would forgive him, though. Aussies always did. If he got out of this alive.
oh yes!!!
IOM #20
"It's all bad luck and trouble for you, Mr. Reacher," the detective said as he paced the length of the interrogation room.
"I told you, my name is Dan Lazar. I'm a literary agent."
"Those are some snazzy clothes for a literary agent. And what the hell is a literary agent doing in Griffin? Come floating in on a moonbeam?"
"A helicopter, actually. A client flew me in."
The detective slammed his fists on the table. "Now I know you're lying!" He leaned over and snarled, "I'm gonna take you down, Jack Reacher."
Dan sighed.
Child fans were such diehards.
Indeed we are!
IOM #19
Hidden in the valley‘s night, Reacher scanned Dan Lazar’s compound through the rifle scope. The snazzy helicopter stood out, a moonbeam highlighting the griffin coat-of-arms. Aluminum skin dimpled with bullet holes, not enough to bring it down earlier. It’s poisonous cargo had to be kept intact, otherwise death would waft through the sleep of those in the city below.
Reacher punched the numbers into his cellphone.
Lazar growled, “What?”
“You can’t win this one.”
“Why?”
“I have a Snark missile cruising above your house.”
“Bastard! OK…you win.”
“Withdraw your guards, give Killer Yapp the disarm codes. I’ll let you live.”
Dan Lazar has a compound? Who knew!
IOM #18
Lee Child has finally missed with his twelfth Jack Reacher tale, "Helicopter". Reacher looks familiar, attired in his snazzy, hard-boiled wool suits. But his fantastic assignment is to find a griffin seen snatching the virgin daughter of a shadowy government agent charged with strategic chimera elimination.
In the climax, Child has Reacher escaping via moonbeam to the chopper of the title. The author implies that the smile of the girl on Reacher's shoulder is the source of this conveyance.
Dan Lazar's poodle loved this romp, but for human Reacher fans, it's just too much of a stretch.
Heresy!!!
Heresy!!
IOM #17
"New sweater? Snazzy." Jennifer Griffin shouted over the sound of the departing helicopter.
Briefcase. Knuckles. Grip. Sean grimaced. "God, I forgot how much you annoy me."
Jennifer smiled and dug a notebook out of her purse. The cover bore one word: Reacher. "Guess what this is?"
"Suicide note and will designating me as heir?"
"Boy, you're a moonbeam. Good – cab's here."
He opened the door for her and she slid in without thanking him. It was like old times.
"Dan Lazar's diary. Doesn't that make you purr?" She proffered the notebook.
Sean took it. "Why did I ever marry you?"
uhhhhhhh...ok.
IOM #16
Reacher reached for her.
“Come on.”
Moonbeam McDaniels shook her head. “I can’t leave. He’s got my manuscript.”
“Screw Dan Lazar. There are other agents. Agents with snazzy shoes and poodles.”
Moonbeam gaped. “You know her? I know she’ll love Trouble in Hollywood: Griffin and Ryan Riot when she reads it. My sources are impeccable.”
Reacher nodded. “You got it, Moonie. In an hour you’ll be at Snark Central, swilling gin, playing Pin the Tail on the Clooney.”
Smirking, he helped her into his rented helicopter. Writers were such suckers. Nitwits, even. He’d get into her pants before they landed.
KY is miffed that the shoes are snazzy but he apparantly isn't.
IOM #15
Miss Snark was short and direct, although she wore heels to compensate.
"This submission, TWO-HANDED REACHER: LOAD UP AT THE BANQUET OF LOVE, has all the grace of a griffin on rollerblades after a night in the gin pail. It makes as much sense as tying a snazzy bow on a helicopter and flying it to Uranus to catch a moonbeam."
Dan Lazar, a gentleman, ignored what he hoped was merely a planetary malapropism and boldly countered with his trump card.
"I'll tell Clooney you'll pass, then?"
Miss Snark answered with her usual aplomb.
"Rules, schmules. I'll take him...it."
Why does Dan Lazar represent Mr. Clooney in this story?? This is HERESY!!!!!!
Steaks will be burned!
IOM #14
Pretending to be a griffin, did KY tip the gin pail, leaving Miss Snark to her own devices after the Ides of March? Was she sidetracked by the perky pack belting their hearts out on American Idol?
Genuflecting, I brought vermouth and olives, ever hopeful. If Jack Reacher doesn't stalk me and a moonbeam shines my way, Dan and snazzy Snark may take note, wave the magic wand, elevate my writing. Breaking that curse, screamed by my professor upon reading my prose, "Lazar! Lazar!" I prayed, "Helicopter. Lord send a helicopter. Remove me from merciless taunts, bad luck and trouble."
Just FYI, the Snarkly Gin Pail has a patented security device that keeps it from ever tipping over.
IOM #13
As it landed in the middle of the broad intersection the blades of the descending helicopter turned the moonbeam into a strobe light. The crowd gasped when the doors flew open and Dan Lazar tumbled out onto the grimy street. Behind him, like a griffin toying with its prey, emerged Miss Snark – Killer Yapp resting comfortably under her arm. He was a reacher, trying to steal her clients with his snazzy pitch. But no more! As she walked across him in her stiletto heels he was reminded that it was she who ruled the literary agent universe.
Ya!!! Take that you Lazarian client reacher!
IOM #12
Me as a pilot is more than a reacher, it's fantasy. But Dan Lazar's dead. Damn you Moonbeam. If it hadn't been for those snazzy pumps of yours, I wouldn't need to know the difference between a cyclic and a collective.
"Bob?"
"What, Moonbeam?"
"That lion's flying?"
"It's a griffin. Don't worry, they're afraid of helicopters."
"Bob?"
"Dammit Moonbeam, be quiet. I'm trying to read the manual. No, wait. Gimme your shoes."
"Why?"
"No time, just gimme your shoes... Now get out... Quick."
The griffin ate fast. But I have the shoes?and a manual. How hard can this be?
uhhh...ok
IOM #11
"There he is." Griffin pointed.
Milton's watched as two men, one in a snazzy gray suit, the other in jeans and a cheap button-down exited the bookstore.
"You sure?"
"Hell, yes. Look behind them." A crowd of people clutching books spilled out of the store. "Reacher creatures."
Milton waited until the crowd did the work for him, separating the two men. Using the distraction of a helicopter passing overhead, Milton made the snatch, hustled him into the Mercedes.
"Dan Lazar?" He pressed a fourteen-inch thick manuscript into Lazar's hands. "Moonbeam Marmalade. Harry Potter meets Neil Gaiman. You get first crack."
Reacher's creatures!!!
This is damn funny.
IOM #10
This is an almost absolutely true story. Being a reacher for the stars, I queried Dan Lazar about my picture book, Griffin, the Happy Helicopter. He wrote back saying I'd sent a snazzy letter but I must've been on Jim Moonbeam because I called him David and his name is Dan. I wrote back that I was sorry and if he would represent me I would never call him Dan again. He wrote back that I was forgiven but my pages didn't grab him, and if I ever query him again I can call him Dan because that's his name.
The almost part is the name of the book, I fear.
IOM #9
Clueless in Cambodia
She was waiting for Snazzy Dan Lazar so I said that's who I was.
She was the sphinx. I was the griffin. Both of us had claws.
"Mister La Zar. You reach already? I make you reacher. Come vit me."
"Destination."
"Some-vair, under ze moonbeam, vay up high," she crooned, huskily.
I loved the voice. I smiled. "Target."
"Vott you care? You chusst kill him."
"Location."
"Kampodscha."
"Vehicle."
"Ve fly. Helicopter from Saigon."
"Compensation."
"Me."
I took the job. We fell in love. I came unstuck. She left.
Now I'm all alone. Glueless in Cambodia.
dear dog in...Phnom Penh!
IOM #8
Dan Lazar looked up to see Reacher’s large frame stretched on his snazzy new couch.
“No.” Reacher said. He sat in darkness, but for one stray moon beam illuminating cold blue eyes.
“Hear me out…”
Absolute silence.
“Every agent is looking for you.”
Silence continued, broken only by the whirring of a helicopter overhead.
“You haven’t heard the offer yet…”
“Take it to Lee.”
“He’s too busy with Griffin’s Revenge.”
“Not my problem. And don’t use the emergency code again.”
“But it was an emergency! $5 million for your memoir from Randomhouse…”
But he was speaking to thin air.
Into Thin Air...Dan Lazar's memoir!
IOM #7
Snazzy berets and khaki attire give security almost military authority, and the suspended helicopter dropping traffic reports feeds laughter to the joke.
"Moonbeam Omega Bravo," the guard says to a held lapel, reveling in notions of battle as adrenalin stokes the thrill of the imminent final push.
When the door opens, Dan Lazar seems ready for the challenge. He wields some kind of sword and holds the comedian hostage as a shield. As the mob advances, Dan skewers their submissions with the geriatric's reacher, stopping momentarily to fire off the early warning:
"One at a time, or Griffin gets hurt!"
Dan Lazar's sword! The mind just shuts down and whimpers with that visual.
IOM #6
Griffin O’Neal is a bastard.
I jogged to the hospital helipad. A moonbeam bounced off the helicopter windshield and I could see my reflection in the glass, the eye already swollen and bruised. So much for helping him after his drunken father bashed his head with a nine iron.
Yeah, that eye would look real snazzy with my tuxedo. Of all nights. I had forty minutes to get changed and make it to the Dan Lazar roast uptown, and I still hadn’t wrapped his gold-plated Reacher.
I had to become a paramedic. Sheesh.
Next time, the bastard bleeds to death.
Gold Plated Reacher!!!!
IOM #5
Stamped: A Cautionary Tale
By Jaye Wells
Detective Reacher shook his head when he saw the envelope crumpled in Dan Lazar's lifeless hand. A single moonbeam illuminated the victim's blackened tongue.
"Another agent dead," said Reacher. "What's this world coming to?"
The Griffin strikes again, he thought. The killer's snazzy moniker had been chosen by the very media parasites whose helicopters flew overhead.
Sickened by the senseless of it all, Reacher walked away. Reporters shoved mics in his face, demanding answers.
Reacher looked into the nearest camera. "When all agents finally accept email submissions, these senseless S.A.S.E. poisonings will end."
Miss Snark is suitably chastened.
IOM #4
The Reacher reached, but the sky was too high.
The Reacher hired a helicopter, but the pilot refused to go above 25,000 feet.
The Reacher kidnapped a griffin, which climbed and climbed to such great heights that The Reacher grew dizzy and the sky became glitzy and snazzy, and The Reacher could see stars.
The Reacher woke up on wet ground, and rejoiced. For there he was. Dan Lazar.
"I've reached you," said The Reacher. "Where are we? Are we on a moonbeam?"
"No," said Dan. "I don't exist. And you're dead, you stupid fool."
Geeze Dan, nice way to talk to the clients!!
(Dan is gonna kill me for this I bet)
IOM #3
"I want my cut." Reacher's gaze was cold and fixed as a moonbeam.
Dan Lazar shuddered. "But--you're just a character! You're no more real than a griffin!"
"Oh, really?"
"Listen, I'm not Child's agent, I'm a children's agent."
"I want what's mine, or we're going for a ride." Reacher gestured to the ghostly helicopter outside.
Dan sighed and reached under the bed for his shoebox full of twenties.
"Snazzy banking system you've got there." Reacher snatched the shoebox away. "Your kind will exploit imaginary people no more. Our time has come."
I love this!
IOM #2
Dan Lazar sells mysteries, but on vacation just north of Moonbeam, Ontario, he became part of one. Noticing the residents gathered around a huge stone griffin in the park, he stopped an officer for information.
“It’s been on top of our courthouse for fifty years,” said the cop, a snazzy Jack Reacher type. “This morning it was here.”
“How they move it, with a crane or a helicopter?”
“Neither, we checked it out.”
“Then how?”
“This is the only clue we found," He held a huge eagle feather. “This, and the fact that every stray animal in town is missing.”
clever! Complete idea, and I gotta love Dan in Moonbeam!
IOM #1
Harriet watched author Dan Lazar’s show on the Children’s TV Network. Today’s story was about a snazzy griffin, who wanted to fly a helicopter decorated with moonbeams. Heraldo had to overcome the fact that no one would let him, he wasn’t real.
Harriet was born small and distorted. She was invisible to her mother except at dinner. Harriet watched Heraldo claw the unbelievers with his reachers. They felt pain.
That night, at the hospital’s emergency room, Harriet was the center of everyone’s attention. The doctors sutured the bite on her mother’s arm. Harriet thanked Heraldo. And sent him small kisses.
uhhhh, ok.
DISQUALIFIED FOR BLATANT NITWITTERY--reference IOM #24
Writing Contest CLOSED
Don't send.
If you got disqualified, you're out.
If you did NOT get an email saying you're disqualified, you;ll get a number.... but not all tht quickly.
There are 192 entries in 15 minutes.
The first order of business is a stiff drink.
If you got disqualified, you're out.
If you did NOT get an email saying you're disqualified, you;ll get a number.... but not all tht quickly.
There are 192 entries in 15 minutes.
The first order of business is a stiff drink.
Miss Snark's Idols of March Writing Contest
Here are the official rules for the Idols of March Writing Contest.
1. 100 words max (brutally enforced)
2. Must include the following words to qualify for winning prize:
Reacher
Helicopter
snazzy
moonbeam
Dan Lazar
griffin
3. Must be emailed in the body of the email, NO attachments to:
miss dot snark at gmail dot com
4. Window for submissions: 5pm Eastern Daylight time to 5:15pm Eastern Daylight time.
(Yea, I learned my lesson)
5. You WILL receive a confirmation but not instantly.
If you email to bug me or send it more than once (telling me you're not sure I got it) I'll disqualify you.
6. Prize: ARC of Lee Child's latest, Bad Luck and Trouble, slightly used, (ie read by Grandmother Snark and Miss Snark. KY currently on page 10.)
7. Winners are selected by Miss Snark based on not quantifiable reasons, and are not subject to change or discussion.
1. 100 words max (brutally enforced)
2. Must include the following words to qualify for winning prize:
Reacher
Helicopter
snazzy
moonbeam
Dan Lazar
griffin
3. Must be emailed in the body of the email, NO attachments to:
miss dot snark at gmail dot com
4. Window for submissions: 5pm Eastern Daylight time to 5:15pm Eastern Daylight time.
(Yea, I learned my lesson)
5. You WILL receive a confirmation but not instantly.
If you email to bug me or send it more than once (telling me you're not sure I got it) I'll disqualify you.
6. Prize: ARC of Lee Child's latest, Bad Luck and Trouble, slightly used, (ie read by Grandmother Snark and Miss Snark. KY currently on page 10.)
7. Winners are selected by Miss Snark based on not quantifiable reasons, and are not subject to change or discussion.
Miss Snark's Irregular Writing Contest Returns!
Periodically Miss Snark takes leave of her senses and runs a writing contest.
No entry fee.
One prize.
The Idols of March Writing Contest will open for a VERY brief window on Friday, 3/23. 5pm East Coast time. (that means do NOT send it till then)
100 words MAXIMUM. NO exceptions.
Prize: (you must have a US mailing address to receive this) the brand new, not yet for sale, Lee Child novel Bad Luck and Trouble, signed by the amazing Mr. Child himself and wrested from the claws of Grandmother Snark ...well, let's just say she's still reading which is why the contest is tomorrow.
You must use ALL of these words (but you can use them any way you choose):
Reacher
Helicopter
snazzy
moonbeam
Dan Lazar
griffin
Miss Snark picks the winner. All decisions are final. NO whining, or complaining allowed. Rule enforcer: Grandmother Snark AND her hatpin.
Post your questions in the comment section.
Go!
No entry fee.
One prize.
The Idols of March Writing Contest will open for a VERY brief window on Friday, 3/23. 5pm East Coast time. (that means do NOT send it till then)
100 words MAXIMUM. NO exceptions.
Prize: (you must have a US mailing address to receive this) the brand new, not yet for sale, Lee Child novel Bad Luck and Trouble, signed by the amazing Mr. Child himself and wrested from the claws of Grandmother Snark ...well, let's just say she's still reading which is why the contest is tomorrow.
You must use ALL of these words (but you can use them any way you choose):
Reacher
Helicopter
snazzy
moonbeam
Dan Lazar
griffin
Miss Snark picks the winner. All decisions are final. NO whining, or complaining allowed. Rule enforcer: Grandmother Snark AND her hatpin.
Post your questions in the comment section.
Go!
3.21.2007
You don't need more friends, and if you do, I'm not it
Dear Miss Snark
Somewhere in 2005 you talked about expectations one can have for agents, one of them being the agent is not your friend, no invites to the beach house for a long weekend, nothing involving your bunny slippers etc. You also mentioned somewhere that you would know your client’s cat’s name. LOL. Awhile back I was a technical recruiter and had long notes on anything a candidate ever told me about their personal life, including spouse names, pets, kids etc. So I understand why this is important for maintaining a friendly yet professional relationship.
In the interest of remaining professional with your agent, what personal information does an agent really want to have about their client?
For example, say I’m a night person, do my best writing at night and am usually not out of bed before 11am. I will not be up to check emails but will answer the phone at any hour, even from a dead sleep. I would be hesitant to tell that to an agent as it is personal and maybe something I should keep to myself.
Or say I suffer from migraines and take medicine x and medicine y. Having migraines may hamper my ability to write. Medication may hamper my ability to be up-right and typing.
This is information I may not want to reveal with the risk of seeming like an unprofessional mess. Do agents want this sort of information? Does it matter? Besides pet’s names, what personal info do you truly want to have on a client?
***BTW praises to your snarkiness. It fucking kicks ass***
There's a huge difference between knowing the info that helps me communicate with you best, and being Sex In the City Brunch buddies.
I ask prospective clients about the best time to reach them. I'm a night owl and I don't want anyone calling me before 10am for any reason except the imminent arrival of the Risen Lord.
I keep track of spouse's names, kidlet names, contents of menagerie cause it's more polite to say "how is Uncle Fenster" than "how is that nefarious feline that lies on your manuscript pages and drives KY to a frenzy".
If someone tells me they are on meds I really don't pay much attention. How you get your work done, and when isn't my concern. Meeting your deadline is the only thing I care about. If you have a situation that affects the deadline, tell me. I don't need details of why.
What I mostly can't stand are people who don't understand this is a business relationship and I need some emotional distance from clients. I can't be your best friend no matter how much I like you cause it's NOT in your best interest. I'm a good agent and that means sometimes I have to kick your ass. And sometimes you're not going to like it one damn bit. And it helps a whole lot if "how can you say that; I thought we were friends!!" isn't one of the phrases hurled at my head.
You don't need more friends. You need an agent.
Expenses
Dear Miss Snark,
I'm getting worried by some of the recent posts: when is 15% not 15%? If my agent sells my book she'll take 15% of what she gets for it. Fine. Great. But can she also levy other, additional charges? In the future, will she charge me for photocopies, postage for submissions, cups of tea? No, really, I'm going to see her for "a cup of tea" next week. How much is that cup of tea gonna cost me when she's finally sold my book?
Also, is someone who's totally addicted to your wonderful, sexy-beast self called a "snarkhead", or is there another term?
Yours, in rapture,
err...Snarkhead? yipes.
"Snarkling" is the term. And a group of Snarklings is a devotion. Like a group of crows is a murder. And a group of lizards is a lounge.
ALL reputable agents cap the expenses at a particular number and say they can't spend more than that figure without your ok. Mine is $300.
Don't obsess about this. I can't remember the last time I billed a client for expenses, and we never ever ever bill them for lunch, or tea, or whiskey. Photocopies, messenger fees, postage. The cost associated with getting your work into the hands of people who can buy it. Lunchies, drinkies and bail are on me.
Add this to your list of hard and fast rules
Miss Snark,
I recently attended a Writer's Conference and submitted the first 20 pages of my manuscript for an advanced critique with an editor at a major publishing house. She emailed me back and said that of the 16 submissions she read, mine was the best. Unfortunately she does not represent Young Adult and so she asked to forward on the manuscript to a local agent.
Of course I agreed.
I recently received another email from the editor and she wrote, "I’m sorry to say that she won’t be taking on the book. She and another agent at the same agency took a look, and they both thought the writing was really, really good. But she says that her agency handles very few YA projects, and the ones they do handle tend to be a bit edgier in theme."
So I'm now back to sending out queries to other YA agents and I'm wondering if I should include any of this dialogue or is it not worth it since neither woman took on the project? Does a potential agent really care if other agents or editors think I can write?
Don't do this. The only thing I see when I read this is my colleagues don't think they can sell it. I'm a lot less likely to think I can if Agent X, or Kristin, or Miss Bent don't think they can. In fact, I'm not even going to try, which means I won't read your pages.
Do not ever mention any kind of rejection in your query letter. Ever. This is a hard and fast rule.
Sadistics for you to torture yourself with
Miss Snark,
I’ve received a request for a full ms based on a partial and synopsis that I dutifully sent off about a month ago. Although I am attempting to keep myself grounded in reality (researching additional agents to query, focusing on book #2, etc.), I still catch myself drifting into happy daydreams about what the future might hold for my brave little ms. Please help me temper this enthusiasm. Realistically, what are the odds that this agent will be the right one for me? How many “sure, I’d love to see a full” turn into “I want to be this writer’s agent” for you?
There's nothing wrong with a little daydreaming. In fact, letting yourself see success is one of those motivational tricks that gunnery sargeants use for us literary agents in boot camp. "Michiko loves me! Michiko loves me" is our cadence song.
You're also right though in knowing the odds are against you. And at this stage it's not cause you're a bad writer. I don't request fulls from anyone who hasn't shown a pretty significant demonstration of talent in those first 50 pages.
However here's a waterfall of reality for you to bathe in:
100 queries a week (x 12 weeks per quarter)
5 partials requested each week
20 partials a month (x 3 months)
5 fulls requested a month (x 3 months)
1 new client quarter (in three months).
1200 queries
60 partials
15 fulls
1 client
Don't look at the numbers though; look at the percentages. Kristin Nelson gets 10x the number of queries I get, and takes on more people but I'm going to bet her ratio of query to representation is within spitting distance of mine.
It only takes one yes. The odds are meaningless because I don't have to take 1 and I can actually take more. If I got 10 great manuscripts in a given month, I'd be nuts, but I'd want to take them all.
Paranoia, not just for loons anymore
Dear Miss Snark,
What's with the weird intentional spellings?
Pron? Dear dog? 3o? 4o0? asterix?
Is it a style thing? A search engine thing? A PG-13 thing?
Where did you see "pron"?
Dear dog is instead of "dear God" because I'm trying to quit using the name of the Lord in vain. Fuckin' A difficult to do by the way.
30?
400?
uhhh...numbers??
Asterix...well, ok, so my spelling sux.
Can you understand it?
Of course you can.
It's not an inside joke. The inside jokes involve orange cunts from Rabbitania and "fiction novel" contests.
It's not a search engine thing.
And no, it's not a pg 13 kind of thing. This blog is for grown ups. No sprout of tender years should be within eyeball range of this poodle totin', advice throwin', invective tossin' Snarkoseum.
Relax.
Reading jobs
Your Great and Marvelous Snarkiness,
I am a newbie at writing, but an old hand at reading. Read constantly.
Are there any jobs in this industry that just require reading? Could I actually make money reading?
No. Even if a job is mostly reading (slush pile sorter, MWA Best Novel judge, etc) you still have to report on what you read. And most of these jobs are unpaid anyway cause there are a LOT of people who like to read. A LOT.
The valley of the shadow of "reading a full"
Hello there, your Clooneyness, (ha)
I was referred to an uber agent by her client. She read my first 3 chapters and liked them. She suggested changes, and after those changes were complete, I sent her the full as requested. She has never offered representation. Is this common practice among agents? I am waiting to hear her response. Would it be improper etiquette to query others during this time period? I know that you say to query widely, but what about an agent who edited your first 3 chapters, suggested a title change, and asked to see the full after manuscript changes were suggested. Does that sound promising to you? Thank you, Miss Snark!
It is promising but a promise isn't an offer.
Keep querying till you get to yes.
Don't sign with someone else till you've let her know you've received an offer, but don't sit around waiting for us to get up off the settee, shake the bon bon crumbs off our remote control and get back to you.
Your time is just as valuable as mine. Probably more so in fact given I live in an alternate universe that has 36 hour days.
Miss Snark gazes into her crysal ball
Miss Snark,
Is it necessary to include a futuristic prologue in the synopsis?
no
3.20.2007
Miss Snark's nose twitches
Dear Miss Snark,
I'm writing because my agent has been shopping my novel MS for a year to 15 editors, and NONE have responded. What's going on?
My agent has been in the business for 20+ years at a reputable firm with a handful of well-known clients. He shopped my book (debut literary fiction) to 7 editors last February, and then sent it to 8 more in November, and NO ONE has responded. Recently, he started taking 10 of the 15 editors to lunch, he says, to hand-sell the book. Still no responses.
He claims it's the business. I can't help but wonder whether it's something else. He's a nice guy, and I certainly don't want to get rid of a good agent, but how can I tell what's going on here?
This is horseshit.
There's not one single chance in the world that an editor, sitting at lunch, pitched a book, will give NO response. It may not be the one you want (wild laughter, gasping, calling for the defibrillator); it may not be polite (have you taken leave of your senses); it may not be verbal (editor faints dead away and requires oxygen) but there will be a response.
I've been sitting across the lunch table from editors for quite some time now, and one thing is for sure: they're not mute.
I'm not sure what's going on with your agent but I absolutely guarantee you that "no response" from 15 editors defies the laws of physics, at least here on planet earth.
And agents don't take editors to lunch. I can count on one claw the times I've picked up the check or issued an invite. Editors ask us to lunch and pick up the tab.
Format..cause yanno, it's so HARD to get it right
For those among us who are:
A. Control freaks
B. Savvy enough to use a more readable font than Times Roman (Century Schoolbook rocks and you couldn't tell the difference with the possible exception of noting less eye strain upon your completion of my partial, thank you very much)
C. Compulsive listmakers
Would the Snark bristle at receiving a .PDF file, with all the formatting cemented in place, fonts embedded, and all the mysteries of the Mac/PC WYSIWYG universe self-contained?
If I wanted you to send a PDF I'd ask you to send a PDF.
I think we need clue music so you can remember FOLLOW THE DAMN DIRECTIONS with the same word for word perfection as "two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese pickle on a sushi roll"
TTRTSIFOTCC***
Dear Miss Snark,
I’ll soon be in the market for literary representation, and I like your brutally honest advice. However I wouldn’t want someone like you to be my agent, you’re too mean in that New York sorta way. It scares me, and brings on writer's block. Am I being overly sensitive?
No of course not. You're quite right to be afraid of Miss Snark and her brutal ways. In fact, you should include a questionairre with your query to make sure you only sign on with nice, sweet, kind literary agents.
Here are some suggested questions:
1. Do you now or have you ever used a broom for transportation?
2. Does your 3o day termination clause include the word defenestration?
3. Do you sign your contracts in hemoglobin?
4. Do you now or have you ever had Satan on speed dial?
5. Do you now or have you ever had an expense account line item for body removal?
6. Do you now or have you ever considered Hannibal Lector for a role model?
7. Do publishers just bring their check book to lunch rather than negotiate with you?
8. Have you ever made an IRS agent cry?
9. Have you ever written a fan letter to Simon Cowell encouraging him to toughen up?
10. Do you now or have you ever responded to nitwit email with a ***Top Ten List of Reasons to Stand in Front of the Clue Cannon?
Some perspective on the REASON you send me something
Hello, oh most Snarkly one.
What do you think of the idea of sending a perfect-bound, perfectly legible copy of a manuscript to an agent who requests a full? I've recently had some experience with Lulu.com, and I have to say I'm impressed with the product. I've never been able to imagine that carting around that big ole' 8.5x11x4 (or 5 or 6) manuscript could be easy for agents and editor, nor that any would actually enjoy it; I figured that it was just the best means to an end when a better option is unvailable.
So my question, basically, is, if you requested a full, what would your reaction be if you received a 6x9 perfect-bound copy in otherwise-traditional manuscript format (i.e., Courier, 12 pt, double-spaced?). Or even perfect-bound 8.5x11, if the size actually matters (although we all actually know it doesn't; it's how you use your words).
I'd know you are a nitwit.
Here are the first three things that happen when I read a full:
1. cut and paste text that needs fixing and send to you;
2. run through xerox machine/or
3. send electronically for people for opinions, second reads etc.
None of that can be done with a ms in "book" form.
There's a reason agents and editors don't want staples, paper clips or binder clips let alone bound versions of mss, and it's not cause we're short sighted technophobes.
3.19.2007
MS means Microsoft too..who knew
Miss Snark,
I recently purchased an iMac. As a struggling writer, I could ill afford the $250 Microsoft wants for Microsoft Office for Mac. After a lengthy search, I found what appears to be a simple, functional word processing program called Nisus Writer Express. It does everything I need it to, and claims to create and read files compatible with any program but I worry that I might someday find myself in the position of having written the publishable American novel and have it requested by an agent of your snarkotimous stature, only to discover that she is unable to open my document and therefore, unable to offer me the sage and intuitive representation my budding masterpiece may someday require.
My question to you: Have you ever had difficulty opening a file generated on a Mac? My Nisus program recommends RTF format which is supposed to be universal. Is this better/more universally accessible than Word's format? Do you or your more gifted cohorts use Macs? PC's? Typewriters?
Miss Snark uses a Mac, as does anyone with style and savoir faire.
Miss Snark also requires clients to submit work electronically, thus she is fully informed on the perils of platform.
Here's how it works at Snark Central. You send it. I open it and convert it to my program. I can do that cause the Mac I have is designed to read damn near anything. I use MS Word cause that's the program editors read and use.
What you need to worry about though are the agents who aren't on Mac, and there are more of them than there are of us. What you can do is email yourself a saved version of your document in RTF and then go to Kinkos or your library, log onto your email and try to open the doc. See if it works. If not, you'll need to figure out what does.
And I spent $4o0 on Microsoft Office for Mac just last year and I have this terrible feeling they're about to upgrade and I'll need to do it all over again. Harumph.
**no more comments on this post. I'm fast losing interest in the pc/mac war.
19-a prime number gone bad
Dear Miss Snark,
I wrote a really great book, sent out a bunch of queries, but inexplicably had no luck landing an agent. I decided to self-publish as an interim step on my path to fame and fortune. Sales have been extremely strong --- 19 copies sold in only eight months! Since these sales figures prove my book has the potential to be a huge commercial success, I’m going to highlight the numbers as I begin to query agents once again.
Here’s my question: Should I leave out the fact that it was me that bought all 19 copies?
no no. You want to make sure the agent knows you're fully committed to the marketing of your book.
Parsleying out advice
My novel is now making the publisher rounds, with rejections that make me weep because they are so glowing, until I get to that dreaded word, "but"..and the reasons are lame ones (lame to me, anyway) -- overcrowded market, we've got a similar book on our list, yadda yadda, and nothing negative toward my writing.
Do you have a crystal ball?Yes
What are your thoughts on when publishers are rejecting because of these reasons?No is no regardless of the reason. At this level very few books are rejected cause the writing sux. We reject that at the slush pile level. You're playing in the "of course the writing is good" league now.
How many publishers are out there?Lots.
Generally how many publishers should an agent submit to before calling it quits on a novel?1200
Am I close? Is there hope?No, yes.
Thanks for your never-ending sound and sage advice. It's about thyme I get published!
Get to work on your next novel. You need something to think about while your Herb Garden grows.
Confused? Dazed? Miss Snark blows smoke...err...CLEARS smoke that is
Miss Snark, you often say 'Follow the Directions' regarding agent queries, but what if those directions make no sense? I was going through "The Novel and Short Story Writer's Market" the other day, and found multiple entries (more for publishers than agents, but some for each) which say they "Accept Science Fiction" but later declare they want "No Genre Fiction."
I thought Science Fiction WAS a genre, so just what does that mean?
I don't know the answer to that specific question, but the underlying question is "should I query" and I do know the answer to that.
First, some background.
The reference tome you're looking at is a compendium of listings of publishers and agents. The info in those books is obtained by asking the publisher/agent a list of questions. We check little boxes for yes/no, and boxes indicating what kind of work we consider. The list of questions can run six pages. It's NOT an interactive form, so if I fail to tick "yes" on science fiction the form doesn't beep and say "wait, Snarkbreath, you forgot to tick the box and you should cause you say you take genre work".
(Also, I'm filling this out while I'm on the phone listening to on-hold music from Roc, emailing the low slung gin fizz about her ostrich egg breakfast AND telling KY that it's impossible the Hindenburg is landing on the balcony, it's just a stray balloon from the St. Patricks Day parade-in other words, not giving it my complete and undivided attention)
It's efficient, and given they list hundreds of publishers and agents, it's really the only way to manage information.
However. That box-checking system doesn't lend itself to nuance, and it doesn't lend itself to explanation.
Therefore: look FIRST at the publisher's actual website. Almost every publisher has one now. Do they publish science fiction? If they do, go to step B If they don't, don't.
Step B: make sure they are publishing science fiction NOW (versus they published it seven years ago, stopped, and now only sell backlist titles). You can tell by looking at the books they call front list AND by checking the pub dates. If you can't figure out how to check pub dates on the site, look up the titles on Amazon.
Step B for agents: look at the agent's site, and see if they sell science fiction. If yes, query. If no, don't. Not all agents have websites, not all of them list all the books they've sold, but you should make the effort to find out.
Reference tomes are good for finding names of publishers and agents, and getting familiar with industry terms and protocol. For actual lists of what someone publishes or sells, you can't rely on those books completely.
The default choice is to query. From your perspective it's better to take a chance on querying than not. From an agent's perspective, only people who write work I really want to take on should query me, but that's impossible to achieve, so we have resigned ourselves to reading 1001x more material than we will ever take on.
3.18.2007
What to call it
Hi Miss Snark:
I have a novel that takes place in two time periods (equal parts present day and 1832.) I’ve been calling it commercial fiction in my queries, but should I be calling it historical fiction? Semi-Historical? I think historical is too narrow, but semi-historical is too scary for an agent.
Your thoughts?
I think if someone queried me with "semi-historical fiction" I'd semaphore for the form rejection. It's commercial fiction set in two time periods. Call it that, and I'm more likely to read it.
Nothing beats plain straightforward description in a query letter. It's when you get all fancy that you shoot yourself in the foot. If your description sounds like a snotty wine waiter at an overpriced faux french bistro "a clever little novel drenched in atmosphere with an insoucient streak of historical je n'est ce quoi circa 1832" then you've just assured me that not only is the novel not quite right for me, it will need a trip to Lourdes to be publishable.
Miss Snark dissed!!
Miss Snark,
I was an extra in the "Leatherheads" movie while it was shooting in Chattanooga this past Monday. Would you want to receive some photos of Mr. Clooney?
Wait just a darn minute here.
You spent an entire day in the presence of Mr. Clooney, and I'm just NOW finding out about it??
I'm not exactly sure where Chattanooga is but I hear the choo choo goes there, and I do know where Penn Station is.
Geeze louise, you'll torture a good deed to death, won't you?
Dear Miss Snark,
I wonder if I just made a mistake. Here's what happened: After five weeks, Agent A said he just placed a manuscript very similar to mine and therefore was going to pass. (He had a partial.) However, he thought I should send it to Agent B, who works at a different agency.
I posed this situation to other writers, and based on their opinion and my own eagerness, I queried Agent B, citing A's referral (without saying why A passed on it). Now I'm wondering if it doesn't look like I've passed along leftovers. How do agents feel about this type of referral?
Thanks in advance for your response.
Have you completely taken leave of your senses?
Time for the cluegun, and you are the target du jour.
We all know you query multiple agents. Not too many of us get our knickers in a wad for hearing about your work from someone who's seen it first. Frankly, we think you work down the list in alpha order anyway. And we have other things to obsess about, like the SpaceArk bidding war.
You have a referral to a colleague from an agent. This is a good thing.
Crapometer update
Dear Miss Snark,
What I really want to know is when the CRAPoMETER will be open again???
Generally the Crapometer is captured by federal lawmen and returned, in shackles, to NYC around the end of the year. Something about clearing the Top Ten Wanted List for the new year.
There are other places to turn in your hour of need, principally Evil Editor.
Do you reveal your device?
Dear Miss Snark,
During the crap’ometer I received a gracious beat down from you in response to my hook. I worked on it for a month. It was the crossbreed of a Pollack and a Rothko. If the words were images, they would be hanging in the Met today.
Agent X had a similar contest and I got down to brass taxes. Simple and plain. Too plain.
I have a good hook, but it is not something that you would put on the back of book jacket. You wouldn’t go to the video store, pick up the Sixth Sense, and read that Bruce Willis thinks he is alive the whole movie, but he is really dead. Do you give away secrets in the hook?
I know this is a subject of huge debate and there isn't a hard and fast rule. I say yes. I want to know you've got a twist. Perhaps not exactly what it is, but a solid indication this isn't boring.
I'll probably get a beating from my colleagues for saying this but you might try two versions of the query: one with, one without. You don't want to send them at the same time, but if one doesn't work, try the other. (I know, I know, this goes against everything I've said before)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
