Jim Hardison's Blog

So, I'm trying to figure out the perfect tagline for Fish Wielder, and I could use your help. I've had a little experience writing taglines before for movies, TV shows and even comic books, but I hadn't realized I needed one for my book until the awesome folks at Fiery Seas Publishing sent me their production package which asked for my tagline.

Since I hadn't already picked one out, and trying to respond as promptly as possible to their request, I quickly sent them two options. For the first one, I tried to be descriptive of the things that happen in the story:

"The Brotherhood of the Bad Religion is trying to resurrect the Dark Lord Mauron… again, and only the barbarian warrior Thoral Mighty Fist and his talking goldfish, Brad, can stop them from finding the ancient chocolate Pudding of Power and enslaving the magic land of Grome." In the second one, I tried to be more suggestive of the flavor of the story--the tone and feel:

"Fish Wielder is a bit like Lord of the Rings set in Narnia if it had been written by the Monty Python troupe working with the band They Might be Giants."

Since then, I've modified the second one slightly to read:

"Fish Wielder is a ridiculously epic fantasy, like Lord of the Rings set in Narnia if it had been written by the Monty Python troupe working with the band They Might be Giants."

And at that point, I put them both up on the Fish Wielder Facebook page in order to ask the people there which they liked better. So far, #2 is winning by a large margin (large margin always makes me think of Large Marge from Pee Wee's Big Adventure).

While the votes are still coming in, I did get a suggestion from someone who has read the book that I should alter #2 again to read:

"Fish Wielder is an epically silly epic fantasy, like Lord of the Rings set in Narnia if it had been written by the Monty Python troupe working with the band They Might Be Giants."

So, that's where things stand at the moment. I'm working on my tag-line and I'd appreciate your feedback. Please let me know what you think in the comments, or by putting in your two cents on the Facebook page.

Thanks,

Jim

I'm very excited. My new book, Fish Wielder - an epic, comedic fantasy that is kind of like Lord of the Rings set in Narnia if the Monty Python & the Holy Grail guys wrote it in conjunction with the band They Might Be Giants - has a publisher! Fiery Seas Publishing will release the book. More details to follow as I get them!

Very pleased to announce that I now have a literary agent. Mark Gottlieb of Trident Media Group will be representing my new comedic sword & sorcery novel, Fish Wielder, as we look for the right publisher.

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So, this being my first goodreads blog, I thought I might kick it off with something incoherent.

I was looking through a list of books and I noticed one that I thought was called Mayonnaise Vacation, which seemed interesting enough that I was about to start trying to figure out where I could get a copy, when I realized that I'd misread the title. The real title was something like Marissa's Vacation or something, which sounded a lot less peculiar. I think I might have like a book titled Mayonnaise Vacation. Maybe.

Anyway, that got me thinking about how I really hate mayonnaise and that I am on an extended mayonnaise vacation. Except that I've never really been to Mayonnaise. You see, I hate mayonnaise so much that I actually hate it at a conceptual level that has prevented me from ever actually trying it.

Now, I'm sure that I must have accidentally ingested some mayonnaise over the course of my life. Being a person who has eaten hamburgers created after my explicit orders that they be prepared "plain and dry" were ignored, and a person who has occasionally had to get through a business meeting lunch in which the hosts did not seem to care that I don't like cold sandwiches, especially those slathered with various sauces, I am fairly positive that I must have been exposed to at least small quantities of mayo. But, I've never intentionally had any. Even the idea makes me gag. So, I should probably describe myself as a Mayonnaise Foreigner rather than on a Mayonnaise Vacation.

Perhaps I should write my own book called Mayonnaise Vacation. It could be about a picky eater who gets lost at sea in the Antarctic and has to figure out whether it would be better to die than to eat various unappealing foods.

In somewhat unrelated news, I've just received a CD (Storytelling) from Jonathan Segel, who plays violin for Camper Van Beethoven, a band that might easily have put out a single called Mayonnaise Vacation. But they didn't.

Oh, and while I'm blathering about nothing, what is up with the spelling of the word foreigner? Shouldn't the "i" go before the "e" as there is no "c" anywhere to be seen? I hate spelling. But not as much as I hate mayonnaise.