A Cautionary Tale

I'm not the only chump out there who lives under the delusion that mainlining podcasts on writing and authors and techniques and so forth shouldn’t, on the whole, be effort enough to get a book written. Surely all those walks, all those trips to the liquor store, all the hours in the bath listening to First Draft, Grammar Girl, The Literary Salon, Free Library of Philadelphia, Story Grid—to name a few—should be enough to craft and draft a freaking book?!

Yeah well.

But here’s the thing: I have written a book. My first book was a travel memoir and it was easy peasy Japaneasy to get it onto paper. I kid you not. My first book was a dream run. I shouldn’t be admitting to this because the writing god is a vengeful god and he/she will smote (or is that smite) me down for saying it but it’s true. I had a beginning, a middle and an end. It was a memoir let’s not forget and so I colored in between the lines with various events and hey presto, the thing was done. 

My other dirty secret? It was an unsolicited manuscript and Random House picked it up within a week. A WEEK! I got representation from Curtis Brown on the basis of that alone. These people represented AA Milne just so you know. 

I’ve written my second book (a novel so there’s your first clue about my vengeful god theory) and I’m shipping it around at the moment. The week timeline thing? Not so much. Not even close. 

A wise guy told me that the goal should be getting enough rejection slips to wallpaper the bathroom. Not publication. I laughed maniacally when he told me this but I'm starting to think he was on to something. 

Let the re-decorating begin.