Does Oscar Mayer rent out the Weinermobile for special events?
Because if someone approached me at a trade show and asked "Would you like to have your picture taken behind the wheel of the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile?" I mean, that'd totally work with me. Jaded veteran of shows and conferences that I am, I'd be tagging along faithfully and happily agreeing to a forty-minute product briefing.
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Dear Lucy:
We've never met. In fact, we've double-never-met, as I've never even met the person who's just urged me to email you. I am therefore a Stranger Once Removed, but my medium of non-meeting you was the Internet, and as such I'm allowed -- nay, encouraged -- to stick my nose where it doesn't belong and involve myself in situations which I am only vaguely familiar.
Thus armed with a powerful mandate, I want to talk to you about this novel of yours.
You are, no doubt, being browbeaten by dozens of people with a view towards getting you to finish your revisions. My advice to you: Resist. Buck. Follow the fine example of the five-year-old kid whom I encountered the other day at the supermarket, somewhere near the Dairy aisle. When her parent confronted her with a directive with which she desired to show a vote of unequicoval non-confidence, she immediately threw herself to the ground, hitting it on the very first try, and proceeded to stage a tantrum whose scale and passion caused the local barometric pressure to drop by fourteen millibars for the entire afternoon.
Why resist, Lucy? Well, clearly you know full well why. You seem like a sensible woman. But I'll explain it for the benefit of anyone who is (naughtily) looking in on this highly personal and private discussion between you and me: if you finish your revision, then your novel will be one step closer to being pubished. And we certainly can't have that, can we?
You and I know better. If your novel is published, terrible, terrible things will happen. The specific wording of the incantation that breaks the seal on the tomb of the Damned and floods our earthly plane with the Forces of Darkness is lost to the ages, but historians note that it's supposedly a simple phrase of eight words. Your novel is considerably more than eight words long. It's therefore conceivable that it contains the Phrase That Must Never Be Repeated. I pray, Lucy, that you stick to your guns and take no chances. I have a small wager on the outcome of the Academy Awards and I'm keen to live long enough to see how that works out.
Even in the unlikely event that pubication of your novel will _not,_ as you suspect, set alight the Curtain of Pain and lead to the subjugation, torture and execution of all life on Earth, would there be any benefit to putting this novel of yours behind you? Of course not. Editors keep nudging you to finish it because they're selfish, selfish creatures. The more books they move through their offices, the more comp copies they receive, which means more titles that they can sell off at yard sales and online auctions, and more money to spend on the highly-specialized roasting pans and silverware with which they cook and eat the hearts of innocent children.
You don't want to be a part of that, do you?
No, your plan is much, much better. If you finish your novel, you'll only have to start writing another one. Remember how hard it was to get the first one finished? Hell, think of how hard it was to even start the bugger. You don't want to go through that again, do you? Plus, once you've finished and published the second one, there's the risk that your work would develop a devoted and passionate following. What happens then? Yup: these so-called "fans" of yours would only demand a THIRD book. A third opportunity to accidentally unseal the tomb of the Damned, more comp copies that fund your editor's pursuit of his or her unholy appetites...no, no, no. It's a vicious cycle and you're wise to jump off at this early stage before it even really starts spinning.
Besides, there's nothing more satisfying than being one of those writers who is fond of saying -- repeatedly, thoughtfully, and without provocation -- that You're Working On A Novel, No, it Hasn't been Published Yet, You Haven't really Finished yet, you Can't Rush these Things, Can You?
You did, of course, make a common rookie mistake in that you actually completed the draft. See, the great thing about being One Of Those Writers is that the people you meet will never actually demand that you show them some sample pages. It does help if you can say "Think 'The Hunt For Red October' meets 'Rendezvous With Rama'" if you're pressed for a general impression of the alleged work, but that's just insurance.
No, usually, the people you meet are impressed enough with your thoughtful, writerly expression, you see. It's a terrific labor-saving device. You want to know why P.G. Wodehouse was forced to write a hundred novels? He had this social-anxiety disorder that kept him inside the house most of the day. Wanting to describe himself as a Writer, but lacking an audience for the Thoughtful Expression that he'd spent much of his late teen years cultivating, he had no alternative but to actually sit down and write the damned books and then have them published.
What did that get him, I ask? A huge personal fortune, a knighthood, an international reputation as the greatest writer of humorous English literature, key influence of untold generations of writers, and the satisfaction of having created a fictional character equal to Sherlock Holmes and Superman in terms of immediate worldwide recognition, even eight decades after its creation.
Meanwhile, for decades, the neighborhoods and playgrounds near his publisher's offices was curiously free of the sound of children. The guilt gnawed at Wodehouse, even though he surely didn't know any better. He did not, after all, have the benefit of my reassuring words. Perhaps if he'd followed the same advice I gave you, he'd have lived to be 100 years old, instead of dying at the green age of 93, the terrible burden of remorse having taken hours, or even days, off of his natural lifespan.
Stick. To. Your. Guns. Lucy.
That manuscript of yours of much, much more use to the world sealed up there on your hard drive than it would be if it were revised, edited, typeset, proofed, printed, and distributed to bookstores and readers all over the world. You know it and I know it. So don't let these thoughtless jerks wear you down.
Your Pal -- A.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2005 | 4 |
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