--- GODDAMNIT!
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale...
This deep cleansing breath shit isn't working to calm me down. I. Am.
So. Pissed. Off.
I am not particularly fond of the phrase "busting my hump," but it's
appropriate in this circumstance. I've been busting my hump to come up
with a good novel. And this isn't my first one. Nope. I've got two in
the bag already. But I'm trying something new; something different.
Something that will sell. I am a novelist. I'm no Hemingway and I don't
want to be one. I am spat upon by the establishment for my lack of
ambition in this regard. Novelists of the highest order, whose books
have no plot, sneer down upon those of us who write popular fiction
because our work doesn't "mean" as much as theirs. Well, fine. Never
mind that popular fiction affords those literary fiction writers their
lofty perch in the first place. It makes no nevermind to me. I can deal
with snottery. I've been dealing with it all of my life. I don't want
the National Book Award. I just want to be published. And I don't think
it's too much to ask that I have a fair shot of being just that, but
when I have to compete with the likes of a nitwit Gore daughter, who
has apparently written Bridget Jones Goes to Washington,
it makes me wonder why I work so goddamn hard in the first place. What
the hell am I doing this for if I haven't even got a shot? If some
ex-VP's daughter can weasel her way into a contract simply by
traversing the veritable freeway full of people whom she knows because
of her family? But I am a writer. I don't know how I could be otherwise
now that I've started, so let me clue you in on what that means.
This means struggling for originality. This means struggling with
prose. This means coming up with characters whose molds I am the first
to break. This also means being at a complete loss at times. This means
not being able to see the forest for the trees and having to whack away
at passages where I've gotten completely off track. This means work, in
other words. But the work doesn't stop there. Nosirreee. There's more
to writing than just sitting down with the laptop and whizzing off a
hundred thousand words. There's the business aspect of publishing and
it will suck at your soul like an Oreck. There's the searches. Agent
searches. Publisher searches. Then
there's the query letters that need to be sent out: a one page letter
that must seduce an agent into your bed with phrases like I believe this market has been underappreciated for quite some time....
Then maybe they'll ask for a synopsis. Maybe they'll ask for the first
three chapters. And if you're really lucky, well, they'll ask for the
whole enchilada---the entire manuscript. And you'll send it out---and
you'll also send a self-addressed stamped envelope for them to send the
thing back if they don't like it.
And chances are, they won't like it. They'll say you have potential,
but the new thing that you're trying to do won't sell well. For people
who deal with stories and storytelling, publishers and agents are a
pretty unimaginative lot. They want what sells. Period. New things
don't have a history of working well. What's worse, though, is when
they don't tell you what turned them off your work and so you're left
to wonder. You have no idea. It just wasn't for them. All the while
during this process, your heart and dreams and hopes are in the air,
just waiting for someone to field them. You try not to get your hopes
up. You know the odds aren't in your favor, but you hope anyway. You
can't seem to help yourself. And when you go down to mailbox and you
find one of your SASE's in the box, you know you weren't good enough,
but you don't know why.
This is why unpublished writers stick to people who have been published
like fleas to a dog. They've
made it. Maybe they'll take pity on you and they'll help you break into
the Skull and Bones fraternity that is publishing. So, some people
start stalking their favorite authors. I've never gone that far---thank
God---but I've been tempted. Oh, so tempted. You want to know where the
line between the unpublished and the published resides; you think that
they'll be able to give you a clue. But they don't. Because they don't
know either. Why? Because it's pure chance. Why do I do this? Because I
have a story to tell. I have a novel I want you
to read. I like my novel. I am completely sure that once it gets
published, it will sell. I'm sure of it. I don't want much from a
publisher. A lousy hundred thousand copies---paperback--- and I'm
pretty damn sure I'll make them their money back---and then some and
all the praise I would like in return is to be told that I kept someone
up until three in the morning because they just couldn't put the book I
wrote down. That's all I want. I'm not greedy. Did Gore Girl#2 have to
do any of this? Nope. She "just happened to run into Harvey Weinstein
one day" and she gets a goddamn book contract out of it. Not to mention
that the movie rights have been sold off and the book hasn't even been
published. The whole scenario just reeks of nepotism.
Let's just run the scenario through our minds, and take the fact that
she's Al Gore's daughter out of the equation. Would she be working for
"Futurama?" Maybe, maybe not. I don't know how talented the woman is.
"Futurama" is a good show, but let's be clear here---TV writers rarely
get contracts to write novels, because once you write for a genre,
you're pretty much stuck in that genre. It doesn't matter if you're the
next Steinbeck. If you write for "Futurama" your work will probably
wind up in a slush pile in some assistant editors office for the simple
reason that you're not published. And you'll still be writing for
"Futurama."
Now, let's look at Gore Girl#2's experience: she's twenty-six; she's
the daughter of the former Vice President of the United States; she
works in Hollywood writing for a television show; she's offered a fat
contract because Harvey thinks Miramax publishing is lacking in the
"chicklit" department and he hires her to come up with something---then
he snags the movie rights. Never mind the fact that Harvey owned "Talk"
Magazine and not only enployeed its editor, but is also buddy-buddy
with that Clinton/Gore whore, Tina Brown. You remember Tina, don't you?
She's the one who inaugurated that magazine with Hillary's first
post-First Lady interview---the one that convinced a lot of people it
was a good idea for Hillary to run for Senate. There's absolutely no
political bias going on here.
Goddamnit! It's. Just. Not. Fair.
This whole escapade proves once again, it's not what you know, but who
you know. And apparently if you're a Gore Girl, you know a whole hell
of a lot of people who can make your life so much easier. And you don't
even have to be original in the meantime.