Another year over---a new one just begun. . .

Ah, 2006 is coming to a close. What do I have to reflect on for the past year? Let me see. Well, I wrote two more novels, bringing my grand total of unpublished novels to five. My agent is trying to sell three of them, one of them I'm trying to sell on my own (it's erotica, which my agent doesn't represent), and one of them is so bad I keep it stuffed in a drawer, never, ever to see the light of day. I've also written a novel-length memoir on mental illness, which my agent will begin pitching in January. We both have very big hopes for that book; I think it likely will be the first of all my books to sell to a major publisher.

I wrote three books in one year? On top of a full-time job? It's mind-boggling, even to me. I'm not sure how I did it. I'm sure large amounts of caffeine were involved. (The fact that I'm borderline bipolar probably helps, too.)

I've written two full-length plays this year, and several more one-acts. I've had professional play productions of my one-acts in five different U.S. states and the United Kingdom this year, and a staged reading for one of my full-lengths. I was rejected by the Chicago Dramatists Residency Program for a record fifth time. (Hurrah! At least I hold a record in something). And my published plays for high school theatres are getting picked up for productions at high schools around the country, according to my publisher. Since my full-length plays for adult audiences get very little attention, I think in 2007, I will focus more on my one-acts and my plays for teenagers and children----two markets where it seems I have more chance of actually earning some $$$.

I'm not big on New Year's resolutions, but in 2007 I resolve not to beat myself up so much over the fact that I haven't yet Made It as a writer. (Of course, that also means that I expect that 2007 will be the year when I really do Make It.)

Wish me luck, folks.

Peace.

Well, look's like J.K.'s gonna kill poor Harry off. . .

Good Goddess, what a week. On Sunday, I flew to Washington DC for a work-related meeting with my boss' boss---he's second-in-command only to my company's CEO---and sat through a three days' worth of uber-boring lectures from MD's and government officials all about the pathetic state of the American healthcare system. How about three days of that excruciating topic to cheer your holiday season? And there's noplace like our nation's capitol when it comes to destroying your faith in humanity, either. A philosophical DC cab driver who picked me up at the airport on one of my solo trips there earlier this year said it best: "Washington DC is the worst place on earth." It is, really. People are just nasty there. Nasty, and petty, and backstabbing, and mean. I suppose at one level it's a matter of survival in such a politically charged place, but sheesh. The more time I spend there (and I travel there a lot for my job) the more I hate it. My frequent business trips to Washington even inspired me to set one of my more political plays (INTELLIGENT DESIGN) there, where every member of the cast spends two hours scheming against and backstabbing everyone else in the cast.

Anyhoo, you know it's a slow week for news when the title of J.K. Rowling's newest Harry Potter book (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) is a major headline, right up there with Iraq and Iran and North Korea. Does this mean that the lovely Ms. Rowling is killing Harry off? I certainly hope it does. As much as I love and adore Ms. Rowling and her wonderful children's (and adults') books, I think we've all had just about enough of Harry. It's time to move on to the next big thing. And I totally appreciate that Ms. Rowling has probably had enough of Harry, too. She's been walking about with that bloody kid-wizard in her head since at least the late 80s. You've gotta imagine, that's gonna get old after a while. And if killing him off is indeed what she plans, kudos to her. Rowling has said publicly that one reason it's a good idea for authors to kill off their most popular characters----it then makes it impossible for other writers to pen non-author-written sequels after she dies, though she's not looking forward to getting hate mail, either. Of course, if Harry is indeed who she's killing off (and my money says it is), I hope it doesn't backfire on Ms. Rowling too terribly. After all, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ended up having a nervous breakdown after all the fan harassment and hate mail he received after killing Sherlock Holmes off.

I would love to someday be in a position to have penned a series of novels so powerfully popular that me killing off a character is a major world news headline. That would be insanely cool. Of course, in the meantime I'll settle for the power just to tune out the most boring government lecturers I'm subjected to on my business trips to Washington.

Peace.

Judith Regan gets her come-uppance.

At last, proof that there is at least some level of justice in publishing. As reported on PublishersMarketplace:
"Finally, some action from HC on their Desperate House imprint:"HARPERCOLLINS TERMINATES JUDITH REGAN"New York, NY (December 15, 2006) – Jane Friedman, President and CEO of HarperCollins Worldwide, today announced that Judith Regan's employment with HarperCollins has been terminated effective immediately."The REGAN publishing program and staff will continue as part of the HarperCollins General Books Group.""

I am so glad to see this happen. For those of you who may not know, Judith Regan was the editor responsible for acquiring O.J. Simpson's never-released "kill confession" memoir, IF I DID IT. Prior to that, Ms. Regan was responsible for bringing us such literary gems as HOW TO MAKE LOVE LIKE A PORN STAR, and fabulous ghost-written literary marvels by the likes of Amber Frey, Paris Hilton, and Jose Canseco. Regan focused on "high-concept" books that were driven by some fleeting media event, like the Scott Peterson murder investigation or the major-league baseball doping scandal. Her books would appear on the shelves, sell wildly for a few weeks, then disappear from the radar. It was a sleazy business model, but it made Regan a multimillionaire.

Judith Regan's ReganBooks imprint is largely responsible for destroying the integrity of contemporary publishing, in my opinion. Her intensely media-driven approach to the business pushed celebrity name-recognition and media buzz over writing quality, and employed a large staff of ghost writers to hack the books "written" by her celebrity clients. Her trashy books sold so well that the rest of the publishing industry followed suit, making it increasingly difficult for serious authors to get published without prior name recognition or a pre-loaded "media platform." Regan also developed a reputation for being----well, quite nasty. She even had a couple sexual harrassment suits filed against her, I'm told. It was Regan's kind of pre-packaged, high-concept, media-driven publishing model that helped bring about a publishing world which generates such plagiarized, semi-ghost-written dreck as Kaavya Viswanathan's How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got A Life.

Between Kaavya's plagiarism, O.J.'s "confession", and James Frey's fabrications, it's been kind of a crummy year for publishing, not to mention writers like me who try to approach this business with integrity, only to get snubbed for it. Let's hope 2007 is a better year for the serious writer, folks.

Regan pushed her business model too far with the O.J. Simpson debacle, however, and given the recent failure of several other media-driven celebrity-authored books at both her imprint and others, perhaps this means the book business will get away from this kind of cheap sleaze and get back to publishing books that have real substance (and a shelf life of longer than eight seconds.)

My take on the Sobel contest. . .

I am going to slightly rip off a comment I posted on the Writer Beware blog today regarding the Sobel contest. For those of you who haven't heard, this is a contest started by an Internet billionaire (or a millionaire, I forget which) who couldn't get his novel published. He's charging $85 a pop to any unpublished/unagented writer to submit his or her novel for a chance to get published and "discovered." This guy got a lot of flak for the way he was running a pay-to-play writing contest and then saying he'd act as the literary agent for the winners. Still, the contest got a lot of press from the AP and other places despite all the criticism and the fact that the contest hasn't been getting as many submissions as Mr. Sobel and the contest's other administrators thought it would (gee, maybe it was the $85-bucks-a-pop part that turned people off?).

But now it seems a major NYC publisher has promised to publish the three top winners in this contest and pay them $100,000 advances----this without having even read the manuscripts! Blecch. Can I say uber-blecch?

A lot of professional, published writers and industry analysts can't understand why Touchstone would want to lock itself into offering huge advances to authors' manuscripts it hasn't even read, from a contest that by its own admission isn't getting as many entries as its administrators hoped it would. Some people may have trouble understanding what the business idea behind such a crazy-sounding decision would be, but here's my take:

This move on Touchstone's part actually makes perfect sense to me. I can say from personal experience having my agented manuscripts rejected by executive editors at major publishing houses not due to lack of craft, but due to "lack of a marketing platform." My agent and I are increasingly frustrated that sales-and-marketing departments have increasing power over editors on what does and does not get published, and the lack of a "platform" for the author (even in fiction) usually kills his or her chances even if her writing is very good. Case in point: several of my agented manuscripts have been deemed "well-crafted" and "original", "lovely," ad nauseum, by acquisitions editors at major houses, but still blocked by the sales-and-marketing departments in acquisitions meetings because I supposedly don't have a "platform". Given how media-driven publishing is these days, when a ghost-written book by Amber Frey (or O.J. Simpson) is given lots of play when many well-crafted "unknown" writers are rejected, it seems it makes perfect sense that Touchstone is entering into a deal like this. After all, even sight-unseen, the Touchstone sales-and-marketing folks can see that the yet-to-be-named Sobol contest winners already have a media "platform" for their works thanks to the AP.

Wish I could get that kind of publicity.

As a well-published playwright and journalist who still can't seem to crack the NYC houses even with an agent thanks to my lack of media "platform", Touchstone's actions here seem again driven by the same mass-media driven publishing world that gave us lovely projects from such media darlings as a ghost-written book by Atlanta's "runaway bride" and the guy who bartered a red paperclip for a house over the Internet.

Sigh.

Peace.

In a holding pattern. . .

I really hate the in-between time when I'm waiting for people (i.e., my agent, magazine editors, beta-readers, etc.) to get back to me regarding my work. I always go through the Seven Stages of Author Insecurity, as follows:

1) I suck.

2) My agent/editor/friend/beta-reader is not getting back to me because I suck so much they are afraid of offending me with bad feedback.

3) I suck so much that my agent/editor/friend/beta-reader isn't reading the stuff they promised to read at all, and they are merely stalling for time as they invent reasons to not read my writing (and subject themselves to just how much I suck.)

4) Denial----my email program must not be working. There is no other explanation for why my agent/editor/friend/beta-reader hasn't gotten back to me about my work (except for maybe the fact that I suck.)

5) I bargain with myself on how I might do something to make myself stop sucking----i.e., write 3000 words a day, take a class, give all my future royalties to charity. Nothing works.

6) I consider the possibility that I suck so much that nobody will ever pay more than $5.00 (my usual payment from places like Associated Content) for my writing.

7) I accept the fact that I suck.

I SUCK, AND I AM OKAY WITH THAT.

Peace.

Reject Letter Fun

I just got a rejection letter from Playwrights Horizons for my play INTELLIGENT DESIGN. This play deals with things like the creation-versus-evolution debate, government interference in our lives, humans' tendency to defend their personal territory at all costs, etc. It's not just an "issue" play, it's a play about people caught in the middle of a political situation, and the emotional choices they make as a result. But anyhoo, here's what Playwrights Horizons had to say:

"Thank you for sending INTELLIGENT DESIGN to Playwrights Horizons. We considered it with care and appreciation. We found it passionately conceived and timely. Ultimately, however, it's a bit issue-driven for our tastes."

Okay, so I suppose that means Playwrights Horizons doesn't like the plays they produce to be ABOUT anything???!!!!

Sigh.

And so we begin. . .

Well, I'm back, folks. And I still haven't sold my damn book. I haven't sold any of my books, and I 've written, like five, or six----I don't exactly remember anymore. I really think I am destined to be a failed writer forever. What is really sad for me is to see all the nice folks who used to read Throw Novel From The Train in the good old days, folks who used to leave nice comments about how they felt inspired by my old blog for no reason other than the fact they were miserable unpublished authors just like me, and, well. . . .

MOST OF THOSE PEOPLE HAVE NOW SOLD BOOKS.

(whimpering)

Congratulations, folks like Tish Cohen and Patry Francis and Jackie Kessler and many, many others I know used to read Throw Novel From The Train. I am very jealous of you all.

In the meantime, I continue to ferret away my fingertips in a miserable garret while I wallow in my unpublished misery. I have managed to get some commentary published via Associated Content (just about the only market that likes me these days- sigh). Do me a favor and take a look at it, so I don't feel so miserable and alone. . . (you can find a link under the "Associated Content" RSS feed at the right. . .)


Peace.