General List

Blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh!

Text Box: Published … ah, one of the sweetest words in the English language! To say anything sweeter, you’d need five words. (No, not three, five: Pay—To—The—Order—Of. The finest prose known to man!) All writers strive toward the day that they can call themselves an Author. (A writer is just somebody who writes; an Author has been published … it’s an important difference, y’know.) The ones who are determined to make it dedicate their entire lives to writing, to becoming one of the great authors of their time, to becoming a full-time, professional writer … and never having to do another day of real work again! That’s all Spider wants, y’know. Hell, that’s all any writer really wants, once you get past the “benefiting mankind” bullcrap, in all honesty. We all want to be J. K. Rowling (but without all that silly wizards and trolls stuff). We want publishers to get into bidding wars over our latest book! We want Tom Cruise to buy the movie rights the minute he hears we’re even considering writing another! We want to go on the Tonight Show and bitch about how the soulless bloodsuckers in Hollywood destroyed our masterpiece! We all just want to be professional, 24/7, writers (but without the editors, of course)! That’s all … just for some publisher to buy what we have written, the way we have written it, and give us enough money to live on until we write another. Just a few million a book and no editing. That’s all … honest. (You know, the basic Stephen King deal.) Hell, we’d even agree to a multi-book contract for that sort of deal! No problem! But will any of them accede to such a simple desire? Nooooooooo … they all want the silly crap that anyone can provide, like grammar, spelling, or a basic plotline. Where is the consideration for genius?! Where is the appreciation of native ability?! Where is the common courtesy of a multi-year, million dollar contract for those of us without any prior sales?! If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you reject our work, do we not scream and beat our heads against the wall until the plaster starts to crack and … ahem. Sorry. This is the stuff that, for one reason or another, made the grade. (The last link is to where you can buy my book Naked Through the Snow and Other Bits of Silliness, which is a collection of some of my best a.c. posts and early stuff.)