An Idiot

So today it was enthusiastically suggested to me, "Since your book's not doing so well, maybe you should get a job as somebody else's book publicist!"

Need I comment any further?

I didn't think so.

On Literature and Film

Right now I'm reading Into Thin Air, which is making me really want to watch Vertical Limit, and also giving me hideous nightmares about being trapped on a snowy mountain. Note to self: Watching Vertical Limit would probably, actually, exacerbate this condition.

Speaking of movies, we all know why we watched The Brown Bunny (at least I do, considering I was lying half-dead on the couch after a near all-nighter at the Luxor and Matt put it into the DVD player and pressed "play"), but what I'm now trying to figure out is why I actually watched The Brown Bunny. Call it art if you like, but I had a really difficult time trying to find the "artistic" parts when the guy spent most of the movie driving and the other half, taking a piss and unloading his motorcycle from the back of his van. Got good in the last 3 minutes when there was a sort of Sixth Sense kind of thing going on, but again...the guy really did spend most of the movie driving, and without the promise of the crucial scene in which Chloe Sevigny did you know what, I can't say I would have felt compelled to keep watching past the first 10 minutes of the fucking driving.

Now here's where a truly "artistic" person would criticize me for being your usual American idiot, almost immediately after watching The Brown Bunny I took in the last half of Team America: World Police and found it much more entertaining.

I'm now convinced it was actually a good thing that ye olde publisher refused to publish Only the Lucky, due to the fact that its August release would have introduced the reading populace to a main character named Shiloh and therefore, I fear, spawned message board comments such as, "This book was totally unoriginal--she used Brangelina's baby name!"

After finishing my current, uplifting read about people dying to reach the top of Mt. Everest, I may just go for the record of being the last person in the civilized world to read The Da Vinci Code. Yeah, I've heard it's pretty good.

If I have to read one more time that the birth of Angelina Jolie's baby is the most anticipated since that of Jesus Christ...I will probably just mutter, "Jesus Christ," and keep reading.

Brief Update

I started a new book. I'm not going to say what it's about because every time I do that, I jinx myself into not finishing what I started. I will say it's wry...and that it's supposed to be.

It's not as hot as it was the other day. It will be even hotter than that next week.

I'm almost 31. This may require some rum.

What a gripping life I do lead. Movie?

It's officially hot. What's frightening is that for Vegas, it's not officially hot. Still about 10-20 degrees to go (upward) before it'll be officially hot. Right now it's about 96 degrees outside.

I don't know why people care so much about having their phone calls recorded. To me, it's very similar to getting naked in front of a doctor. It's not an invasion of privacy. It's a procedure. Oh, well, what do I always say? People are stupid. Yeah, they sure are.

The Bottom Line

My royalty statement from July-December 2005 is a fine testament to faltering numbers.

More than 50% (looks closer to 60-70, actually) of the stock that was shipped out to retailers since March of last year has been returned. (Which answers the question, "How come I can never find LLT in Borders or Barnes & Noble anymore?")

I still "owe" Harlequin about $10K of advance money...which at this rate, will take a decade to "earn" and even then, probably won't be "earned" because with all those returns, LLT is basically, as they say, dying on the vine--or the shelf, in this instance. (Which answers the question, "Will it be anytime soon that I don't have to purchase furniture marked 'some assembly required' anymore?")

In six months, 1,153 copies of LLT sold, which on average is about 6 copies a day...which sounds really great except when you stop to consider how many people (even if you only factor women into that) actually live in the United States, Australia and Holland--and how many bookstores are spread across each country, and how many millions of visitors probably grace the pages of Amazon.com daily, if not hourly, if not by the minute and second. (Which answers the question, "Should I stop drinking?")

I am thinking about plagiarizing The Da Vinci Code.

Or writing a book about a fat girl who miraculously meets a male model or prince that doesn't have any sort of a problem with her image and in fact, welcomes it--and so teaches her to love herself through his lovin' of her.

Or going to law school.

I have honed my insect torturing skills with a new device--spray can air freshener! Works like a charm and you don't even have to get that close to the little bastards. The only thing that scares me is imagining that a colony of roaches is peeking through my vents and nudging one another to say, "Look what that bitch is doing to Johnny down there! Let's get her!"

I am having an exterminator come on Tuesday to assure that this will not escalate into a full-scale war between myself and my militia of six-legged boarders.

I'm still thinking about that "Opal Mehta" plagiarism thing. I don't feel bad for the "author" anymore because I think it's total shit that she didn't even write the book before she was given half a million bucks. Can it really be constituted as "writing" if someone else comes up with the idea and then reworks it and polishes it and, um, well...basically "writes" it? Not in my world. In my world, a writer spends all his/her free time either sitting in front of a computer, scribbing on a notepad or developing a story in his/her mind. For example, even though I haven't been typing on a keyboard or scribbling on a notepad much of late, every morning I drive past the Spanish Trail community in Las Vegas, just to inspire myself. I think internally, "That's where my characters in OTL live!" and imagine their lives playing out in one of those pretty houses. That's just me, of course, and some people would say I really don't know shit. But I do know that there is a huge difference between having people critique your work, and having them edit your work, than having them "package" your work.

I agree with something another writer said, too, and I think it was Valerie Frankel, something about this girl only being 17 at the time of her signing and subsequent "writing". I'll be the first to say, quite nonchalantly, that I was writing novels when I was 17, too. I was writing novels when I was 10. I thought they were good at the time and they probably are pretty good, or at least pretty cute and funny for the efforts of a 10 and then 17-year-old girl...but then again, I wouldn't go down to my parents' basement and dig up one of those handwritten manuscripts (on which all the letter i's are dotted with big, round circles instead of dots) and think I should hand one of them over to a publisher. I guess because with age comes maturity and that includes a more mature style of writing--or at least, a more mature style of looking at one's own writing. My juvenile manuscripts probably contain some winning plotlines that would actually be very acceptable these days--because back when I actually wanted to be a young adult writer, exclusively, it was unfortunate that the young adult market was pretty much dead and today it is alive and kicking. I still wouldn't grab one of my juvenile manuscripts and submit it to an editor without first rewriting it with the knowledge of a 30-year-old woman. At this point, I wouldn't even submit anything I wrote when I was 24 or 25 without editing them with the insight I've gleaned from my life experiences since those now (sigh) tender ages.

Of course, when I was 17 I thought I was a prodigy and that everything I was writing was spot-on. Maybe it was. Maybe being young sets you free just as being more experienced (er, old) can hold you back.

I still say--17 or 30 or 90 or whatever--if you don't write it from start to finish (and that includes giving pieces of it to someone else to mark up, and then you rewriting those pieces based on their suggestions), you did not really write it.

It is a beautiful day in Las Vegas, very sunny and bright and warm. I got a dose of religion from some church elders earlier today (it was a work thing) and now feel completely prepared to get my sin on.

Have a nice weekend!

Weighing in on the Plagiarism "Scandal"

Taken from an article in the NYT...

There are echoes in another scene in which one of Ms. Kinsella's characters threatens another, "And we'll tell everyone you got your Donna Karan coat from a discount warehouse shop."

In Ms. Viswanathan's version, Opal threatens another girl, Priscilla, saying, "I'll tell everyone that in eighth grade you used to wear a 'My Little Pony' sweatshirt to school every day."

Ummm...is it me or is that REALLY reaching? Come on, people. That's just fucking retarded. Kind of like the person on Amazon.com who said that this chick's book also contains startling similarities to Ulysses and uh, Paradise Lost.

I would feel bad for this girl, but I'm actually feeling a little worse for myself after finding out her advance was FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS.

I'll fucking copy an entire, international bestseller (make that Bridget Jones's Diary) and submit it word-for-word for that kind of money.

Of course, what would probably happen in my case is that editors would write back: "We're sorry, but this is a little too quirky and original. We're looking for something more mainstream."