Tomorrow I'm sallying forth down to St. Olaf College, where I went to school for my undergrad degree. I'm going to speak to a beginning creative writing class about, I don't know, actually. I guess they're going to ask me about getting published and stuff like that. Which is cool. I could talk about that for hours, although I already envision relating my publishing history for the next fifty years or so, time and time again, until I start making stuff up just to make it more interesting. Don't be fooled, established authors! You might think they're your fans, but they really just want to know "how you did it" so they can get published too and smack your books off the shelf with their own far superior books and maybe move into your house and abscond with your dog and your cool TV and then there you are, asking THEM how to re-enter the publishing world in today's challenging market and lo, the vicious cycle continues until everyone, EVERYONE on this planet is published, and no one reads, and everything is relegated to the Slush Pile of Crappiness.
My old roommate Noah is going with me to St. Olaf for the hell of it. He's doing that write a novel in the month of November thing. I can already see him eying me beedily, biding his time until he asks me what my agent's name is again. Should be a fun trip!
5 comments:
Well, I'm awake and ready to seize the day. Actually, I've been up since 5 Am after a mere 3 hours of sleep. You should have seen the look of unbridled astonishment on the cat's face when he discovered me awake at such an hour. Now he is hovering, worried that I've somehow procured a real job and won't be around for an average of twenty-three hours a day to hang out with.
So, in other words, I shouldn't ask you to share your publishing secrets? The only one I've heard that works is to sleep with an editor... maybe this only applies to female writers. Just curious, did you ever have Heynen as a prof?
I was just being dramatic. I don't mind sharing my secrets. The Suicide Collectors was my fifth book, so just write four books over a 15 yr. period, revise them a lot, and then maybe you'll sell that 5th book. Easy, right?
Yep, Jim was the main (if not only) fiction writing teacher at Olaf when I was there. He taught me much! Good man.
And no, I've never slept with anyone in the publishing industry.
YET!
Heynen was my fave too... advanced creative nonfiction.
As for the five novels in 15yrs... I'll get right on it. A dent is a dent, right?
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