As some of you* may be aware, I have been pursuing a dream of becoming a novelist for some time now. It hasn't gone very well so far, but that isn't what I'm whining about today. No, today I'm complaining in advance, because I have realized how tough it would be if I actually succeeded.
Allow me to explain. Two weeks ago, I rashly declared that, in order to compete in Sophie's blog contest, I would write the first thirty pages of a brand new and entirely ridiculous book**. I knew at the time that it was foolish, but one of the prizes was nail polish, and I love nail polish. Besides, I thought it would be a good test, to see if I actually could do it. And, like so many tests in my life, I failed.
Well, not failed, exactly. More like "succeeded in an unencouraging way." True, I didn't quite make it to thirty pages, but I did get up through the second squid attack and the bit with the reality show, and I came up with an awesome tagline for my fake query letter,*** and that's as much as I could hope for, really. But in order to manage that, I spent two weeks losing sleep, ignoring my boyfriend, failing to practice my harp (which is about to be painfully obvious at my lesson today) and welching on my part of the apartment cleaning we had to do this week because our landlord wanted to show it to a potential buyer (oh, joy). So yeah, I managed, but not very well, and it got me thinking: What if I succeeded? What if somewhere in this crazy universe there was a publisher who wanted to pay me for my work, and signed me to a multi-book contract? I certainly couldn't quit my job-- I'm delusional, not crazy, and shoes don't grow on trees. Which leaves me working towards my imaginary deadlines in the same way I spent the last two weeks, burning relationships and the midnight oil. Do I really want to do that?
Well, yeah. Who needs people when you can have the immortal fame and glory that comes from being the author of Land Squid? (Not to mention its sequel: Land Squid II: Let's Get Kraken)
*And by "some of you" I mean "anyone who has been within ten feet of me for the last fifteen years."
**Land Squid!
***"Some days you get the calamari. Other days the calamari gets you."
4 comments:
oh my gosh, when you told me the title of the sequel, I thought you were saying Land Squid 2: let's get cracking. I didn't really get it, but assumed it was a lack of cultural literacy on my part and didn't want to show how dumb I was by saying I didn't get it.
I thought it might have to do with land squids being invertebrate and thus you couldn't really "crack" anything like bone, etc, so I was guessing the title was ironic.
Anyway, now that I see the spelling "Kraken", now I get it. :)
Karen C.
PS - I probably shouldn't have admitted all that.
That's okay-- it was probably just your natural goodness preventing you from believing that I would make such a terrible pun. (Lesson: I will.)
I know that nightmare: the land squid Perseus you and Perseus you and you can't get away...
Dad
Theseus my same nightmare.
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