Chapter Six

You gotta ask yourself a question: Do I feel lucky?

As I mentioned earlier, the pace at which the publishing industry moves is glacial.

Having come from the advertising industry, where everything is a Jack Baueresque emergency, the whole process felt like a root canal in a time warp. If I was now in the club, then let’s GO! Give me another topic, agree in advance to publish it, and I’ll write a book about it.

Send me to Afghanistan.

Send me to the presidential debates.

Send me backstage of American Idol.

Send me somewhere, and let’s get something accomplished!

As if by divine providence, and email arrived from my agent. This was fortunate for both us, because I was about to start bugging him, and… well, we all know what a sweetheart he is to begin with:

P,
Time for a re-write on your humorous history book. Your ridiculous overuse of ellipses and passive verbs must be addressed. We might get lucky and sell it as a follow-up to Fries.

Dude,
I’m all over it. Any specific thoughts or direction? I know the humorous parts can be improved, and the pop culture references can be updated, and converting the verbs sounds like a really party. What else?

P,
Sorry. After getting your note I re-read my email, and see my failure to utilize sufficient pronouns. Let me further clarify. I, the agent, want YOU, the writer, to do the re-write. The word “we” was referring to getting lucky and selling it. Sorry for the confusion.

My sweet agent’s bedside manner aside, it was the exact distraction I needed. My writing to screwing off ratio was getting out of kilter, and my bride was beginning to suspect that she and I had different definitions of “full time.”

For nine full-time weeks I edited, and converted verbs, and tried to think of pop culture references that didn’t include Lindsey, Brittany, or Paris. (Which is surprisingly difficult to do when you’re writing a book about lessons learned from history. What could possibly offer more insight into the 21st Century than the purpose-driven lives of these cherubs?).

I’d morphed into a more polished wordsmith over the years, and thus applied all my new tricks of the trade to the manuscript. The end result was a work I felt offered more fun per page than my book currently in the pipeline to publication. Wait until my agent sees it! Our Best Friend Forever status will come to fruition yet!

A clear and present danger--

About this time in the process I found myself talking over beers with a good friend who ain’t been right since Al Gore invented the internet. You probably know the type—the guy who can no longer accept anyone else’s advice on anything electronic, because the ability to do research via the web has enlightened them with an angry expertise. Anyway, during our conversation I mentioned that my first book would hit the streets in the spring, and he looked at me like I’d just bragged about my new video game, Pong.

“Why would you mess with an old economy publishing company? You could sign with a print-on-demand, web-based company—they pay higher royalties.”

“Interesting,” I said. “But I think I need the marketing horsepower of the old school method. You need to remember that no one’s ever heard of me.”

“So?” he replied.

“How many print-on-demand books have you bought from authors you’ve never heard of?”

“None,” he replied. “But that’s not the point. You’ve got to connect to the future, Bro. Besides, discussing books is a moot point anyway. Communications are moving to the blog.”

“The blog? How do you figure?”

“It’s the 21st Century, man. People don’t have time for books. Blogs are the way for people of similar interest to connect. Like, if you’re into photography, you can log onto a photography blog, and find out what’s up.”

“Are these bloggers good writers?”

“It’s about ideas, Man. Not punctuation and grammar.”

“Well, how do you know if the blog writer knows what he’s talking about?”

“Dude, it’s interactive. If he writes something wrong, you flame his ass.”

“How does the blogger get paid?” I asked.

“They don’t, Dude. The web culture is about relationships.”

“So this, uh, photography blog writer spends his own money and time to post his ideas on the web, but if he makes a mistake, guys like you are waiting to flame his ass.”

“Exactly.”

“Okay, one more thing-- it sounds like the point of using blogs is to go to a blog about a topic you already know about. So what’s the point? To insult someone from the safety of your own keyboard?”

“No, Dawg. Blogs are the perfect way to learn about something new. Like, let’s say—well, you don’t know crap about technology, so let’s pick an easy one: Digital Cameras. If you want to learn about them, you do a search for a blog on Digital Cameras.”

“Okay, and when I get there, how do I know if the guy is an expert?”

“If he isn’t, you’ll see where people shoot him down.”

“How do I know the people shooting him down are experts?”

“Dude, you ain’t ready for blogs.”

Truer words have never been spoken. But, if people as bright as my friend think the blog is going to encompass something as vast as “communications,” I thought I’d give it a look. Please note: Although my opinion about blogs later changed (thinking and learning can do that) at this point I had no understanding of them. The description of the events below is accurate, chronologically correct, and, well, really happened.

Per his suggestion, my first search demanded “Blog on Digital Cameras.” Google returned 5, 900,000 websites which, quite honestly, is more information than I need.

I poked through a few of the sites listed on the first page, and it appeared the blog-- as a concept-- has migrated a bit: Based on my buddy’s description, I envisioned bloggers being writers who felt passionately about the topic of digital cameras and new digital photography techniques.

Not so—I fear the “freight train” called the capitalistic market has derailed that trend, and the HazMat crews haven’t even begun the clean-up. In reality, all of the “digital camera blogs” I found were nothing more than professional product reviews, copy-and-pasted into websites that just-so-happened to sell the products being reviewed. I wondered if anyone has informed Inventor Gore that the previously-socialist blog is drifting to the right.

I decided, however, against prematurely jumping to judgment concerning the almighty blog. Digital cameras are a product for sale, so it’s quite natural for capitalism to elbow its way into the ring.

I decided that to be fair to “the blog philosophy,” I needed to search some different topics. Specifically, ideas—after all, if my dream of paying the bills as a communicator of ideas is doomed from the outset, I want to know who these leftist book-assassins were, and if they can be stopped.

So, in order to be impartial, Google search number two was for “Blog on Minimum Wage Jobs.” This is the same topic that yielded my first book deal, so it seemed like a good topic to search.

Google responded with 207,000 hits.

I felt pretty good, discovering that only 207,000 other people were exploring the same general idea. The rub, of course, lay in the question, “What did they have to say?”

I poked around, and found a blog by a gentleman who opined on three of the minimum wage jobs (from hell) he’d worked. Eureka! I’d found my competition! The average American “consumer of ideas” could purchase my ideas for $24.95, plus tax, or delve into his blog for free!

Hungrily, anxiously, I drilled down into the content, and discovered he did have a way with words:

* “Minimum wage jobs are exploitive to the tilt(sic)!”

* “I never saw so many smokers in my life!”

* “You are not appreciated for your work or your creativity.”

Did my insights surpass these? Were my musings worth so much more money than the seductive price of free? I pressed on, discovering a category within the topic he felt so passionately about that it generated the use of all caps:

* Just about everybody who worked minimum wage jobs had HORRIBLE ORAL HYGENE. I don’t mean bad, I mean HORRIBLE. Broken and missing teeth, gingivitis was rampant, my only guess is that alcohol, tobacco and poor diet along with a completely loss of hope of every (sic) achieving something in life had been made representational in their mouth. These people where branded for life, good luck getting a corporate job with a mouth that looks like it belongs in that of a wild animal!

For the love of Love in the Time of Cholera, how can a for-profit writer compete for mind-share when not-for-profit writers are out there offering this sort of material free?!!

As a final nail in my ego’s coffin, he hit me with his wrap-up, engaging his fellow thinkers on why minimum wage jobs simply weren’t for him:

* Minimum wage jobs and my personality just don’t jive. I have no problem telling somebody that they are wrong, standing my ground and even telling them off if needed. I have a very direct managing method, no bullshit, no stories, good or bad, just tell me what is going on.

Stunned and more than a little humbled, I searched again, this time for a blog on “turning thirty.” The first manuscript I ever wrote followed this coming-of-age plotline, but it never made it to the publishing finish line. Perhaps the reason for my failure lay out there, in cyberspace, where a brilliant-but-free writer covered the topic with greater humor, sensitivity, and insight. My “turning thirty” search yielded 189,000 hits.

When undertaking a task like a coming of age memoir, even the boldest writer can be intimidated by the Shakespearian load of potential material. Here lies a topic that cries out for the unearthing of the underbelly of angst and optimism, regret and hope, naiveté and wisdom, light and dark, fear and loathing— My failure to achieve publication clearly indicates I failed in my quest, but what of these bloggers?

Would their musings please the gods of rhetoric? Here is one “Opening Sentence” that caught my eye:

Many females -- especially if they’re single and don’t want to be, or they’re in a relationship where they don’t know where things are going, or if they haven’t accomplished something in particular they wanted to do -- look at the prospect of turning 30 and think they should have done something…bigger…than what they have.

Dizzied, I lurched onward to another site:

I know persons twice my age who appear not to understand how anyone could possibly be disturbed at turning thirty.

“Onward!” I cried, “Upward!”

I prepared to read the next page when a voice came from over my shoulder.

“This section is mean. Why are you being mean? Your rule has always been to not make fun of individual people.”

It was my much-better half, reminding me of the obvious.

“Wait,” I explained. “These are hand-selected targets. I’ve looked at a million blogs so far, and most have worse writing than this. But! But! But, I eliminated any that were written by minorities, Christians, over-weight people, immigrants, poets or moms. That eliminated, like, 80% of the blogs! These are the people who need it! Who deserve it!”

“You’re still being mean.”

“But honey, these people are claiming to be writers. Some of them even have a banner on their site proclaiming ‘I support the Writers Guild of America on Strike.’ They need to be made fun of. They want it!”

“How do you figure? They’re doing something they enjoy. They believe in themselves. Who are you to laugh at them?”

“Hon, suppose I wake up tomorrow and declare myself good-looking and buff? And I start taking pictures of myself in a Speedo, and posting the shots on the web? What would people do?

“Puke?”

“Yeah, that, too, but they’d laugh at me, because I’m not a model, no matter how much I wish or think I am. You don’t get to call yourself a writer just because you own a keyboard.”

“You’re being mean-spirited, and it’s beneath you.”

Even as the words exited her mouth I considered starting a blog about spouses who have no idea who they are married to, but thought better of it. Plus, she made a good point— and you have to be married to know how quickly that can shut you up.

Big Brother ain’t so bad. I love him, actually.

I wept with gratitude when the new cover design arrived from the publisher. My tears of relief Gatlin-gunned out my eyeballs, knocked my computer off the table, and scared my 15-year old Golden so bad he pissed the rug. But I didn’t care—my baby no longer looked like Rosemary’s.

Sure, it didn’t look like it possessed the shared DNA of Brad and Angelina, but it was, uh, good enough for me to clean up dog pee with a smile on my face.

So, in my mind, the work was done: Agent sold the book. Book was edited and designed. Cover was done. I’d managed to find and submit a photo where I didn’t look completely like Shrek. Time to start talking about the next book, right?

I mean, the process ain’t that frickin’ hard once you’re in the club: Send manuscript to my agent. Agent sells to my publisher (with slamdunk ease). Publisher reads, I format, they typeset, design a cover—hell, it might come out on the very heels of my first book. The final step was as easy as attaching the manuscript to an email, and crafting a note to my agent to sell him on my marketing insights:

Dude,
I finished the re-write, and the manuscript is attached. I think you’re going to be pleased. Since we’re on track to publish Fries in April, what do you think about pitching the publisher on the history manuscript for an October release? This book lends itself to political discussion, and since October is a month when every radio and TV station is starving for political pundits, perhaps we could lie our way in the door, and pretend like I have a clue. That’d sell some books, no?

P,
Please, seriously, get a job. Find something to do that distracts you from emailing me. But before you do, read your contract. There are some helpful hints in there.

Dude,
I lost my copy of the contract. What do I need to know?

P,
First, you need to know that you are an idiot for losing your copy of the contract. Second, that the publisher has 60 days after the publication of Fries to review your next book. That means that on day 59 they will call me, and say they need more time. We’ll go back and forth, and blah, blah, money, blah, blah, more money. I talk, they talk. Eventually, something happens, and maybe someone publishes your next book, and all this takes at least a year. Does this make sense to you?

Dude,
It took a while, but I but I found a translator. Like you he’s a grumpy, old, get-off-my-lawn-type guy who served as a dog trainer for Michael Vick. He recommends I email you less.

My cologne? Why, it’s Deep Woods Off, of course.

Like most writers, I have to write to stay sharp.

This is partly due to my tendency to sand down the pointy tips of my brain cells with beer, and partially due to my fear that if I don’t write to maintain my writing style I’ll revert to ending every sentence with an exclamation point!

Hey, being an advertising copywriter for fifteen years is a hard poison to choke down (!), but once it’s in you it’s like that little alien gestating that dude’s chest—it’s always looking for a way back to the surface!

But what the hell could I write, stuck here in the perpetual publishing holding pattern? I’d finished the re-write my agent directed, and I was officially at my wit’s end!

But, Prioleau, you say—there are lots of ways you can put your writing talents to use!

Volunteer to write press releases for charities!

Help your friends with businesses by writing newsletters for them!

Write letters to Congress about issues that trouble you!

Create a Blog, and write about whatever you want!

Offer to write for a community newspaper, and probably get paid!

Yes, these things are all true.

And I could also start a website featuring my photo, home address, and pornographic cartoons of Mohammed, but I won’t.

Why?

Because I’ve learned from the past: If you draw pictures of Mohammad, crazy people will kill you.

If you write a press release, you become the defacto volunteer for ensuring it runs on the front page of the daily paper.

If you offer to write a newsletter for a friend’s business, you’ll be provided stellar story ideas like how his business offers really, really, really good service—not like the other companies, but REALLY good, and with a smile, too.

If you write Congress about the importance of law abiding citizens retaining the right to keep and bear arms, a seventeen year-old intern will note “gun nut” in an Excel spreadsheet and file the letter in a shredder.

And if you write a blog, well, let’s be honest—you’re wasting your time to the tilt!

I needed a challenge.

Then, out of the blue, an opportunity. There in my in-box sat an email from the editor of Charleston Magazine, a very nice, high-end publication read by just about everyone in the city. The editor, Darcy, always offered fun and creative assignments:

Prioleau,
I need a piece on the Southern male and metrosexuality. You know, a guy who might get his nails manicured in the afternoon, then be in a duck blind the following morning. You available?

I responded quickly. Here’s a look at the piece that I wrote for her:

Charleston, SC-- I recently encountered a “first” in my life: I turned down a writing assignment for Charleston Magazine. I didn’t want to turn it down… but integrity demanded it.

Why? Because the editor asked me to write a piece about Southern men who have evolved into metrosexuals. “Guys,” she offered, “who might get a pedicure on Friday night, and be in the duck blind Saturday morning.” Regrettably, I had to respond that I couldn’t write the piece because, well, such men don’t exist.

The editor emailed back, “Point taken. Write what you want.”

So… the truth of the matter-- There are perfectly-nice dudes who live in the South and pamper themselves to the point of metrosexuality, but they simply don’t qualify as Southern men.

They are men, of course, but that strange anomaly referred to as Southern men?

No dice. They don’t fish, they don’t hunt, and they don’t follow college football. They don’t order sweet tea, appreciate Skynyrd, or drive pickups. And I can virtually guarantee that no man with a pedicure has ever gutted a deer, used duct tape as a band-aid, or lectured a teenager on the importance of turning into a skid.

The truth of the matter is this: You cannot be a Southern man and a metrosexual. South is south, and personally-pampered is personally-pampered, and never the twain shall meet. A delightfully hilarious example of a man who tried to be both was John Kerry who, during his run for the White House, stated, “Who among us doesn’t love NASCAR?” Dear God, Senator, did you actually say that?

If that wasn’t enough, he responded to a hunter’s question about deer hunting, “"I go out with my trusty 12-gauge double-barrel and crawl around on my stomach. I track and move and decoy and play games and try to outsmart them…That's hunting,"

Uh, no, Senator-- that might be what happens in an X-Box video game called I Wish I Could Carry at Least One Southern State, but deer hunting it ain’t.

A Southern man is not defined by his political opinions, wealth, education, color, or profession. He can be a plumber, a physician, a farmer, or a real estate mogul… rich, or broke… fat, or fit… funny, or dull… black or white… football, or basketball. The socioeconomic and racial details mean nothing.

What matters-- what defines you-- are the things you connect to, and respect: Guns. Chopping wood. Hunting. Farming. Tobacco. Whiskey. Fistfights. Hand-tooled leather. Honor. Snake chaps. Buck Knifes. Cordless tools. Personal responsibility. The love of a good woman. Chainsaws. Beef Jerky. Western saddles. And the smells of campfire smoke, gunpowder, and wet dogs.

The uber-Metrosexual in today’s pop culture is George Clooney. He is handsome, fit, famous, wealthy, single, and loves to flaunt his comfort with the metrosexual stereotype. When interviewed by yet another fawning reporter, he is more than willing to state that he enjoys the girly lifestyle: Spa treatments, facials, back waxing, ear and nose hair trimming, manicures, pedicures, and herbal wraps.

And I say, “Good on you, Mr. Clooney! You’ve found what makes you happy, so pursue away.” It’s not that Southern men never engage in these activities. My wife Heidi is a merciless reaper when it comes to my nose and ear hairs; I got a back waxing one time when I crashed a motorcycle wearing a t-shirt; I manicure my fingernails with my teeth at least once a year when my alma mater Auburn plays Alabama. And rich Southern men no doubt treat themselves to the “finer” things in life: A personal jet, a driver, a dog trainer, a property manager, big parties with lots of friends… that’s fine stuff by any standards.

But paying someone else to cut their toe nails? Not happening.

To a Southern man, the pursuit of happiness can be summed up in a single moment in time which I once experienced personally: It was an early fall afternoon after a dove hunt when several of us were drinking beer around the tailgate of one of the hunter’s pickups. Someone had brought a battery-powered television, and college football played in the background while we lied about how many doves we’d shot.

Fifty yards away another group was doing the same, but instead of football their group was talking to the background sounds of Sweet Home, Alabama. I took a moment and thanked Jesus that he had allowed me, a sinner, to be a part of the moment.

For good or ill, being a Southern man is something your father passes on to you. Some connect to it and treasure the gift, while others reject it and migrate elsewhere. One’s not better than the other… it is what it is.

As for me, every time I hear Dixie or the National Anthem, I thank my Pop for passing along the goose bumps.

Maybe that’s why I write…

For a couple of weeks following the publication of the article, a great number of friends and acquaintances complimented me on it. The words most often used were “funny, and so true!”

Perhaps that’s why I’m so driven to write: Some writers are driven because they are storytellers, and love the challenge of keeping a reader’s interest; some feel a call to expose injustice and oppression; some use their writing to excise their personal demons. Me? Perhaps my writing is inspired by what I perceive to be insights into experiences we humans share, and I want to get my perspective into public eye—for those who think a bit like me, it’s reassurance they are not alone.

For those who think I’m a gun-nut, religious zealot, right-wing, Southern redneck, it’s to let them know that even a gun-nut, religious zealot, right-wing, Southern redneck possesses a sense of humor and a functioning brain. And if that’s the case, maybe, just maybe—we can all agree we each have idiosyncrasies and regional quirks, and if we all have these things, then maybe we can come together as a united nation: Red and Blue States, PETA and the Beef Industry, Labor and Management, Osama Bin Laden and the 1st Marine Division-- all living and laughing and loving to the tilt!

Or, maybe it’s just because I think my stupid opinions matter.

Who knows?

Nah, this is why I write…

Another interesting discovery surfaced today. It happened when I plodded out to the mailbox, and there-- there among the stacks of bills, the forty-seven Pottery Barn catalogs, the twice-weekly requests from the NRA for money, and the John Wayne movie library I’d ordered from Columbia House (don’t ask)-- lay an inconspicuous looking envelope with my publisher’s return address. Fearing it might be a slander lawsuit launched by the hapless book cover designer, I ripped it open with heavy heart.

My advance.

Only an analogy can suffice: Do you remember those years when you knew for a fact that Santa didn’t exist, but you faked excitement for fear that your non-belief might negatively impact your intake of loot?

That’s what the getting-published process was beginning to resemble—you know, me acting all excited for the benefit of the publisher, but really just wanting to say, “Hey, let’s cut to the chase—send a Brinks truck of money, a Pulitzer, and a contract for the next four books, okay?”

Now, suppose that amongst all that Santa disbelief, you wandered downstairs at 3am on Christmas Eve and there was the fat man himself, eating the cookies and using your Dad’s special carving knife to clean the reindeer crap from the bottom of his boots.

There’s his bag!

There’s his pipe!

The son-of-a-bitch even has a twinkle in his eye!

The magic is back!

You are a born-again Santa Clausian!

That’s what it’s like to get your advance.

Yes, it’s low. So low, in fact, the actual number will remain cloaked in mystery. So low that aspiring writers don’t want to know the number. And so low that, well, getting paid only 15% of that teeny-tiny number is a pretty good reason for my agent to treat me the way he does.

But, hey— Screw that! I got paid! There’s no turning back. My publisher really is going to print my book, and ship them to bookstores, and the Above 100 IQ crowd will be able to judge my writing without any further interference by clients and agents and editors!

And if I make 10% of every book sold, and we sell, say—say, four or five million copies at $24.95, then… then… then I’d say this hoping-to-be-a-book manuscript that you’re reading will halt abruptly and the end will pretty much suck, because it’s hard to type when you’ve got a tumbler of Cabo Wabo in one hand, and a fly rod in the other.