… unfortunately, I got news.

I’ve written before about how a major Canadian publisher asked me to submit a proposal for my book. It’s been two months since I dropped it off and “Mr. Somebody” just got back to me by email. His response was “no.” For those who crave the juicy details, I’ve included his email and my own response below.

Oddly enough, I feel pretty good about the whole thing. I’ve been reading Seven King’s book on writing, which happens to be called On Writing. It took King almost ten years to publish his first story, so I can hardly be disappointed with my own minor setback. (This pump-me-up comparison would work better though if I could forget that King was only about eight years old when he first started writing — yikes!) Still, the truth is, I’m pretty stoked that I even captured Mr. Somebody’s interest in the first place. I know my book’s far from perfect. In the last few weeks, I’ve been cleaning it up. So far, I’ve only submitted the book to Mr. Somebody. In the New Year, I’ll submit it across the board. Wish me luck!

_______________________________________

Hi Bruce,

I looked over all of the material that you delivered to me and have now had the chance to review your proposal with our editorial board.Unfortunately, we came to the conclusion that this project didn’t fit our list, so I am passing on it. I’ll send everything back in the mail to you. Do you want me to send it to you at xxx? Thank you for thinking of us, and best wishes with your book.

Sincerely,

“Mr. Somebody”

_______________________________________

Hi “Mr. Somebody,”

Thank you for considering my proposal. I really appreciate you taking the time to give an unproven writer a chance.

It’s not necessary to return the proposal. Please feel free to dispose of it as you see fit.

I realize that a person in your position hardly has time to deal with signed authors (let alone rejected ones) but should you have a moment, I’d love to grab a coffee or lunch with you and pick your brain on my proposal’s pluses and minuses. I’m also in the early planning stages of a new book (a non-fiction career book) which I’d be delighted to discuss with you.

If you’re unavailable (or if that sounds like a huge pain in the neck), I completely understand and look forward to meeting you again one day in the future.

Best,

Bruce Freedman

A friend of mine got married three Sundays ago. The wedding was a lavish affair at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. I know this friend from my Hong Kong days. I was excited for his wedding. Many of my friends were flying in all the way from Asia.

But then instead of deciding to simply go to New York for a fun-filled wedding weekend, I thought this would also be a good opportunity to visit my cousin Michelle, who lives in Baltimore. So I decided to fly to Baltimore on Friday and make my way by train to New York on Sunday.

But then instead of deciding it would be enough to simply go to New York on Sunday after visiting my cousin in Baltimore on Friday, I agreed that it would be fun to drive with my cousin and her friends to Washington, DC on Saturday afternoon, and then spend Saturday night in DC and then take the train to New York on Sunday morning.

But then instead of deciding it would be enough to simply go to New York on Sunday after visiting my cousin in Baltimore on Friday, and driving to DC on Saturday afternoon, and spending Saturday night there, and then taking the train to New York on Sunday morning, I decided that Monday morning might be a good day for me to try and wrangle up a US publisher.

But then you can probably guess where this story is headed.

Regular readers of my irregular blog will remember that about six weeks ago, I bumped into a prominent Canadian publisher who asked me to submit a proposal for my book. I wanted my proposal to stand out from the pack so I prepared a small gift basket, full of rejuvenating creams and other anti-aging remedies. In the basket, I included a CD of my video, a stack of bookmarks and of course the proposal itself. Attached to the basket was a handwritten card. The card read as follows: (more…)

There’s an excellent short story by Stephen King (or maybe somebody else) about a writer who runs out of things to say. I woke up this morning feeling the same way. I’ve got nothing left to say. I’m out of words. I’m out of opinions. I’m done.

This morning I started writing a post about the strength of the Canadian dollar. It was not coming from a creative place. It was coming from:

1. A strategic place: I’ve got fifteen years of experience in global financial markets that is not being utilized as I write about penises.
2. An angry place: I’ve lost a fortune from those US dollar assets that I did not convert when I moved to Canada.

About midway through, I discarded the entry; I’ve got no real desire to write about currencies. This is not the first time I’ve deleted a blog.

The simple truth is I’m not blogging enough. I only average 1-2 entries a week. A friend of mine who runs the successful website www.pets.ca, has suggested I increase my productivity. He’s probably correct. Most popular bloggers blog at least four times a week.

But most prolific bloggers don’t exactly craft their words. Many of my entries take a long time to write. My recent posting about social responsibility,”We all pl-eh a part ” took four days to complete. It’s 2,000 words long! Not exactly the kind of thing slackers want to read on their lunch break. (more…)

You know the feeling you get, when something good is happening and you don’t want to jeopardize it by doing anything that could throw it off track. That’s kind of what I’m feeling right now. At the same time, when I started this website, I undertook to be honest and put myself out there — 100 percent. I need to get the events of the last two weeks off my chest, especially since they could prove to be a turning point.

Three weeks ago, I blogged about how I was planning to take these promotional bookmarks of mine and start targeting publishers. The idea was — instead of distributing them outside Chapters — to start distributing them outside publishers’ offices. I’m up to 6,000 visitors now on my website, and averaging over one hundred new visitors a day. I figured it was time to see if I could get noticed by the industry.

People are always asking me if I’ve found a publisher for my book. I get a lot of strange looks when I tell them not only have I not gotten a publisher, I have not even approached a publisher. It’s crystal clear to me that I have been doing the right thing, but not everybody has understood my logic.

Two weeks ago, while disbursing bookmarks outside a publisher’s office, I met somebody who did understand my logic, somebody important within the industry. We chatted for a while; I told him my story. He liked my story. And then that somebody, let’s call him “Mr. Somebody,” asked me if I had approached his company. I told him “no” and I told him why. As I explained my reasoning, he nodded and broke into a big smile. And that’s when he asked me to submit a proposal.

This is a big deal. Most top publishers don’t accept unsolicited submissions. They certainly don’t accept them from non-agented writers who’ve never published anything. So I spent all of last week working on the proposal. My proposal follows a standard industry format and essentially argues the case for my book. It’s about twenty pages long.

Enclosed within the proposal is several chapters from my book. Choosing them has not been easy. I’ve barely looked at my manuscript since April 2007. Partly because the book is finished and I’ve been focusing on my blog. But part of the reason, to be perfectly frank, is I’d kind of fallen out of love with the book.

Not to say I’d fallen out of love with writing. Rather, I’ve felt my writing has improved. The manuscript needs editing, but I haven’t wanted to edit it. There’s a lot to edit! Moreover, I started writing the book only a week before my marriage ended. It came from a angrier, more aggressive place, and I simply haven’t been in the mood to go there.

But as I worked on the proposal, I found myself rereading the manuscript and enjoying it. I may not be in an angry place anymore but I can still appreciate the book for its humor. I got excited. And I fell back in love with the book. I cut a chapter, not because it’s bad but because it simply didn’t belong. It felt good to cut it. And I chose five chapters — thirty-five pages — to include in my submission. I edited them for flow.

I also expanded the title of the book. I think it works better now:

_________________________________________

You Don’t Look Young for your Age
…and other revelations you might not want to hear

_________________________________________

I submitted the proposal on Friday. I prepared a small gift basket, full of rejuvenating creams, wrinkle removers and other anti-aging remedies.* Mr. Somebody personally came out to accept it. In the basket, I included a CD with a rough cut of my video, a stack of bookmarks and of course the proposal itself. Attached to the basket, was a handwritten card. The card read as follows:

_________________________________________

Dear Mr. Somebody,

Here’s hoping you like the proposal. And don’t worry. I never would have given you this joke basket unless I thought you truly did look young for your age.

_________________________________________

* I actually stole one of the night creams for my own use, leaving Mr. Somebody with an empty box. After one week of slaving away on that proposal, I figured I probably need the cream more than he does.

I’ve been in a bit of a fog over the last few weeks — anxious, troubled, uneasy. My internal momentum and positivity are being tested. To be fair, I continue to make progress: I finished the video (again) this morning. It’ll be uploaded in about a week. I’ve distributed some two hundred bookmarks outside of Random House and McClelland & Stewart’s offices. My website visits continue to grow — 3,900 unique visitors as of yesterday. And I did another stand-up routine, this time at the Laugh Resort. It went well, and no, I did not talk about my penis.

Nonetheless, I feel discouraged. All these other activities are taking place at the expense of my writing. And the simple truth is, nothing gives me as much satisfaction as writing. Every time I finish an article or a blog, I feel a sense of purpose.

But there is something bigger gnawing away at me. With the exception of an article that was reprinted on One Degree’s website, I’ve yet to publish any of my writings in a magazine. I’ve yet to earn even one penny from my new career. In fact, I’ve been so obsessed with my promotional activities, I haven’t actually submitted an article to a magazine since I sent “My Fact is my Fiction” to The American Scholar in late August.

Part of the “problem” is that there’s no gun to my head. No pressure to write about politics or the local social scene or the danger of too much sunshine. I’m fortunate that my previous career left me comfortable enough to afford myself some time to “do it right.” I tell myself that I didn’t quit a lucrative job in finance, writing about shit I didn’t care about, to get low-paying freelance work, writing about shit I don’t care about. So, I write what I want. No pressure here.

This is what I tell myself. But the truth is: I’m not sure it’s true. This holier-than-thou stuff smells of bullshit. There’s no escaping the pressures of the material world. I spent fifteen years working in it. I’m still living in it. It was a big part of me. I may not need the money — right now — but I do need its validation. I need to publish some of my articles.

I learned a lot of things in the material world. For instance, a large part of my job as an investment analyst was writing lengthy research reports — the thicker the better. In the investment industry, research is mostly a marketing gimmick. When you walk into a meeting and put down that thick research report and it makes a loud “thunk,” then you clearly know your stuff. I cannot tell you how many times I plagiarized myself, copying sections of an earlier report in order to fatten up an argument.

I bring this up because, in the same spirit of blatant commercialism, I am reposting a portion of an earlier blog. That blog perfectly sums up my current state of mind. (You can read the whole blog here if you’re so inclined).

________________________________________________________________

When I was in my early teens, I was a nerd – although I begged to differ. I liked my science fiction, I liked my Dungeons and Dragons and I liked my comic books. My friend and I hung out at a local comic book store after school, where we talked superheroes and took art lessons; I daydreamed of becoming an artist. My favorite comics were The Uncanny X-Men (but only in the John Byrne & Paul Smith days) and Daredevil (but only in the Frank Miller days).

The bulk of my allowance went to my collection. I read the comics carefully, never folding back the pages and always taking care not to crease the spine. I then placed them in plastic bags and stored them upright in special storage boxes. I rarely let my brothers read them; I wanted to keep the “books” – as we serious collectors called them – in mint condition. The boxes were stored in a cupboard, which I locked with a padlock. My brothers still occasionally outsmarted me. Once I came home from school to discover the oldest had gotten access to my collection, by unscrewing the hinges that secured the door.

My father was never impressed with my hobby. He thought it was a waste of time and money. I repeatedly tried to convince him that it was a “smart” hobby. “Comics are good investments,” I claimed. But he never bought into it: “You say your collection is a good investment, but I’ve never seen you sell a comic book. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Each year, there was a comic convention in the city. Collectors and retailers would come from around North America and set up booths at the exhibition center selling comics, posters and other paraphernalia. I decided to take some books to the convention and prove to my father that my collection was valuable. I planned to scope out the players and sell a few to the highest bidder, playing them against each other. But I was more than a little overwhelmed by the crowds. This was my first – and last – convention and it was more popular than a Batman costume at an S&M party on Halloween.

After ninety minutes of walking up and down the aisles, I finally approached a stand. I had brought my ten best books. The owner refused to bid on my comics individually saying that’s not “the way it’s done.” He offered me fifty dollars for the lot and I “held out” for sixty dollars – about fifteen dollars more than I had paid for them. The collection had a street value of around two hundred and fifty dollars. I had never negotiated for anything before, and was easily outmaneuvered. I was just a pimply-faced nerd. He on the other hand was a much savvier, pimply-faced nerd. I felt dejected and disheartened as I left the exhibition. I had sold the best of my collection for much less than I had expected. I spent a third of my profits at Burger King on the way home.

That day essentially marked the end of my childhood hobby. I lost interest afterwards and within a few months had stopped reading comics altogether. The irony is that my childhood friend, who continued collecting, today generates a significant income from trading books. His collection today is easily worth several hundred thousand dollars.

_________________________________________________________________

There’s a voice — my father’s voice — which is also my voice. And it’s the voice of a large part of society. It’s the voice that says until I get published, what I am doing is not worthwhile. It’s the voice that asks how long I will keep doing this? It’s the voice that is getting increasingly frustrated with my lack of progress — commercially speaking. Nothing happens fast enough for this voice.

I don’t want to sell my comic books before their time. Not again. Not when this direction feels so much more right than any other path I’ve taken in my life. Not when I’ve just turned forty. It may be a cliché but we really do only get one chance to live our lives. Age makes that so much more apparent. Does that make sense? Perhaps. At the same time, it doesn’t quieten the voice. But at least now I have a second voice to counter it.

You won’t be hearing from me over the next ten days. I’m headed to Burning Man. I won’t have access to the internet, phone or even electricity. I will however have access to games, religious worship, rare and exotic creatures, sporting events and overall some very down-to-earth people. Hmmm, come to think of it, even if I did have access to the internet, you would still not be hearing from me.

I’ve just returned from the hair dresser. I had my hair dyed. I’ve never dyed my hair before, but I figured, “I’m going to Burning Man. Everybody’s going to be in costume. It has to be done.” I was thinking of dying my hair silver but got talked into blue — except only on the top. What do you think of it? The sides are gray and brown, the top is blue. Personally, I think it looks like somebody dumped a bowl of blueberries on my head. Even my hairdresser seemed to deflate when he saw the final result. I would be a lot sadder if not for the fact that judging from the pictures I’ve seen of Burning Man— even with this friggin’ hairdo — I’ll still be the equivalent of a nerdy accountant.

Until my departure, I’ll also be busy polishing up an article. I finally got a bite from a magazine I queried. The American Scholar wants to see “My Fact is my Fiction.” It’s great news for me. These guys are extremely well respected, having published the likes of Albert Einstein, Robert Frost and John Updike. Publishing with them would be a real feather in my cap. The only problem is that in my query letter, I wrote that my article is 3,000 words — their minimum stipulated size. The article is actually 2,100 words long. It also doesn’t flow as well as I would like. So in between prepping for Burning Man, I need to tighten it up and come up with another 900 words. This will occupy a lot of time over the next few days leaving me no time to blog. (more…)

Due to (lack of) popular demand, I’ve reset the comment feature on my blog. Previously, one had to fill in a form, choose a password, and await a registration email from my website. I haven’t done too well in the comment department; I’ve had three in total. The first was back in May — which I faked. The second was in June and was spam — I deleted it. The third was just a few days ago, an automatic notice of my shortlisting for “best post” by the editors at www.postoftheweek.com. I was flattered that I was shortlisted for this contest, although I’ll admit I asked two friends to nominate me and wrote the email for one of them. I mistakingly deleted this comment.

I wonder if Pink Floyd was thinking of internet passwords when they wrote that 1979 song:

Hello?
Is there anybody in there?
I’ll need some information first.
Just the basic facts.
Can you show me where it hurts?

Personally, I hate it when websites make me fill in a form and choose a password. I’m too paranoid to use the same password twice so I have dozens of passwords — all slight variations of the one before.

I chose my very first internet password back in 1995. It was a bright, sunny day and almost lunchtime. I was setting up a hotmail account. Hotmail asked me for a password. I chose “hotdog747.” I figured I would remember “hot” because of “hotmail.” And I would remember “dog” because of “hot” and because I was hungry. I chose “747” because that was the first three digits of my phone number at the time.

Eventually, I was on a different site and the next inevitable request for a password came along. So I chose a slightly different password: “hotdogboeing.” “Boeing” was my brain’s logical leap from “747.” I figured I was being clever, since I didn’t want any one entity to potentially have access to all my accounts. But then the next password request came along, and “hotdogboeing” became “hotassboink.” And then one day “hotassboink” became “lickass69.” “Lickass69” eventually became “lickasswhenim” and so on and so on. “Whenim” — by the way — was a mental leap from “69″ and a tribute to that Beatles song, although I realize I’m off by five years. It’s also probably more of a logical leap than a mental leap, because unfortunately it’s highly unlikely that I’ll be licking much ass “when I’m 69″ — or even “whenim 64″ for that matter.

(more…)

12 percent of all visitors to my website arrive via Google. These visitors end up on my website not because they know me, or were told about my site, but because they typed something into Google and somewhere in the results, my site popped up. So what have people been googling that brings them to my website? For the most part: information on penises.

One of the amusing things about having a website is analyzing its visitor data. There is all sorts of nifty information I can glean about my visitors: pages visited, traffic sources and keyword search terms to name a few. For instance, in the last two weeks, there have been over four hundred visits to my website. Granted, many of those visits were my own — I really do enjoy my own writing. Total visits fall to 272 once I strip out my own narcissistic tendencies. And before any of you ask, I’ll admit that my mother accounted for 16 of the remainder. So we’re down to 256.

Obviously there is a difference between visits and visitors because, believe it or not, some people do come to my website more than once. Tallying distinct visitors reveals I’ve had 154 unique individuals come to my website in the last two weeks — excluding me and mom. These 154 visitors spent an average of 11 minutes each on my website. Now, I’m certainly not complaining about these numbers. 154 is better than nothing. I’m glad I can provide those of you who are bored — and perhaps taking a break at work — with some form of entertainment during your busy day. I don’t at all regret giving up my former career. If you like, perhaps after I finish writing this blog I could mow your lawn or take out your trash? (more…)

Submitting articles to magazines is a hurculean task, especially when you have dozens to submit – as I do. There are so many distinct requirements unique to each magazine. The one thing that truly irritates me is the SASE. The SASE is an acronym for “Self-Addressed-Stamped Envelope.” Many editors require you to enclose one with your submission. An anachronistic practice if I´ve ever heard of one, I´ve read that some editors will bin the whole submission, unread, if a SASE is not included.

The original justification behind the SASE was so editors could return a rejected manuscript, at the writer´s expense, should they not be interested. Printing costs “back in the day” were not cheap, and a manuscript – sometimes the writer´s only copy – could then be forwarded on to the next editor. For those writers who did not need their manuscript returned, the SASE could also be used to convey a rejection letter.

For the life of me I cannot understand why in today´s modern age, editors still demand them. For one thing, with printing now cheap and easily accessible, no writer would consider submitting an unwanted, thumbed-through manuscript to a second publisher. And to convey a rejection – or acceptance – why can´t editors use email? Perhaps the editors, mainly concerned with reading, have not seen Al Gore´s movie, An Inconvenient Truth. If they had, then they would have released that waste is bad. Now Al Gore would certainly not be recommending publishers do away with an important source of communication unless he had an alternative in mind – like email. Perhaps that why he invented the internet. Still, it´s only been a few months now that the world seems to have turned green, so perhaps the editors will catch on before long.

My copy of Getting Your Book Published For Dummies seems to have figured this out. It suggests I skip the SASE, which it says is “for amateurs.” My copy of Writer’s Market on the other hand suggests I include it. I think I´ll go with Writer’s Market. I´d rather be an amateur than a dummy.

But why do editors still demand it? I think it´s a by-product of the popularity of new media in tandem with the dumbing-down of society. Everybody´s watching TIVO and surfing the internet; nobody´s reading books. Book publishing has gotten so unprofitable, I´m betting editors are using SASEs as a new source of revenue. I envision long rooms full of Asian women and kettles of boiling water, whose steam is used to remove the stamps. These are later sold on the black market to fund the editor´s narcotic and drug use.

Now I´m not so cheap that I can´t afford to give a free stamp to a needy editor. If they want it so bad, then they probably need it more than I do. But here I am preparing all these submissions, when I suddenly realize that most of the publishers I am targeting are based in the US. So I can´t send a SASE, because all I have are Canadian stamps. These won´t work for letters originating in the US. I need US stamps. But I´ve been to two post offices in the last few days, and both did not have any US stamps in inventory. I guess nobody´s getting published or sending out wedding invitations to Americans from my neighborhood.

Writer’s Market suggests Canadians enclose an “international reply coupon,” which can be used cross-border. Good idea, except it only comes in minimum denominations of $3.50, whereas mailing a letter from the US to Canada costs $0.61. Perhaps I´ll just enclose some food with my submission – a granola bar or some beef jerky. At least that way, I´ll know where the money´s going. I don´t want to judge anyone but I also don’t want to contribute to an unfortunate´s vices.

When I was an investment analyst, a large part of my job was writing. At least twice a week, I wrote an article for the bank´s daily stock market publication, telling our clients to “buy this” or “sell that.” In addition, I regularly wrote company and industry reports that ranged in size from four pages to two hundred pages. Writing was one of my favorite parts of the job. The work of an investment analyst never ends; we were always expected to have a view on the market and the stocks under our coverage – and stock prices and conditions change daily. But with writing it was different. There was a feeling of completion – even peace – when I finished a report. I would usually re-read these reports weeks and even months after they were published, smiling at my wit and appreciating my sentence structure. It´s a good thing I appreciated them because very few other people did. In the investment industry, research is mostly a marketing gimmick. When you walk into a meeting and put down that thick research report and it makes a loud “thunk,” then you clearly know your stuff. I loved to write, so my reports made particularly nice “thunks,” and even the occasional “THWuuuMP!”

But very few clients read more than the cover of a typical research report. They receive a stack of research twelve inches high each and every day. Who has the time to read – especially if your eyes are glued to a computer screen watching your portfolio see-saw? Probably the only people who did read my research were my competitors. I know this because I read their research too.

I bring this up because I just got off the phone with a good friend of mine. Jessica is an actress and a freelance writer. She thinks my blogs are too long. I value her opinion; she edited my book and I found myself agreeing with the bulk of her corrections. In fact, until I saw her corrections, I hadn’t realized I was so addicted to beginning sentences, let alone paragraphs, with the word “and.”

And she’s not the only one who’s told me to shorten my blog. I have heard the same feedback from several people. Apparently, many people don´t like to read lengthy articles on the internet. This is the era of sound bites and short attention spans. People are looking for a quick smile in the middle of a hectic day. Even free porno clips last only fifteen seconds – although there´s probably another reason for that; not even a teenager can have a satisfactory customer experience with that time constraint.

I actually don´t disagree. I’ve noticed that the more popular bloggers are indubitably less verbose. They write less and they write more often. So I´m thinking I need to do a better job of containing my verbal enthusiasm. Unlike my old career, this blog is more than a marketing gimmick. I actually need people to read it. And I’m not getting paid for word count.

That said, the risk with this *** Daemon server – error 10411 *** max word count – stop – end blog – windbag – blowhard – zzzzzz ***