Hello? *pat* *pat* Is this thing on?

Ahem. Well. This is a bit embarrassing. I really hadn't planned on saying anything. It's weird; I just stumbled on this link and next thing I know I'm being asked all these funny questions. Username? Password? Password for what, exactly?

Then came the profile bit. I hate to brag, but I nailed it. Honestly. You should check my answers. I can't wait to see what my score is. Not to help anyone cheat... okay, actually this is to help people cheat: the last answer is Orlando Bloom. See? I can be full of myself and full of good advice at the same time.

Okay, so now I'm on a stage and two of you are looking at me. Hmmm. I don't do well with jokes. Flub the ending every time. I have a ton of good stories, but they're too real to believe. Guess I should point out that I came here 'cause I just accidentally became an author and wanted to meet some more.

It started on a Monday. April 6th, to be exact. I got up and decided I wasn't gonna read a book and review it that day. I was sick of reading and reviewing. I wanted to write something. So I busted out 20 pages of space opera over the next ten hours and showed them to my wife when she got home.

"What happens next?" she asked me.

"I dunno. Some stuff, I suppose."

"Whadda ya mean you don't know? You're the one writing it!" She was mad. I have this ability, a superpower, maybe. I can make my wife mad within minutes of her coming home. All the pages did was delay the effects an hour while she read. Maybe this writing business was some kind of Kryptonite. Something I could use to subdue whatever it is about me that annoys her.

"It doesn't work like that," I told her. I'd been a writer for a day. I was an expert. "The crap just comes out while I'm sitting there." I hope she wasn't visualizing me on the toilet. I needed to be careful with my words here.

"Go write some more," she commanded.

So I did. Another five pages that night. Twenty more over twelve hours the next day. Almost thirty the day after that. Quadruple-spacing and two-inch margins were making me a book-writing MACHINE! I hadn't yet learned that authors talk in terms of "words." No wonder they're a depressed lot. I wrote in PAGES!

Meanwhile, my wife gobbled it up. She said it was better than TWILIGHT. I hadn't read that book, but I assumed it was some really good prose. I forged ahead. I googled "book length" I needed a target. 75K to 125K? Holy shit, that's a lot of... oh. Words. Well damn, it's gonna take me two days just to count how many I-- Oh. Wow. Microsoft thought of everything.

35K. Jeepers. It was Thursday night and I'd written a third of a book. My goal was now to finish the thing within a week. No problem. Okay... what comes next?

I had no clue. So I slept on it. Or tried to. Dialog was running through my head and I knew I'd forget, so I had to get up and jot it down. Stupid pen. Oh... that's what my handwriting looks like. Dang. Hadn't seen that since highschool. Might as well boot up the computer...

Monday. We're at dinner with my mom and sister. It'd been a week since I started writing my first novel. 100K in the can and the four of us at the table were the only people that had read the entire thing. It was a celebration. I just wanted to get home to write the sequel.

auntybug said:

to the cooler. Congrats on the writing! Sometimes it just happens that way. Lots of great help here when you polish that baby up & want to get 'er published.

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Tuesday. It sinks in. I've written a novel. I decide to give it an hour or two...

...

...

Nobody's calling me; there's no check in the mail. What gives? Aren't book publishers dying for the next Harry Potter? Okay, I haven't written anything about wands, but this is still some really good stuff. Where's my million dollars? It took me an entire week to write this!

I log into one of my forums. All my friends are online, which makes sitting around in my underwear a lot more comfortable. For everyone.

Thread title: I wrote a novel.

First response: We thought you'd died!

Eighth response (I'm skipping over the lewd pics and indiscernible smilies): I'm an editor, you know.

"An editor? What are they for?" I wondered.

Actually, I would have said it like this back then: "An editor"? I mused aloud stroking my chin thougtfuly and enjoying the scent of wysteria wafting through yon window open slightly but not too much just about right. "what are they for"?

"I'd love to take a look at it," she wrote.

I sent her the entire thing. She sent back the first two pages. All my black font was bleeding crimson. Wait... that wasn't my font. What the hey? I searched my hard-drive frantically. Hopefully that wasn't my only copy.

"Whatcha doin' to my book?" I asked.

"The period goes inside the closed-quotes," she told me.

Bulls#t. No way. I grabbed a book off my shelf, scanning. Well I'll be damned. Been reading for 30 years and never picked up on that.

"What if it's just the last word in the sentence that's quoted?" I asked.

"Same."

Bulls#t.

"Loved the story. You should try and get this published."

"You read the whole thing?!"

"In a sitting. I was thrilled to see you'd written science fiction, that's my favorite genre. Great stuff, there. Killer cliffhanger at the end. You want me to go over the rest of it with you?"

"How much?" This was the only authorial skill I had from the outset.

"Don't be silly. I love your characters. I wanna see it get printed. Hell, if I stop playing Bejeweled and cut my FaceBook time in half, I'll have it done in a week. I'll send pages as I get them done."

Monday. April 20th. I had an edited manuscript. And the first half of book two was already written...

Ruth2 said:

Wow. A writing machine. Welcome to the party!

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Yeah, so that's what my editor starts calling me. I knock out the rough draft of book two in two weeks. I'm ready to start on three, but everyone is telling me to slow down, get the first book published.

"Get it published?" I ask. "Isn't that someone else's job?"

"You need to start querying people," my editor told me.

"Isn't that what I just did? Didn't I just do it again? And again? What you need to start doing is answering people."

Two days later, she finally returned my phone call.

"You still mad at me?"

"Yeah, but I want this book published. Did you google 'query letters?'"

"Yeah," I told her. I tried to make my voice drip with depression, 'cause that's what I was feeling. Google had really upset me with its news. Stupid Google.

"So? You ready to get crackin'?"

"I don't wanna do this," I complained.

"Do what?"

"Publish. I just wanna write." Yeah. It sounded just that pathetic at the time. I'm not ashamed. Okay, a little.

"But this is really good stuff, Hugh. You should see the last book I edited. Hell, this is better in draft than anything I've purchased lately. The way you do dialog... well except for how you use the ellipses... but besides that, it's really good stuff."

"You really think so?"

"Aw, jeez. You're not gonna be one of those writers, are you?"

"What kind?"

"The vacillators. They think their sh#t don't stink one day, comparing themselves to J.K. Rowling, and then the next day they they're near-suicidal."

"That's not me," I told her. "I'm better than that. I think. You slice down the vein, right?"

"Listen, Hugh. I'm serious. If we can get you to stop using your characters' names in dialog, get you to use contractions now and then, you could really have a hit here."

"You think so, Lisa?"

"I do. So write that query letter. Come up with a synopsis. We'll get these first ten pages or so edited to within an inch of their lives and find you an agent."

"What's an agent?" I asked.

Ugawa said:

Maybe you should post the first chapter in SYW. I'd love to read it, and you'd get some great crits.

xx

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An agent. The Cerberus barring my passage into publication hell. Two-faced/ double-sized ego/ snarlers of fang.

Why did I need an agent? Because it's uncouth to enter hell with one's soul intact. I'd stand out. Startle the natives. Publication hell, you see, has many layers. And just like the fictional hell people lament on Sundays, this real hell doesn't want you! Ever wonder why Satan never wrote his own book, doesn't counter any of God's claims, never hired a PR agent? He wants to be left alone! And so do the agents.

You can't find them on the Internet. They don't exist wherever you live. They move to NYC where they can blend in with the masses. All they want is to be avoided and yet we dog them, we hound them, we drool at their mention, we beg them to treat us kindly. And what for? To win the right to do it all again with the next demander-of-toll, the boatman. The publisher.

$6.99/lb for flank steak and f#ck the agent and his 15%. I left the cur licking his cheap cut of meat and went straight to the boatman.

"Nice canoe," I said.

"Shove off."

This wasn't going well, obviously.

"Shove off," the boatman said again.

"Pardon me?"

"Get aboard, we're shoving off!"

Oh, my! Well that was easy! Didn't even ask to see the manuscript or my fancy query letter. I hiked up my skirt (don't ask) and lifted one of my dainty feet into the canoe.

"Five thousand dollars."

My foot stopped, hovering over the puddle of water in the bottom of the canoe. I looked up to the boatman; despite the patch over one eye and the sharp goatee, his bright smile had a very high tooth percentage. He'd won my trust. This felt right.

"Sold!" I said, shoving my manuscript in his chest. "Let's shove off!"

"Ah, ah, ah..." He shook his paddle in the air like a metronome. "Five thousand dollars from you!"

Do what?! I looked down into the leaky canoe. The puddle was rising. A used condom floated past the gunnels. I took a step back. "You want money from me? But I wrote the book!"

"Aye, and I'll print her for you! And give you a dollar for every one yer sail!"

"You mean 'sell,' right?"

"Forget the copyediting, laddie. You've written a helluva yarn. We'll print'er as she lies!"

The pirate talk was creeping up the further we went. It was like one of those damn weights that moves up during tractor pulls, only this guy was gaining speed!

"I'll get back to you," I lied.

I grabbed my manuscript and I ran, but not quite as fast as I could've. There was something nice about being chased, even if the bastard was after my wallet and not my manuscript. I saw several more of them lining the banks and jogged past, waving my pages in one hand and an ATM card in the other.

Got 'em. Musta been the VISA logo. I had a good dozen of the crooks pawing at my skirt (don't ask) and it felt nice. Nice to be wanted.

As they tired out and I came to a stop, huffing with delight, I looked up and realized I'd left the gravelly beach behind. I was on a wharf. Surrounded by fancy cruise-ships with names like "Randomhouse" and "Penguin" and "Tor." These things were freakishly massive. They shouted success. I started to dream of life aboard one...

"Where do you think you're going mister?"

"Um, excuse me?" I said, but it felt kinda like a question, even though it wasn't. Does that make it hypothetical? I lilted my voice on the "me," just in case.

The man in the spiffy costume snapped his fingers. "Hello. Did I lose you?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," I said. I drift off sometimes.

"That's great. Now can you drift away from me and then drift off again?"

"Uh, actually I was going to get on one of those." I pointed. The man in the spiffy outfit and silly hat turned to look, but didn't really need to. Behind him was one of the big ships. It said "Baen" on the back. The steel hull blotted out the horizon in almost every direction.

"I'm sorry, but you can't get on one of those babies."

"Why not?" I asked. I held up my manuscript. It had some soggy edges and quite a bit of sand stuck to it, but I'd managed to keep it intact. "I have a ticket," I told him.

"That's not how it works," he said.

"Well, what do I need to do?"

"Have you ridden one of these babies before?"

"Nope."

"Well, then. That's your problem."

I chewed on this for a second. I wasn't keen on logic, but my brain was misfiring, which usually let me know to do some more thinking. So I thought. The man in the spiffy outfit and comical cap tapped his foot, which was making it hard to concentrate.

"Oh!" I said. I thought I had it. The man tugged on the little plastic visor of his hilarious hat. The thing was barely an inch long. His entire head was bathed in harsh sunlight. "Drat. I lost it. No, wait! I remember: if you have to have already ridden that puppy in order to get on-board, how does anyone get on-board?"

The man scratched his chin and squinted up into the sun. "Never thought about that," he admitted. He turned around and looked up the painted hull. We both followed the sound of steel drums and inebriated gaiety. "Does seem like quite a few people up there, though, doesn't it?"

"Can you let me on?" I pleaded. "This is some really good sh#t. I promise."

"Oh, I'm sure. No doubt." He looked pretty doubtful. "But it's outta my hands."

"Do you know anybody?"

"Well hell, yeah. I know most everyone. The VP of Tor, his kids make fun of my kids all the time. Lovely chap. Oh, I see where you're going. No, I'm sorry. I really can't help you."

I gave him my dejected and hurt look. Without the skirt, it mighta helped.

"Hey, listen," he said. "Are you just trying to get across? Get to the other side?"

"Yeah. I just want to get to the Published Land," I told him.

"Have you tried the fellows down the beach?"

"The canoe guys? Psssht. They want $5,000. From me!" I felt like we were chums now. I was lamenting sh#t with him. There's nothing chummier than that.

He looked around to make sure we were alone.

"I don't like racist jokes," I warned him.

"What? No. God, no." He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Have you thought about doing it yourself?"

I leaned in close. We were getting real chummy now. "Doing what myself?"

"Swimming across."

Whew. I thought he was talking about something else. "What's involved in swimming across?" I asked.

"First, you'll have to lose the skirt. Then..."

And he proceeded to tell me.

I looked down at myself. "Lose the skirt?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah. It'll just get in the way."

"Okay, if it'll help me get to the Publishing Promiseland. Now tell me about doing it myself." I looked out across the water, but it just stretched to the horizon. "Is it far?"

"Oh, no. Not that far." He coughed into his fist. "Well, too far to swim, but not too far to cross."

Hmmm. His story was changing already. "Exactly what do I have to do to get myself across?" I asked.

"Well, first you need to build a boat. But that's easy. You just need to lay down some ISBN's and truss them up with an LLC. You lay up your resin-fiber core over this. This forms your website. You'll need to mix some PHP, some SQL, and some HTML at just the right mixture. You'll host this and coat it with your own URL (and good luck getting any of the good stuff, most of 'ems used up) then lay it up in the sun. Now, it'll take some regular maintenance, especially if she gets any traffic, probably $100 a month or so."

"Wait a minute. Regular maintenance? Traffic? SQL? Isn't that what they do for me over there?" I gazed longingly at the horizon, where fittingly, the sun was setting on my dreams.

The Cruise Ship Security fellow scratched his chin. "Now that you mention it, I suppose once you're done, you won't need to cross over at all." He brightened and clapped his hands together. "But you wouldn't be done yet! Once you get your boat built, you'll need to do some editing. Go over that baby with some 40-grit. Then go over the whole thing again with some 80-grit. Then do it again, the whole thing now, with some 200-grit. Then it'll be time to hit it with some 800-grit--"

"Then 1600-grit, I get it."

"Right, but you'll want to wet-sand with the 1600. Once you've done that, you'll need to find you a printing company. They'll stitch your sails up and get you moving. As a backup though, there'll be a furnace you'll wanna install. You can use it to burn bookmarks, business cards, promotional material, review copies, stuff like that. When there's not much wind, you'll need to generate some steam by blowing some cash."

I nearly gagged on that metaphor concoction, but I thought I saw what he meant. It sounded like a lot of work.

"Isn't there another way?" I asked. "I really wanna concentrate on the writing." I looked up at the shiny Cruise Ships. "If they won't have me, and the canoe-builders just want my money, isn't there some other way? I mean, I know there's a land of readers over on the other side that are dying for what I have here." I shook the manuscript for effect. "Isn't there some other way?"

The steward looked over his shoulders, then stepped closer. "Well, there is something else. These small boat-builders--"

"Like the canoes?" I interrupted.

"Naw, not like them. I mean, sometimes it's hard to tell the difference, because those sneaky bastards you ran into are trying their hardest to look like these guys, but they aren't the same. Did you see those canoes back there named "Subsidy" and "Vanity?"

"Yeah . . ."

"You won't find boats like that around these guys. They even have their own Royalty line of ships. A lot like these." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

"Really? Well, what's the drawback? And where do I find them?"

"Oh, they're scattered about. Not all nice and centralized like these puppies. I'm sure if you walked down the beach far enough, you'll find one."

"I'll do it!" I said, feeling quite a bit like Dorothy. What with the skirt and all. "I'll go find me a small-boat builder and together we'll go to the Promised Land of Publishing!"

"Alright, son. You do that. Now step aside, that's Jonathan Hayes and his entourage heading this way."