Authors Electric

I read of a young writer, years back, who told some friends at a convention: 'Gotta go, There's a bunch of more important people that I want to meet.' The cheek and gall reminded me of someone who snubbed me about the same time, in pretty much the same way. The same guy? No way to know. The type, though, is identical: 100% focused on knowing and stroking the people who count...and shunning the losers who don't. Plus: doing and saying whatever it takes. Yeah, I know: it's the way of the world. It goes on in the workplace: It goes on in bodybuilding: And it goes on in Vegas: But in writing it seems more disconcerting. Whatever our genre, we share a blood bond: united by storms of rejections...tens of thousands of hours alone at our desks...the anguish of poor reviews...the battle to make ends meet while finding time to write...and, unlike any other art, the lack of immediate feedback. Now and then a lone wolf like Howey or H...

We all have our lists of Great Ideas. And, no matter what agent Don Maass thinks, we're not always bubbleheads when we pitch a new book as our best. But another list claims my attention today: Great Impossible Ideas. Imagine, for example, a TV show called American (Wr)Idol. Or So You Think You Can Write. Or The (Inner) Voice. That's right, a sizzling reality show that brings the same excitement to the writing business as the others to singing or dancing. We could start with a montage of lead contestants training (perched for hours at their desks...taking long walks on the beach...filling trash cans with rewrites and bottles of booze...etc.). Then we'd move briskly along to the auditions for auditions: writers working for weeks on their queries which net them form rejections: 'Promising but too pitchy'...'You write well in places but--well, not for us.'...Onward to the Main Event: the final 12 who make it to full manuscript reads by top agents...And on....