7 DEADLY DAYS

The most difficult thing about writing blog posts is not coming up with topics, as I originally suspected. Neither is it the formality with which I should write-- ie, is it better to be mocking ( because mocking is fun, funny, and I'm not at all a bad person for thinking so) or professional (because someone involved in selling anything I write is probably going to Google my name and find this blog)?

The biggest difficulty is forming a proper segue from a topic of discussion to a topic which has some relevant point to writing. 

If I ever had a stalker, I'd not want them sent to jail. I'd pity them. I'd pat them on the head. I'd give them a cookie. From the outside, I really don't do much, and I suspect they'd be terribly bored. I read, I write, I go to the gym, and I pretend my blankets are tortillas and that I'm rolling myself up in a burrito each morning before I go to sleep. No, really, it's true. I'm that cool.

It would be terribly dismal to spend one's life watching that and I just sent out a first group of query letters regarding the novella I wrote. See? I told you I'm bad at segues.

The novella is called Seven Deadly Days, and it's the story of an entirely lonely genius's attempt to destroy the world over the course of a week, following an epiphany that the world has lost all purpose when [spoiler redacted]. It's meant to be humorous. If you've spent enough time in traffic, I'm sure you can see how that topic is inherently lighthearted. The narrator's story is cataloged in an alliteration-laden and somewhat scientifically considered journal of prominent apocalypse designs and why the world is in the state that it is in. And why getting up each morning might really not be the best decision. Stay in the burrito, it's warm inside.

Also contained: Candians, sex robots, and Swiffer wet jets. Unless they're big on law suits, in which case Jiffer Wet Sets feature prominently.

I'll attach a brief bit at the end, so if you have any interest in reading it, or just want to scroll by my mindless babbling, please do, go on down. Go on down, you shameful voyeur. Skip right along to the climax. Traitor.

Writing query letters is terrifying. Writing query letters that you've read over a few dozen times and then spotting a conflict of past and present tense, just moments after you click send, is summarily soul-crushing. 

A query letter is something you spew at an agent saying why they should adopt your book and market it to publishers. You have to sales pitch your way into making them want to read your manuscript among the piles and piles of competing query letters which they haven't gotten around to reading. You're supposed to be professional but charming, engaging and personal but respectful. You're supposed to fully describe your product, and why they should try to sell it. You have about 10 sentences. You are not allowed to lie your ass off. You don't hear back for months.

So I sent a bunch out and I will wait to hear back and then send out more, should they bring in nothing. The success rate for unsolicited queries is somewhere between "No." and "Go home, you're drunk." but I have to start somewhere. If all else fails, I may eventually self-publish, but for now I should try optimism. And besides, I have to do something to keep my non-existent stalker entertained. So here goes:

8:00am

I woke up to the throbbing, groin-clenching auditory stab of my alarm clock and allowed myself the usual 15 seconds of sublime delusion that my waking up is simply a bad dream. Just short of halfway through, I stopped. I could feel it even then, that something was terribly wrong. Those seven seconds of singular simplicity and sweeping ignorance are a blessing I shall not forget. So, I woke up, impaled an interesting pair of slippers that resembled small gutted bunnies with my feet, donned a bathrobe and began my dreadful journey to discover what precisely had occurred. It didn’t take me long to figure out what had happened. I am extremely clever. The world, you see, had ended.

9:00am

            I felt a little bit helpless in light of this. At something of a loss as to where to go from such a realization. I decided to check the news channel. Perhaps the wailing and lamentations of the masses would help guide the shock home and help me to better cope. But the news man had nothing to say, or nothing to say that mattered, at least. Some country with a direction-prefix to its name was upset with its neighbor and they were both pointing fingers—well, mostly the middle finger—at each other. Ludicrous. Child’s play. Unimportant. I tried the internet, but found, as usual, that it is little but a weathered temple to the faded societal ideals of the sacred and the profane—porn and kittens. Some actress had accidentally revealed a portion more of her mammary glands than was deemed socially permissible while on some frivolous award pageant for frivolous viewers. Gasp. Shudder. Insipid. A cat jumped in and out of a box while meowing to the tune of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” Be still my fluttering heart. The ever-archaic radio neither wept nor beat its non-existent (yet fully concealed, to be sure) breast. Instead, a talk show advising how if I bought the new model of Swiffer Wet Jet, my world would be complete and my floors would be clean no matter what I got on them. It’s better than a traditional mop and bucket, you know. I would be able to make order out of the chaos. Somehow, I don’t think any number of Swiffer Wet Jets will be enough to clean up this tragedy and rubble. At any rate, I’m willing to risk it. Inconsequential.

            As I searched on and on, I came to my second startling realization of the day—way ahead of schedule for before noon, and on a Sunday, no less. The world had not only ended… but no one else knew! You can imagine my surprise. Well, more likely, you cannot, but trust me when I tell you that it was quite an epiphany. But tarry not I in depression! For nothing is truly broken that can be truly fixed. First I decided about fixing breakfast, and then I’d tackle the problem of how to fix everything else. Ever.