I Used to be a Pitcher

I've written a book. I did it long ago and let it sit. Then, ten years ago or so, I pulled it out, dusted it off and started again. Then my mother's life unraveled, then mine, and now finally having dusted it of again I'm getting ready to send it off into the world to be more than likely rejected--it's the literary way. It is a longstanding tradition. Such is life. I know the odds are not in my favor. It probably doesn't help that I am not the hot young thing with the hip new thing. Enough of you have read it and left your comments that I believe my book has a certain universal appeal, if reliving your terrible childhood can be said to be appealing. Some of you have reached a certain point and been unable to read farther. I would so have wished that you could have told me what it was, exactly, that made you stop just then. Why there and not another place I wonder?

Now comes the very most difficult part of the project for me--the pitch. I have to sell a reader on picking up a chunk of the book and getting started. I have to do this quickly. 300 words or less. I have to say something about myself. Why did I write this novel? Oh yes, I am calling it a novel. It is a novel! Who are you to say it isn't? Did you lead my life? No? Well then...

Don't we all draw from life to form our characters? Did the real woman Madame Bovary exist? Did Flaubert know her, of her? Is Roskolnikov not based on a real man? Are you sure? Did you ask Dostoevsky?

I have removed the book called Maggy from this blog now. It may come back, but if and when it does, it will be tighter, and with fewer typo and grammar errors. It will be a bit shorter too. And almost everyone gets a new name. Isn't that festive? If you were reading it... and want more... Let's barter.