Contractual benchmark obliterated and still obliterating

After yesterday’s day of writing I thought I had surpassed my contractually obligated 65,000 words and was feeling kind of proud. It turns out I had excluded a few chapters and my count is actually 71,163 and growing.

This is exciting in a sense, but it is also scary because I’m not done. I’m wrapping things up, but I bet I could be flirting with that 80,000 word mark by the end. Early on, I asked Caren, my agent, what was typical to be over or under. She told me 1,000 words. Yikes, that’s precise.

Although, it would have been even scarier if I finished the last chapter spot on the 65K mark because I need editing room. Normally, I write 1,000 words to get 800 (what I consider to be) good ones. That means I have to write 125% more than the target amount. It turns out that writing 80K to get 65K is pretty much on pace to do that. I love it when it looks like you actually know what your doing, but you know you don’t.

Next week I’ll probably pull out the red pen and start the slashing. It should be fun.

Have you called your granny lately?

I’ve been writing about grandmas today, so I thought I would post a little of what I wrote and remind you to give yours a call.

My Grandma Wilt was a garment worker. That’s her in the front row next to my mom and dad.

In the summers growing up in Versailles, Ohio, she sewed the pockets on Lee bibs. “The more pieces you completed, the more you got paid,” she told me. She didn’t like the job and – to no real surprise – the money wasn’t very good. What is a surprise is that I never knew this. I traveled around the world to meet garment workers and here my very own grandma was one.

She’s not your typical grandma. For instance, she has seen every Death Wish Charles Bronson has made and she’s a fan of Walker Texas Ranger. But like any grandma, she is beaming with pride on a day like this.

Annie’s grandmas are on the other side of the aisle. Betty remembers the Great Depression and to this day it pains her to throw anything away. She has enough canned and frozen goods to survive a nuclear winter. Back then recycle and reuse wasn’t an environmental practice, but purely an economic one. In fact, Annie’s other grandma, Clara, used to make clothes from chicken feed bags for her family and herself.

A thousand words

Foshan, China

I’m guest blogging today

Today, I’m guest blogging on my agent’s website. Since I have both a website and a blog Caren wanted me to give the pro’s and con’s of each from an author’s perspective (not that I feel like an author yet, because I don’t).

So, I guess I feel like I’ve kinda met my blogging quota for the day.

If you’re bored – which you are because what else would you be doing here – check out my new site www.kelseytimmerman.com. I just started working on it last week. I welcome any suggestions you may have about how to improve it.

Introducing the “Where Am I Wearing?” cover

What do you think? Check out my guns! Actually, that dude is not me, but you’re welcome to imagine that it is. I’m neither that buff nor tan.

A big thanks to Paul McCarthy, the fella who designed the cover, and all of the other folks at Wiley who helped with it.

Do I look like an author to you?

Despite wanting to skip through the streets and scream from the rooftops that my book, my very own book, is going to be published in November, I don’t (other than the virtual street/rooftop you are reading this on now). I was raised to not brag and even though it’s not really bragging telling someone what you’ve spent the better part of the last year working on, it feels like it.

Often Annie will work it into conversations with people that don’t know the news. I guess it’s okay if your wife brags about you. She did this when we were home for Christmas.

“Kelsey is going to have his first book published in November,” Annie says to a family friend.

My face gets a little red and I feel an “Oh, shucks” coming on.

“Oh, that’s exciting,” says the family friend. “Who are you having publish it? Is it a publisher in Dayton?”

First, “having someone publish” the book implies that I paid a Print on Demand (aka Vanity Press) to do so, which I didn’t. Second, I never knew there were any publishers in Dayton, Ohio. If there are, they must be pretty small.

“No they’re from New York City,” I say. Actually Wiley & Sons is located in Hoboken, New Jersey, but you can see NYC from their office and they used to be located there, so that’s what I go with. I fight the urge to add a “you ever heard of it?” or, a “they paid ME,” or a “What the hell? Is it impossible to think that a large publishing house would actually pay little ol’ me for the rights to publish my book?”

A similar thing happened to me just last week. I was visiting my alma mater Miami University and was killing some time in the book store when I decided to ask one of the booksellers if they ever hosted any author events.

“Why?” She asked.

“Well,” I say, as my face, once again, reddens, “I have a book coming out in November.”

“Oh, a self-published book,” she says. (Note: this could also be a question, but it wasn’t; it was a statement.)

I understand that there are probably a lot of good books that publishers won’t stand behind because the “market isn’t good” for a particular book and self-publishing is the only way to give life to a work. I don’t have a problem with that. But considering that there are hundreds of thousands of books published each year by publishers, what makes these people think that my book couldn’t be among them.

Plus, there’s no way I could have afforded to pay to have my book self-published. The trip alone cost me (or I should say my second mortgage) $8,000. I am thrilled to have sold my book to a publisher because there was no way I could have sold the idea of paying to have it self-published to Annie: “Annie, my dear, I spent $8,000 on my quest, now for only a couple grand more we can have it published!”

She would have beat my (writerly) aspirations out of me.

What is it that makes people think I couldn’t be a paid author? Do I not look like an author or something?

Just Add Banjo

Poorism

Yesterday’s NY TIMES has a feature on slum tourism (aka Poorism). Here’s the nitty gritty:

Anti-Poorism

“Would you want people stopping outside of your front door every day, or maybe twice a day, snapping a few pictures of you and making some observations about your lifestyle?” asked David Fennell, a professor of tourism and environment at Brock University in Ontario. Slum tourism, he says, is just another example of tourism’s finding a new niche to exploit. The real purpose, he believes, is to make Westerners feel better about their station in life. “It affirms in my mind how lucky I am — or how unlucky they are,” he said.

Pro-Poorism

“…proponents of slum tourism say. Ignoring poverty won’t make it go away. “Tourism is one of the few ways that you or I are ever going to understand what poverty means,” said Harold Goodwin, director of the International Center for Responsible Tourism in Leeds, England. “To just kind of turn a blind eye and pretend the poverty doesn’t exist seems to me a very denial of our humanity.”

The story was written by Eric Weiner the Author of “The Geography of Bliss.” I’m reading it now and quite happy with it.

Hurry home Annie!

Sometimes long-haired cats have issues in the kitty litter box and end up a little less than fresh in their posterior regions. And sometime those cats, decide to sit their messy little bottoms on their writer’s notes.

Annie has the kitty bottom cleaning job in our household. I hope she gets home soon. She has a lot of work ahead of her.

Adventures in Spam: The poor dead bastard of great great uncle von Hasselhoff

The SPAM

From: Henri Konan [mailto:he_konan4@yahoo.fr]
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2008 11:16 AM
To: he_konan4@yahoo.fr
Subject: MESSAGE

ATTN:Dear one.

My name is Hon Dr Henri Konan from Cote D I’ voire my
client died Three years ago leaving behind Capital
amount (US$5.6M with interest) in our bank here where
i work ,I am his account manager ,till date nobody has
come forward or put application for the claim.

During the my private search for the relative recently
your name was among the findings that matches the same
surname as the deceases name is (withheld for security
reason) who died interstate with no Will or next of
kin.

To maintain the level of security required I have
intentionally left out the final details. I want you
to come forward since I can provide you with the
details needed for you to claim the Funds so that I
can be gratify by you,I will do all the crucial part
in the bank to have the claim release to you promptly.
To affirm your willingness and cooperation I do
expect you prompt response.

Thank you,
Hon Dr Henri Konan

My SPAM response

ATTN: Dear Two.

My name is Kelsey von Hasselhoff Timmerman. My great great Uncle Edward Von Hasselhoff was rumored to have had a night of illicit passion with the daughter of the Premier of Cote D’Ivoire. I’m guessing that your client may have been the illegitimate love child of great great Uncle von Hasselhoff’s.

I’m glad to hear that your client - my great cousin - was able to overcome the social stigma of being a fatherless child and lead a successful life. $5.6 million?! That’s one rich bastard!

I’m so glad you contacted me. This incident has been a blight on my family for generations and one we would like to correct by finally embracing our African kin. It’s really not about the money at all, but about reuniting a divided family. We have the DNA of everyone in our family stored in our family mausoleum with the exception of your client’s who we have been searching for for years. We hope that some day we can use the DNA to bring to life the clones of our long-dead relatives – with the exception of my great great uncle von Hasselhoff who was a real SOB. Can you imagine the wonderful von Hasselhoff Timmerman family reunion will have?! Please, email me a photo of your client so I can compare it to the cryogenically frozen popsicle that is great great uncle von Hasselhoff. He passed down a huge hooked nose and an irreparable hair lip to all of his other offspring and I would expect, also, to your client.

I respect your need for privacy and security. Let me know how you would like to proceed. As you probably know already, my family discovered gelatin and have made a fortune as gelatin barons. We have plenty of money to send you to assist with whatever fees you incur in shipping the body. Yes, we want the body. Your client is family and we would like to wash the body ourselves and extract its collagen for the purpose of making gelatin. We don’t need the money. In fact we would like to use the money to build a non-proft gelatin factory in Cote D’Ivoire, which is run by homeless people. You do have homeless people in Cote D’Ivoire, right?

I hope that soon you will be gratify by me and all my family.

Thank you,

Kelsey von Hasselhoff Timmerman III

P.S. Did you know that you share the name with the President of Côte d’Ivoire? Are you related?

Where do I come from?

Darke County, Ohio.

That’s right, I didn’t say a city or a town. There are only 50,000 people in the entire county and a fair amount of them live in the country. They don’t live on streets; they live on rural routes or hyphenated roads between tiny burgs (Hillgrove - Woodington Rd).

Your typical Darke Countian likes guns, is against abortion, and votes Republican.

The Washington Post featured Darke County, in a story today titled: In Rural Ohio, It’s No Country for Democrats.

Some highlights:

- Greenville is the seat of Darke County, which typically ranks first in the state in corn and soybean production.

When I write about playing in flat-fields of corn and beans as a kid, I know what I’m talking about.

- For county Democratic Party Chairman James Surber, it is a place to contemplate the most puzzling human behavior. “I have always said that the three most baffling questions you could ponder forever are: What’s the meaning and purpose of life? Why is Bruce Willis a star? And why do farmers vote Republican?”

I never knew there was another Democrat in the county besides me and my mom. (Yep, Dad’s a Republican.)

- And the way you pull wedgies out is simple — you say it’s a lie.

Okay, that quote is a little out of context. You probably could tell it was because everybody knows the way you pull a wedgie out is to have a good friend stand behind hind you so nobody can see when you reach down your drawers and pick it out. You could lie until your nose was ten-foot long and that’s going to do nada for that wedgie. You gotta pick it out. What does the Washington Post know? Someone should give them a wedgie.

- “I’m a Christian lady and I kind of like that Huckabee, Huckletree, however you pronounce it. And I think McCain is too old. And I like that fella who is running against Hillary, and he was my choice until I heard what he said the other day.” She wouldn’t say what he said. “And I didn’t want a woman. That’s a man’s job being president. I don’t think God put a woman here to run the country. Well, her husband was in there already. They don’t need that much more money, do they?”

God Bless (Help) Darke County.

(I first saw the story on John Scalzi’s Whatever)