It’s out there

Last week my agent sent out the Where am I wearing? book proposal to a number of editors, one of whom happened to work as Eric Clapton’s editor, which, you know, is super cool. I may be a bit premature in imagining sipping a drink at the publishing house’s cocktail party talking with EC, but I can’t help it…

Me: That Layla is some song.

EC: Thanks.

Me: We named one of our dogs Layla. She liked to roll in poop and sometimes she did that crazy dog thing where she would drag her butt across the ground. In fact, sometimes she drug her butt on our concrete block.

EC: …

But seriously, I’m realistically maintaining my level of hope. I’m cautiously pessimistic. This has served me well thus far in my writing career. Expect nothing, so when something actually happens it’s more of a pleasant surprise.

In general, I try to be a positive fella, but when it comes to writing you’ve got to have some way to deal with rejection. I figure there are two ways to handle it: alcohol or cautious pessimism.

And I don’t like hangovers.

Right now, hopefully, editors are reading the proposal and thinking that it sounds like a good idea. Then they are sharing it with their editor buds at their publishing house. And eventually with the powers-that-be who decide what works to take on. This process could take a few months before we hear anything.

A book deal would be a nice Christmas gift, but if Christmas comes and goes and my house hasn’t burnt down, my wife hasn’t left me, and I’ve managed to not be ravaged by flesh eating bacteria, I’ll consider myself lucky book deal or not. This is cautious pessimism at its finest.