The Beatles and the Failed Novelist

Is there any greater anthem for the failed novelist than The Beatles' "Paperback Writer"? And I need a job so I want to be a paperback writer. . .It's the dirty story of a dirty man and his clinging wife doesn't understand. Classic.

My kids are way into The Beatles this month and have been wearing out the greatest hits CD that I've had since the mid-90s. The eight year old girl's favorite is "Can't Buy Me Love" (naturally) and the four year old boy's is "Yellow Submarine" (of course). My favorite popular song is "Hey Jude" because I can really rock out on the "na na na na's" and favorite obscure is a toss between "Happiness is a Warm Gun" and maybe "And Your Bird Can Sing" or "I've Just Seen a Face." But for sheer relevance and comedic value, "Paperback Writer" is definitely up there this week.

March Madness and the Failed Novelist

Is it a bad sign that a $2 bet in the office pool is enough to make me watch 100 hours of college basketball this month? I mean, I really, really care about the outcomes of games like Pittsburgh v. Butler and Xavier v. Marquette. I haven't even heard of some of these colleges, never follow college basketball (never follow basketball PERIOD), yet when March rolls around I'm some kind of bracket junkie.

The best part about March Madness? It's on TV nearly constantly for 3 weeks, providing an excellent excuse for not working on my novel. Also, I can pretend that someday I'm going to write a gritty book about the trials and tribulations of a college basketball team and am thus doing "research."

Rubik's Cube and the Failed Novelist

Since I am a novelist headed toward failure, you'd think my New Year's resolution would have something to do with writing. Well, you'd be wrong. My resolution was to learn how to solve a Rubik's Cube in less than 1 minute. There is a Chinese baby that can solve it in less than 2 minutes, and the world record is somewhere around 6 seconds, so I figure with some moderate force of will and 365 days of practice time, I can land somewhere in the middle of those two.

Friday nights would be an excellent time to work on my novel. Instead, I've been lying on the couch while my kids time my cube solves with a stop watch. Complete waste of time or completely awesome? You be the judge.

Seven Labors

Hi.

What's required for a brand new blog called "The Seven Labors of a Failed Novelist"? Well, obviously you need a would-be failed novelist. That's me.

And you need seven labors. Hercules had twelve, but seven seems perfectly adequate to really crap out as a novelist. You could have none, and save yourself a lot of trouble, and you may have technically failed, but you wouldn't really be a novelist then, would you? So this is my completely arbitrary, unsanctioned list of seven labors:

1. Write a novel - This is probably the hardest labor to achieve, even though the novel at this point doesn't have to be good. It doesn't need to have complete sentences, and you can even forget your character's names or switch from first to third person halfway through. It just has to be . . . something. Words on a page. Around 75,000 to be specific. Easy, right? Wrong. The problem with Labor #1 is that it takes a ridiculous amount of time to achieve.
2. Rewrite your first third before realizing your novel is utter rubbish - By the end of Labor #1, you should be under the delusion that you have written a masterpiece. Then you go back to beginning to start the editing process. After three or four chapters of re-writing, you enter a stage of such despair and self-loathing that you want to burn your manuscript (or laptop) just to save yourself the embarrassment of someone finding it should you get hit by a bus the next day.
3. Don't quit your day job - You've started researching the depressing stats about novelist royalties and are now ready to abandon your dreams of becoming the next J.K. Rowling . . . almost. You realize that you are going to be working, probably for a long time. Probably past retirement age. But there is still a glimmer of hope, just a smidge, that one day you will be writing full time from your cottage in Vermont, wearing eccentric scarves, beloved among the locals as their resident famous person.
4. Abandon novel to write a single chapter in a new novel - Editing a novel is painful, tedious business. It's unrewarding, takes forever, and challenges your self-esteem in every way. But wait! You have a new better idea for a novel. You write a chapter and it is fantastic. It's full of hope and promise and magic fairy dust. In comparison, your first novel looks like your third grader wrote it. In this labor, you will spend months not touching either of them while you try to decide whether to plow on or start over.
5. Finish "just enough" of your novels - One glorious day you realize that you don't have to finish anything. Oh joy! You only really need one or two good chapters to submit to agents. With renewed vigor, you plow through the rest of your novel, cleaning up the grammar, upping your word count, and turning a blind eye on the rest. After all, a failed novelist's book will never be read by anyone but their unsuspecting friends and family, and even that is kind-of unlikely.
6. Don't get an agent - This doesn't mean don't try to get an agent. Oh, you'll try. You'll send out dozens, even hundreds of query letters, even thousands of query letters. If you're lucky, you'll get a rejection. But you probably won't get an answer from the majority of them. You will hear that the publishing industry is dead. But, why are there so many agents, you ask? A worthy question, to be sure, but not easily answered. All you need to know about agents: you definitely can have one and still be a failed novelist, but without one, it's guaranteed.
7. Don't get published - You're really not a failed novelist until you don't get published after spending at least five years writing, re-writing, self-promoting and querying. You won't get published because your book might be terrible, or your dad isn't Nelson DeMille, or your Twitter feed only has 21 followers. You won't get published because people don't read books anymore. But mostly you won't get published because you don't have an agent (see Labor #6).

It's time for me to set out to complete the seven labors - to go from an aspiring novelist to a failed novelist. I guarantee there will be lots of distractions along the way - the siren song of Angry Birds, Bombay Sapphire, WB programming, and the entire Internet is calling me. But, I hope you'll follow me along for the ride.

Maybe you're an aspiring writer who feels like a good laugh (or cry) about the ridiculous endeavor of writing. Maybe you're just my husband and morally obligated to read things I write, no matter how terrible they are. Maybe you just want to see how long it takes until this site becomes "The Seven Labors of the Failed Blogger." It doesn't matter. Welcome! Pour yourself a nice glass a wine, pull up a comfy chair, and settle in. This might take a while.