My novels explore some really dark stuff. Stuff like terminal illness, voluntary euthanasia, serial killing, sex trafficking, drug addiction, dementia. Yes, I have sought professional help. No, it hasn't stopped me from tackling such grim topics. And here’s the thing: When reviewing a novel of mine—whether the book is about a terminally ill man who kills people, or about a man who kills terminally ill people, or about a man who pretends to be a pedophile to catch sex traffickers—most readers mention they found the book funny. Many say they laughed a lot. Some say they peed a little.

Those of you who’ve never read any of my books (and I know who you are—I’m making a list, checking it twice) may be thinking, “What kind of sociopath writes books that make light of such horrific topics and issues? And what kind of sociopaths read such books and laugh enough to need an adult diaper?”

First of all, go easy on my readers—they’re good people. Secondly, allow me to explain:  

I don’t make light of people dying or killing. I don’t make light of cancer or the people suffering from it. I don’t make light of sex trafficking or drug addiction or dementia. What I do (or try to, at least) is show how humans—when stuck in the darkest of spaces—will scratch and claw at the walls until even the tiniest speck of light breaks through. Humor is a natural survival mechanism, so naturally I try to weave some into books about people facing serious adversity. My aim isn't for readers to laugh at the darkness but rather to laugh in it. I never try to force “the funny” (like I sometimes do on my blog or when trying to embarrass my daughter in public). Instead I try to use the funny to appropriately juxtapose the frightening and the fierce.

If you were to ask me what I’m most proud of in my writing career, I’d make no mention of awards or Hollywood options or major book deals (especially not that last one, since I’ve never had a major book deal.) What I’m most proud of are the times when readers—particularly those who’ve personally experienced the same/similar tragedy or peril featured in a book of mine—reach out to say they appreciated how the book’s humor elevated the story rather than detracted from it. How it elicited laughter without  disrespecting the dire straits the characters faced. As a writer, there’s only one thing more rewarding than hearing that a reader “got” exactly what you were going for: Hearing that what you were going for made a lasting impact on a reader and helped to ease their suffering, relieve their grief, make their day (or even just their hour or minute).

That’s what novels by the likes of Chuck Palahniuk, Kurt Vonnegut, Elmore Leonard and Sara Gran do for me. Such books break my heart while making me bust a gut. They show humanity at its worst yet somehow manage to restore my faith in it. They cause me to cringe and clench and cheer and laugh in equal measure. A few other authors who effectively pepper their powerful, gritty fiction with humor are Joe Clifford, Rachel Howzell Hall, Nico Walker, and Will Christopher Baer.   

If you look at the reviews for any of my novels, you’ll see plenty of readers starting off with something like, “I didn’t know what the hell I was getting myself into with this book” or “I was a little nervous about cracking this one open,” but what soon follows is usually something like, “I couldn’t believe I was laughing along with and rooting for these characters” or “Hilarious and delightful, though also heart-wrenching.” (For a perfect example of such a review, click HERE.)

I love receiving reviews like those. Not because they’re positive and full of praise (though sure, that’s nice, too); rather because I love it when readers take a chance on books with topics that worry or rattle or frighten them—books they fear may cross the line or trigger painful emotions or memories. And I love it even more when those readers, after diving into such books, walk away rewarded for their risk—feeling not only entertained but also touched and moved. Perhaps even inspired.

Just like how I feel every time I discover a novel that dares to laugh in the dark.  

How about you? Have you ever bought or borrowed a book you thought might scar you for life but that ended up moving you to tears and laughter? I’d love to hear about it—please share in the comments section below.       

I don’t know what's gotten into me lately. Something's wrong—I’ve been experiencing an overwhelming sense of gratitude. Sure, there are worse things than gratitude to come along and suddenly start ruling your life, but for someone who’s been sarcastic and cynical and annoying since birth, becoming immensely grateful out of the blue can be a real shock to the system.   

Imagine waking up one morning and instead of your first thought being, “I wonder how the universe is going to punk me today” or “People who change lanes without signaling should be executed,” it’s more along the lines of “Being alive is a wondrous gift!” or “Hugs aren’t so bad!” Honestly, I don’t even know who I am anymore. Oddly enough, my family and friends hope my existential crisis continues.

Maybe it's because Thanksgiving's right around the corner. Maybe it’s the meditation I’ve been doing daily. Or my long walks through the woods behind my house. Or the strange magical powder made from a Southeast Asian plant I recently started ingesting to help with my anxiety. (Don’t worry, it’s legal—the powder I mean, not my anxiety.) All I know for sure is I’m more grateful than ever.

While I hope this whole gratitude thing doesn’t hinder my ability to write dark, disturbing novels, I can't help but mention the people and things I'm most grateful for with regard to my fictional—er, I mean fiction—career.  

Readers/followers/subscribers. People have extremely busy lives. There are so many other things they must do and could be doing that don’t involve reading a single word I write. So whenever someone lets me in—even if it’s through the tiniest sliver and for only a few minutes here and there, I don’t take it for granted.

I realize “readers/followers/subscribers” is a bit of a clunky term to be used by someone who is supposed to be good with words, but I’m not yet comfortable using the term “fans”—mainly because I once used that term when referring to a friend who has read all my books, and she said, “Fan? Don’t get carried away, Greg.” I’m actually glad she said it. I am. No, really, I’m grateful to her for keeping my ego in check, even if I’ve yet to fully recover from that crushing blow.

My Launch Team. For those of you who don’t know what a launch team is, you must not love my writing enough to be on mine. A launch team is a group of people who not only enjoy reading an author’s work, they're also are eager to help spread the word about each new book that author puts out so that many other people can enjoy reading the author’s work. And man, I can’t tell you how grateful I am to the dozens of people on my Launch Team. I’m especially grateful that none of them jumped ship when I ended up not launching my upcoming novel (Into a Corner) when I said I was going to—even though many of them had already taken the time to read an advanced reader copy (ARC) of the book and prepared an early review to help build buzz around it.

As somebody with minimal patience, I don’t deserve much of it in return. So, to each member of my Launch Team (and you know who you are, seeing as how you’ve received plenty of weird emails from me in recent months)—a huge THANK YOU for all of your continued support, encouragement, and enthusiasm around my writing efforts. And don’t worry, Into a Corner will (almost) definitely be published in 2020. (2021 at the latest.)

Kind, generous colleagues in the writing community. Emphasis on “community.” This year—more than any other in my writing career—I’ve had the great privilege of meeting and gaining invaluable insight and support from a whole host of authors who write the same kinds of books I write but who have sold many more copies. Some of these authors I’ve met only virtually; others in person. All of them, however, have been extremely generous with their time and, more importantly, their assistance in putting me on a path toward literary fame and fortune. (Mind you, it’s a long and crooked path inhabited by giant scorpions, plus I keep misplacing my compass.)

There isn’t enough space for me to list every author I’m crazy grateful for, or to go into detail why, but here are a handful of names (with links to each author’s [and an editor’s] website … because buy their books!): Lee Matthew Goldberg, Elisabeth Elo, Craig Clevenger, Darynda Jones, Richard Thomas, Chris Rhatigan, Eric Beetner, Lauren Sapala, Ed Aymar,  Sarah M. Chen, Alex Segura, Lenny Kleinfeld. Oh, and a special shout-out to Joe Brosnan of Criminal Element—for inviting me to write feature pieces on a semi-regular basis for one of the best crime fiction platforms on the planet.

The internet. I met my wife through it. I found my cats through it. Most importantly, I learned the absolute best way to dispose of a dead body through it.

As instrumental as the internet has been in my real life, it’s been positively indispensable to me with regard to my writing life. Were it not for the worldwide web and its dark second cousins, I wouldn’t have a fraction of the readers/followers/subscribers I have, wouldn’t be able to work in just my underwear most days, and wouldn’t be a subject matter expert on such fun topics as euthanasia, sex trafficking, poison, or minimizing your carbon footprint when you murder someone. It has truly made me a better person.

My agent (on the TV side). I still don’t really know how I lucked into getting a TV/film agent at CAA a few years ago, but I’m not here to over-think things—I’m here to express how freakin’ grateful I am that my agent’s on the brink of sealing yet another option deal with a major TV studio/network for my novel The Exit Man. (Sorry, can’t disclose the studio’s name yet.) I’ve been here before—with HBO in 2015, and with Showtime in 2017—unfortunately neither of those option deals resulted in a TV show. Here’s hoping the third time’s a charm. Regardless, it’s an absolute honor just to have one of my books be in the position for a TV adaptation to happen.  

(Some of you may have noticed I didn’t mention my literary agent here. It’s not because I’m ungrateful to my literary agent; it’s because I don’t have one. Yet. Working on it, and it’s not as easy as you might think. Well, either that, or my books aren’t good enough for NYC despite being good enough for Hollywood—which is sort of the writing-world equivalent of telling an actor they have a face for radio.) 

My physical and mental health. Not a day goes by where I don’t thank my brain and body for continuing to allow me to write novels. You’d be surprised how taxing it can be to sit on your ass and make stuff up. Seriously, it takes a lot of back and wrist and finger muscles to keep words flowing onto a screen day after day for hours on end. And it takes a lot of brain muscles to ensure that the words flowing onto the screen make some semblance of sense and tell a story that doesn’t suck. Oh, and don’t even get me started on how many heart and mind and gut muscles it takes to deal with all the rejection and sales slumps—not to mention all the demands of imaginary people. 

So yeah, I’m super-grateful for my physical and mental/emotional) health. That’s why I exercise and meditate every day, and why I limit my use of alcohol and drugs to when I’m awake.

My wife and daughter’s support and patience. This isn’t the first time I’ve used this blog to express how grateful I am to my wife and daughter for not having left me or murdered me or worse. And it won’t be the last, as I would very much like to stay married and loved and alive. Living with any fiction writer isn’t easy. Living with an HSP (Highly Sensitive Person) fiction writer like me is next to impossible. (“Would you people three rooms over please stop breathing so much—I’m trying to write a novel in here!”) Think I’m exaggerating? I once yelled at my daughter for feeding the cats too loudly while I was busy trying to dispose of an imaginary body.

The hell that writers like me put our characters through is a warm bubble bath compared to the hell we put our loved ones through. Because the hell we put our loved ones through is real, despite the fact that we do it in the name of fiction. Fiction that in most cases relatively few people will read. Fiction that rarely pays the bills—or even a bill. Fiction that … is fiction.

So, if you’re a writer who lives with other people, and you’re still married and loved and alive, you’d better thank whatever god or gods you believe in. Thank heaven. Thank your lucky stars. And, most importantly, thank those people—the ones three rooms over who are breathing too much and feeding the cats too loudly and putting up with your crazy bullshit but still letting you write since they know how big a part of you it is. Thank them right now. Thank them tomorrow. Thank them every damn day. Because even if you never sell a single copy of whatever you’re working on, you, my friend, have hit the jackpot.

Just like I have.

Your turn. Feel free to share what you're most grateful for—either as a writer or as a normal human being.

Oh, and Happy early Thanksgiving for those who celebrate it!     

I often come up with an idea for a crime novel or thriller that seems so good, I don’t even think about how I should look at it more closely the next morning when I’m sober. Then the morning comes and, after looking at the idea more closely, I realize three things:

1) It’s not a very good idea.

2) Ideas I come up with while drinking rarely are.

3) I must like drinking more than I like good ideas.

There should be a support group that helps authors grieve over book ideas they lose to sobriety. (Actually, such a group sort of already exists—it’s called Alcoholics Anonymous. But I don’t like listening to alcoholics talk about their problems unless the alcoholics are authors and their problems are about books.)

Few things are worse than thinking you have a killer concept for a novel, only to wake up and discover your brilliant idea is DOA and that you’ve slept in your car.

Whenever this happens, there’s no need to despair. I’ve learned one of the best ways to get over dead novel ideas is to share them with others in a blog post on a Wednesday in November. Below are my three most recent ones.

1) title: THE FIXER-UPPER

Premise: Exasperated by the trappings of the modern world, criminal defense attorney Roxy Bower buys an old, rustic, off-the-grid cabin in the woods of Oregon, where she hope to decompress on weekends. After the contractor she hires botches the cabin’s renovation, Roxy kidnaps him and holds him hostage until he repairs everything he screwed up. Trouble is, the contractor—unbeknownst to Roxy—has ties to the Pacific Northwest underworld. Even worse, Roxy succumbs to reverse Stockholm syndrome and falls in love with the contractor, who, as it turns out, is her long-lost first cousin.

Will Roxy get murdered by the mafia before she gets her cabinets hung correctly and her plumbing fixed? Will her love for her hostage be requited and, if so, will they get married and have a child with three arms or some other incest-related birth defect?       

2) title: WRITING WRONGS

Premise: William, a once great but now struggling novelist, is visited and tormented by several of his incomplete characters—all of whom are furious over the fact that he has left them stranded in abandoned manuscripts. Each character demands that William complete the book in which they are currently “stuck.” Several of the characters threaten William with grave physical harm if he even thinks about killing them off before fully developing them and giving their stories a proper conclusion.

Is this the end for William, or the best thing that could ever happen for his writing career? Or BOTH?

3) title: DEAD SET ON DEMOCRACY

Premise: Approaching the 2032 presidential election, the country is divided. Half the people love the rogue, egomaniacal incumbent president, Ronald Rump; the other half would do anything to oust Rump from the Oval Office. One thing everyone can agree on, however, is that Hollywood mega-celebrity Chloe Cavanaugh is a national treasure. So when news breaks that Ms. Cavanaugh has been abducted and murdered by a member of a misogynistic white nationalist organization, the entire country is traumatized and furious—especially since the captured killer has shown no remorse and says he was inspired by the ideology espoused by the president.

Despite Rump denouncing the horrendous crime, his favorability rating plummets just a week before Election Day. All signs point to him not being reelected, but a day before the election, it’s discovered that Chloe Cavanaugh faked her own murder to help “unite the people and save the country.” Will her bold and desperate plan work, or will it backfire and lead to even more political and social upheaval? Who the hell knows—there’s no way I’m ever going to write this novel.    

If you’re thinking of tinkering with some of my dead novel ideas to see if you can make something out of them, please note that there is an advance directive in place for each that clearly states DO NOT RESCUSCITATE. Kindly respect the dying wishes of these dead book ideas—or at least share half the royalties with me if you end up turning one of them into an international bestseller. Thanks!

Fiction writers (me included) often complain to one another about how not enough people are reading their novels or their blog posts or their blog posts about their novels. They whine about how, despite working so hard to create gripping plots filled with compelling characters and twists, the vast majority of people—friends and relatives included—aren’t willing to fork over a few bucks to buy their books.

Well, I’m here today to complain about all the complaining. And not because I’m above it. I’ve certainly done my fair share of complaining about not having enough readers or book sales. But I recently saw the light—well, caught a glimpse of it, anyway—and what I realized is:

Nobody owes me (or any other writer) anything.

No matter how much time or work or creative energy has been put into a book—or even how good a book may be—no writer is entitled to readers.

This is hard for most writers to accept. It was hard for me to accept. And even after accepting it, it’s hard to remember.

I, personally, spend so much time holed up in my writing office, creating and placing so much importance on my fiction, I sometimes forget something much more important: getting REAL.

I don’t mean I need to stop dreaming or that I need to be more realistic (“Hey, writer-boy, get a REAL job.”). What I’m saying is I—and a lot of other writers—need to be more authentic. Specifically, we need to be more authentic in our interactions with other people when we are not writing.

It’s funny (and sad) how so many of us writers find it hard to understand why all the friends and relatives we avoid and ignore for months while working on a novel don’t all rush to buy it when it launches. Also, how upset we get when our writer colleagues don’t all help to promote our latest book even though we didn’t help to promote their latest book when it launched.

Again, it’s not that we’re total a-holes; it’s that most of us have a blind spot when it comes to these sorts of things. Perhaps tunnel vision is a more apt term here. Writing a novel takes a lot of time and requires a ton of focus. Thus it’s easy to become so engrossed in the creative process, you lose sight of the people you’re writing for—as well as the people who’ve helped make it possible for you to write in the first place.

I’m just now starting to “get” all of this, and thus am certainly no expert on the topic. But that’s not going to stop me from pretending to be an expert and listing a few best practices for other writers to embrace.

Following are some effective ways writers—particularly writers of fiction—can “get real” and, in effect, grow their readership organically:

1) Share honest posts about your writing life. Readers tend to be curious about what it’s like to be a writer, and your fellow writers tend to be curious about how sane they are compared to you. Thus, it’s a good idea to occasionally share about your writing process, what you’re working on, what challenges you face, how often you cry over rejections and dismal sales, how often you self-medicate to stop crying over rejections and dismal sales.

As you’ve (hopefully) noticed, I like to infuse my blog posts, Facebook posts, and tweets with humor; however, my most “popular” shares—those that engage the most readers—are the ones in which I’m frank and honest about my shortcomings and fears and failures as an author. Shares where I allow myself to be vulnerable. Those are the types of posts everyone—writers and non-writers alike—can relate to. Because we’re all human, and all humans fall short in some way or another. But especially humans who write.

2) Share honest posts and blogs about your life outside of writing. As interested as readers may be in your writing life, it’s important for them to know you’re not some sociopath who spends all day, every day, holed up in a small room using your own blood to scrawl sentences onto parchment. (Unless you’re a horror writer, in which case it’s not only okay, it’s expected.) To truly connect with readers, you’ll want to show or at least give the impression that you’re a well-balanced individual who has other cool hobbies, like cooking or taxidermy. Readers will also want to know about your family and friends. If you don’t have any friends, share about your pets. If you don’t have any pets, share about your taxidermy.   

3) Interact with readers—and potential readers. Sharing posts about your writing and non-writing life is great and all, but being a writer isn’t all about YOU. Your blog, Facebook page, Twitter profile and Instagram account shouldn’t be one-way streets where only you can drive. If you’re doing things right and posting interesting thoughts, information, and excerpts, folks are going to be inspired to comment on those posts—and you’re going to want to reply to those comments. Mind you, merely replying to every comment with, “Thanks—be sure to buy my books!” is not interacting; it’s shouting. And it’s annoying. By taking the time to openly engage with people who’ve taken the time to look at and comment on your posts, you can cultivate relationships that last a lifetime, or at least until your next book comes out.

The same holds true for in-person events like bookstore readings and book conferences. If readers meet you and think you’re a snob or a jackass, they won’t buy your books—and may tell others not to either. They also might punch you, or break your fingers so you can’t write. And if they meet you (and you’re a jackass to them) after they’ve already bought/read your book(s), they may write a scathing review in which they tell the entire world your writing sucks—and that you have a weak jaw and fingers.     

4) Form alliances and collaborate with other writers. Writing is a solitary endeavor, but writers are a community. And every writer who actively participates in that community not only stands to gain invaluable insights and create lasting Twitter friendships, they stand to expand their potential readership exponentially. Let’s say you’re an author of crime thrillers with a thousand active newsletter subscribers. That’s a thousand people who likely will be interested in your new novel—seventeen of whom will actually buy it. But if you form an alliance with and help support the efforts of fifty similar authors who have a similar number of followers, that gives you fifty thousand more people who likely will be interested in your new novel—forty-one of whom will actually buy it. (I know, novel-math is a little disappointing.)  

Forming an author alliance doesn’t require any blood rituals or selling of souls. (Unless, again, you’re a horror writer.) It merely requires you to do what any decent author person should already want to do—help build buzz about your genre and the writers who help make that genre great. This may include re-tweeting or sharing posts about colleagues’ achievements and book launches, participating in joint-giveaways with fellow authors in your genre, posting interviews with other authors on your blog, and doing newsletter swaps with likeminded authors—or, even better, getting likeminded authors drunk at conferences and stealing their email subscriber list.

BONUS TIP: Another great way to gain access to the vast readership of other writers is to pick a mega-famous author in your genre and marry their son or daughter.

5) Support local libraries and bookstores. The only thing dumber than alienating readers and then getting upset when they don’t buy your books is alienating local libraries and bookstores and then getting upset when they don’t carry your books or allow you to hold an event in their space.

And trust me, you can’t just fake your support of local libraries and bookstores. The people who work in these places are smart; they’ll know if you’re being nice to or helping to spreading the word about them only so they’ll carry your upcoming novel and/or let you do a reading. They’re going to want to see year-round love and support—so visit often, buy/borrow lots of books, bring friends, even go there to write sometimes. At the very least, occasionally bring treats for the resident cat.

6) Realize that doing all of these thing STILL doesn’t entitle you to more readers. Embracing and taking action around all of the “best practices” I’ve listed above certainly enhances the chances of you getting more people to read your work and buy your books, but it in no way guarantees it. If it did, then embracing such tactics wouldn’t actually be authentic—it would simply be a strategic ploy.

Embrace these tactics not because doing so will help you sell more books; embrace them because doing so will make you a better person. A real person. A human being rather than just a human writing.

Long before I became a novelist, I used to imagine being one. I thought about how cool it must be to write all day and roam the night. I thought about the freedom of having no boss, nobody telling you what to do on the page or off it. Just infinite creativity, full expression, pure human experience.

So, yeah, I used to daydream about life—particularly nightlife—as a fiction writer.

And then sh*t got real. 

Here’s how I imagined a typical night in a novelist’s life before I started writing long fiction fifteen years ago:

You sidle up to the bar and nod at Charlie. You needn’t utter a word—Charlie knows your drink. Has known it for years. Knew it before your first novel changed the landscape. Knew it before you declined the National Book Award because you wanted to stay hungry. Knew it before the signed photo of you hanging on the wall behind the bar was hung on the wall behind the bar. 

Bourbon, neat.

The beautiful woman you’ve pretended not to notice sitting on the barstool to your left, babysitting a martini, glances at you, then at the photo, then at you again. “Hey, isn’t that you up there?” she asks, pointing at your framed black-and-white smugness.

You shake your head. “It was.”

The woman knits her brow, then turns her attention back to her martini.     

Charlie hands you a lowball filled too high. You hand him a twenty—you try to, anyway. He shakes his head and says it’s on the house. You shake your head and say he’s an enabler, then drop the twenty into the tip jar.

Charlie tells you he just finished your latest book. Says it’s your best one yet. You tell him you didn’t tip him to lie to you. He laughs, then asks what you’re working on now.

“Just this bourbon,” you say.

The martini woman scoffs. “You know, being so clever all the time actually isn’t.”

You nod and tell her you’re going to borrow that line.

“Be my guest,” she says. “You could use some new lines—I’ve read your last two novels.” She then knocks back her martini, grabs her bag from a hook below the bar, and leaves without another word.

And just like that, you’re smitten. But you’re not going to let falling in love ruin your mood.

The air. It’s thick with booze. Broken hearts. Bad intentions.

It’s going to be a good night.

And here’s how a typical night in a novelist’s life (mine, anyway) ACTUALLY looks:

“What the hell are you doing in there?” your wife shouts from the living room. “You said you were just going to your writing office to grab your phone. Come back here and watch this show with me.”

“Sorry baby, still looking for my phone,” you say as you continue typing ferociously yet as quietly as possible. “Be right there—didn’t realize the commercials were over already.”

Your wife reminds you that Netflix doesn’t show commercials and that you yourself had asked her to pause the show. And that you had promised you wouldn’t sneak off to write tonight.

“I’m not writing,” you say, your fingers tapping as fast as lightning and as light as a feather on the keyboard. You haven’t had a creative spurt like this in weeks. What’s flying onto the screen might be the best thing you’ve written in years.

“Then why do I hear tapping?” your wife shouts from three rooms away.

You stop typing and take a swig from one of the cans of Monster you keep hidden in your writing office and say, “That was just my fingertips drumming on the desk to help me think where I left the darn phone.” You then take a swig from the flask of vodka you keep hidden behind the cans of Monster.

Your wife says don’t worry, she’ll call your phone to help you find it.

“Wait! I think I know where it is now,” you say while an idea for an amazing plot twist for Chapter 16 pops into your head and has you frothing at the mouth, though the frothing may just be from the energy drink. “Yup, here it is—it had slid under the printer.” You take another swig of Monster, and two more swigs of vodka.

“Finally,” your wife says. “Now get back here so we can finish watch—”

“Ohhh nooo,” you call out slowly, stalling to give you time to finish your notes for the killer scene you just thought of. “There are a bunch of text messages from Ted. He says Janet just dumped him and he’s in a really dark place. Says to please call him. Says he needs someone to talk to or he might do something crazy.”

“Oh my god, call him!” your wife cries out. “Poor Ted!”

“Okay, calling him now. Thanks for understanding, baby. So sorry—I promise we’ll finish that episode later tonight.”

You feel awful and you don’t deserve her but more importantly you just bought yourself at least an hour of uninterrupted writing time, fueled by your unstoppable creative spirit and your Monster.

But first you need to tweet something witty about #writerslife and #amwriting. Lucky for you, your wife doesn’t have a Twitter account.

You send out a tweet about how nothing stands between you and your novel, and the tweet already has two likes from hardworking, dedicated writers just like you who are busy browsing Twitter instead of writing. Time to get back to your manuscript. But first, you take another quick peek at your tweet to make sure it doesn’t contain any typos or anything and … SWEET—another like!

Okay, no more screwing around. This novel isn’t going to write itself, and you can’t risk falling out of the zone you’re in right now. You click back to the manuscript and … damn it. You just realized the amazing plot twist you came up with a few minutes ago has a huge hole in it and will never work.

No biggie. You know you’ll come up with an even better twist by the time you get to Chapter 16. In the meantime, you’ll just keep working on Chapter 2, moving the story forward, building tension, increasing the stakes—basically creating a gritty crime thriller that will be impossible for readers to put down. You’ve got this! But first, you check your email.

In your inbox is a message from an agent who a month ago asked to see the manuscript for the novel you finished six months ago but have yet to get published. Before, opening the email, you pray to God this is “the one,” then apologize to God about you being agnostic up until now. You remind God you gave five dollars to a homeless man the other day, then click on the email to open the message. The agent says she’s really glad you gave her a chance to read your manuscript (cool, cool) and says she really enjoyed it (yeah?!) and thinks the book will have no problem finding a publisher (YES!), but that she doesn’t feel she’s the right person to champion it and thus cannot offer you representation at this time.

You shout a string of obscenities, and your wife asks if everything’s okay. “Yes, sorry,” you say. “Just letting Ted know how upset I am about him and Janet splitting up.” Your wife tells you to try to exhibit a more positive vibe for Ted. You say sure thing, then cover your mouth with your mouse pad and scream the rest of the obscenities you know into it.

You take a few deep breaths and start to calm down. You convince yourself there are plenty of agents out there who’d kill to rep you, and that the book in question is your breakout novel. You slap yourself in the face, tell yourself to toughen up, and vow to keep plugging away at the new manuscript no matter what as soon as you check to see how your tweet is doing.

Your tweet has no new likes. Also, you just received another rejection notification via email. And worst of all, your flask is empty. You decide to use all this frustration and dejection as fuel, to have it ignite your soul and elicit from you the most harrowing and gripping set of chapters you’ve ever written. Halfway through the first sentence, you realize you haven’t checked the sales of your existing books since dinner. You check. You haven’t sold any books since last week when your mother bought yet another copy and forced it on a friend.

You start crying a little—partly due to your failures as a writer, and partly due to Ted and Janet breaking up. Then you remember Ted and Janet didn’t actually break up, but this doesn’t cheer you up because you’ve never really liked Janet.

You pop one of the Xanax you keep hidden behind the Monster and the vodka in your office.

Your wife knocks on your office door. “You still talking to Ted?” she asks.

“Hold on a second, Ted,” you say into your pretend phone, which you then pretend to cover even though your office door is closed and your wife can't see you. “Yeah," you say to her. "Poor guy’s a mess.”

Your wife says she thought she heard you crying. You say that was actually Ted— that you accidentally put him on speaker for a moment there. She asks why she hasn’t heard you say anything besides several curse words since you started talking to Ted. You tell her Ted just needs someone to listen to him right now.

Another plot twist idea pops into your head. You tell your wife you feel bad for making Ted hold like this and need to get back to lending him your ear.

“Sorry about that, Ted,” you say into your pretend phone loud enough for your wife to hear. “Please continue. Yeah, you were saying you don’t know how you’re going to get through this, and I was telling you I know you will, and that I’m here for you, and that you have so much to live for.”

Through the door, your wife says you’re a good friend. A good man. A great husband. Says she’s lucky to have you in her life.

You take a break from staring at your manuscript to cover your pretend phone, then tell your wife, “Ditto.”

“Oh, and by the way,” your wife says, a little bite in her voice, “I have your phone.”

She pauses for your heart attack, then says, “You left it on the couch before running to your writing office to find it.”

Says she was just on a real phone call—with Janet. Says Janet’s doing great. Ted too.

Says she’s going to stay with them for the next few days, maybe longer.

Says, “That ought to give you plenty of time to write. Jackass.”

Before any of you unsubscribe, un-follow, un-friend me, and/or urge my wife to divorce me, please note that what you just read is full of hyperbole and over-dramatizations for the sake of entertainment. I assure you I would never cover my mouth with my mouse pad—that thing has mold growing on it from all the vodka and Monster I’ve spilled on it. Also, I don’t have any friends named Ted, or in general.

If you would like to contribute funds to help pay for the therapy Greg needs, you can do so by going to his Amazon author page, clicking on one (or all) of the books featured, then clicking the “Buy Now” icon.