Whenever I’m feeling down, I like to remind myself I’m definitely going to die some day. This usually picks me up out of the doldrums and has me embracing life sooner than I can say “inevitable demise.”
Frequently reminding myself that I’m doomed inspires me to strive for greatness, to go beyond just writing a couple of pages a day and afterward binge-watching my favorite shows on Netflix and Hulu. Granted, those are noble endeavors, but I believe I can do more. More importantly, my wife DEMANDS I do.
To help guide me in my quest to accomplish big things and live the writing life to the fullest, I’ve created a bucket list fit for a serious author. Here is what I’m going to set my sights on going forward, before I die of plot complications or get murdered by a disgruntled reader:
Rejecting an agent. The only thing more baller than landing a big literary agent is telling one who offers you representation you’re not interested. It would be epic! It would be legendary! It would pretty much destroy my chances of hitting the big-time as an author! That last one may sound like a bad thing, but remember, hitting it big only leaves you with more to lose when you die. REAL writers fully embrace self-destruction and poverty.
Filling in for Ryan Gosling in a sex scene in a movie based on one of my novels. Now, I realize this one may seem far-fetched, but keep in mind my second novel – The Exit Man – was optioned by HBO, and the manuscript for my upcoming novel – Sick to Death – is already in the hands of a Hollywood producer. So it’s not too crazy to imagine one of my books getting made into a movie or show in the foreseeable future and me being allowed on the studio set. Nor is it too crazy to think that Ryan Gosling could be chosen to play the lead character. Or that he might suffer a minor injury (at the hands of a certain clumsy stranger on the set) just before a hot sex scene with Olivia Wilde or Jessica Alba. Or that the director, to keep the production rolling and on budget, might opt to replace Ryan with someone who is readily available and willing to do the scene for free. Shut up. This is MY bucket list.
Engaging in a fight club bout with Chuck Palahniuk. This would be like killing two bucket list items with one stone. I’ve always wanted to meet my favorite author, and I’ve always wanted to get punched in the face by my favorite author. It’s not that I like physical pain; it’s just that I’ve gotten a little too comfortable and complacent lately. As a Jew, I find such contentment unsettling. While there’s a fair amount of violence and pain in my novels, there isn’t quite enough in my life. Having my jaw broken and losing a few teeth could be really good for me, and could help to make my writing more authentic. And having my blood covering the skin and clothes of Chuck Palahniuk, the king of transgressive fiction, now that’s something I could tell my grandchildren about… assuming I survive the beating.
Writing a book that gets banned in The Netherlands. Having your book banned in some conservative-minded country is one of the best ways to hit the international bestseller list. Having your book banned in a liberal-minded country is one of the best ways to become a literary god – one who bestselling novelists bow down to. Few countries are as liberal as The Netherlands, where the national flower is the cannabis leaf. My challenge would be picking a subject and creating a plot controversial and repugnant enough to make even the citizens of Amsterdam recoil. I’m thinking I’d have to write a novel in which innocent women and children are killed by wealthy big game hunters for sport, or one in which Donald Trump becomes President of the United States. I think the one about the wealthy hunters would be easier and more believable.
Publishing a book without a single typo in it. I know, I know, I’ve got to be out of my mind to I think I could possibly achieve this one. But hey, a boy can dream.
If you’re an author, what’s on YOUR writing-related bucket list? Share it in the comments section below. And if you’re NOT an author, congratulations on making good life choices.
I spent the better part of 2015 writing a novel titled Sick to Death. I’ve spent much of 2016 editing it, having some pros edit it even more, and praying to the literary gods the damn thing sells.
Sick to Death is your average, everyday tale about a group of terminally ill individuals who become serial killers to make their city a safer place to live. And die.
Call it a beach read.
Following is the tagline and blurb that will appear on the back cover of the book:
Knowing you’re dying can be murder.
When Gage Adder finds out he has inoperable pancreatic cancer, things really start to look up for him. He leaves his soul-crushing job, joins a nice terminal illness support group, and takes up an exciting new hobby: Beating the hell out of bad guys.
Gage’s support group friends Jenna and Ellison don’t approve of his vigilante activities. Jenna says fighting never solves anything. Poison, on the other hand… When the three decide to team up and hit the streets, suddenly no rapist, pedophile or other odious criminal in the city is safe.
They are the sickest of superheroes. Their superpower is nothing left to lose. But what happens when one of them takes this power too far and puts at risk the lives of hundreds of innocent people? Where does one draw the line when dying to kill?
For those of you sick enough to want a bit more, here is the opening from Chapter 1:
Everyone in the subway car gasped when the man with the shaved head slid off his seat and crumpled to the floor.
Everyone except Gage. He just leaned back with his head resting against the window, tapping the ivory handle of his walnut walking cane. As the train rattled around a curve beneath the heart of Philly, Gage ignored the panic and commotion, keeping his eyes on the supine skinhead and on the woman who was now frantically administering CPR to bring him back into the world.
The woman’s rescue efforts were futile. Gage knew this. He knew there was no coming back from the two hundred milligrams of sodium cyanide coursing through the skinhead’s body. How the cyanide made its way into the body, well, Gage knew that, too. And if all went well, he’d remain the only one who knew. And all usually went well. Gage was quite good at cyanide.
And ricin.
And arsenic.
Unfortunately, Gage was also quite adept at Gemcitabine.
And Oxaliplatin.
And Irinotecan.
Unless you’re an oncologist or the patient of one, you’ve probably never heard of those last three.
Over the previous six months, there was only one thing Gage had become more efficient at than killing… and that was dying.
But for now let’s keep things positive and focus on the former.
The skinhead was the second person Gage had murdered in three weeks.
It had been a slow month.
You’re just dying to know what day Sick to Death will be available, RIGHT? Me too! Publishing isn’t an exact science, but the book should be dropping early to mid-September. Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to keep you updated.
And now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back to writing yet another twisted tale to draw the attention of the FBI.
When you tell people you're going to be a writer, undoubtedly many of them will tell you, "Don't quit your day job."
Don't listen to them. QUIT your day job.
Then get a much BETTER one.
It is true you likely won't earn much as an author and will thus need to supplement your writing income. But you can do better than your current day job. You just don't know it yet.
The trouble with most regular jobs is the hours are long and the pay ranges from laughable to lackluster. As an author, you need a lot of time to write and rewrite, and a lot of money to cover your drinking expenses and the costs associated with self-publishing after you fail to land an agent and publisher. Doing the 9-to-5 thing (or some uninspired variation of it) will provide you with neither enough time nor enough money. Plus most traditional jobs are boring and soul-crushing, leaving you with little energy and enthusiasm to create anything worth reading or making a Netflix series out of.
Below I’ve listed five nontraditional jobs that are ideal for authors looking to easily make ends meet. All feature minimum work for maximum pay, provide highly flexible scheduling, and require no formal degrees or certificates. Also, the exciting and risky nature of the jobs themselves will provide plenty of captivating fodder for books.
Now, it should be noted that if you get caught doing any of these jobs (with the exception of one), you will go to prison. But don’t sweat it. In prison you’ll gain even more book fodder and time to write. You simply can’t lose.
And now, on to what I consider some of the best possible day* jobs for authors. (*Most of these jobs are best done at night.)
Bank Robber. Had he been literate, Jessie James could have crushed it as a novelist. Bank robbers work only one or two days a month and make over a million dollars an hour—almost as much as J.K. Rowling. With that kind of free time, you could write a novel every two weeks—almost as many as Stephen King. Key qualifications for the job of Bank Robber include a cool temperament, a steady hand, and a ski mask. It also helps to know the bank’s hours.
Jewel Thief. This job is just as lucrative and time-efficient as Bank Robber, and requires many of the same attributes and ski masks. The big difference is that a jewel thief needs much less upper-body strength, as a handful of diamonds weighs a lot less than sacks full of cash. This is good news for writers who struggle to get to the gym between bouts of writing and drinking. In other words, nearly all authors.
Drug Dealer. Fortunately for writers, more than half the world’s population today is as depressed and as unstable as they are. This means the demand for narcotics and other controlled substances is higher than ever. As a drug dealer, an author can make a fortune working just a couple of hours a day, then spend the rest of the day sampling their own product and working on their novel. As an added bonus, having immediate access to painkillers is great for helping authors handle the agony of constant rejection and poor book sales.
Hitman (or woman). Most authors would kill for more time to write, and that’s exactly what they’d be doing in this job. An average hit takes only a few hours to prepare for and complete, and fetches between $25K-$50K. So by doing just one hit a month, an author will earn enough to almost cover the PR costs for promoting their latest novel. Two hits a month, and they can start thinking about bribing Kirkus to write a favorable book review.
Professional Escort. If going on dates and sleepovers is more appealing to you than killing or stealing, then this is likely the best job for you on the list. Escorts can earn $15K-$30K a month just by accompanying lonely rich people to parties, social events and private sex dungeons a few times a week. Good money, plenty of free time to write, and, if you decide to write about your actual experiences, the chance to blow the shitty Fifty Shades of Grey out of the water in the erotica market. The only drawback is that escorting is legal in all 50 U.S. states, which means there’s no chance you’ll get to go on a prison-based writing retreat.
NOTE: I, myself, am currently considering getting a job in one of the fields mentioned above. The only other viable alternative is for you and everyone you know to buy my books.
A while back, I posted “My 25 Favorite Quotes About Writing.” In retrospect, I probably should have titled that piece “25 Really Good Quotes About Writing.” I continuously stumble across magnificent writing quotes, and calling any one set of them “my favorite” feels limiting. It’s like choosing a favorite snowflake or ‘Rocky’ film – more just keep coming and dazzling me.
Below are another 25 great quotes from famous authors, poets and playwrights – because who doesn’t love pithy quips from crazy people? And more importantly, who has time to create a whole blog post using their own words every two weeks?
1) “Anyone who says he wants to be a writer and isn’t writing, doesn’t.” –Ernest Hemingway
2) “You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.” –Saul Bellow
3) “I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.” –Anne Frank
4) “If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster.” –Isaac Asimov
5) “I've found, in my own writing, that a little hatred, keenly directed, is a useful thing.” –Alice Walker
6) “If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.” –Juan Ramon Jimenez
7) “I write because I want more than one life; I insist on a wider selection. It’s greed, plain and simple.” –Anne Tyler
8) “Nothing is funnier than unhappiness.” –Samuel Beckett
9) “If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.” –Toni Morrison
10) “The first thing that distinguishes a writer is that he is most alive when alone.” –Martin Amis
11) “Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.” –Gloria Steinem
12) “I don’t know why I started writing. I don’t know why anybody does it. Maybe they’re bored, or failures at something else.” –Cormac McCarthy
13) “Great writers are the saints for the godless.” –Anita Brookner
14) “One must be ruthless with one’s own writing or someone else will be.” –John Berryman
15) “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” –Anton Chekhov
16) "I was writing stories when I was five. I don’t know what I did before that. Just loafed, I suppose." –P. G. Wodehouse
17) “I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.” –Flannery O’Connor
18) “What I want to do is make people laugh so they’ll see things seriously.” –William Zinsser
19) “I’m not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn’t make us better, then what on earth is it for?” –Alice Walker
20) “Write something that’s worth fighting over. Because that’s how you change things. That’s how you create art.” –Jeff Goins
21) “Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself…It’s a self-exploratory operation that is endless. An exorcism of not necessarily his demon, but of his divine discontent.” –Harper Lee
22) “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us get up and go to work.” –Stephen King
23) “Anyone who says writing is easy isn't doing it right.” –Amy Joy
24) “A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom.” –Roald Dahl
25) “The pain of writing a novel is exceeded only by the agony of leaving the pages blank.” –Greg Levin (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)
If you haven’t gotten your fill, you can read more great quotes on writing here. Also, feel free to share your favorite writing quote(s) in the comments section below. C’mon, all the cool kids are doing it.
No, this isn’t a lecture on homonyms. It’s a lesson in perseverance.
Late last September, my mother contracted a run-of-the-mill infection, the symptoms of which showed up while she was on vacation in Switzerland. Despite her taking the correct antibiotics, the infection quickly developed into something not at all run-of-the-mill – a bacteria that attacks bone. In my mother’s case, the bacteria went after her spine. Like how a cheetah goes after a baby gazelle. Like how a Wisconsinite goes after a block of cheddar.
Of course, none of this was known until my mother landed at the airport in Albuquerque on her way home from Switzerland. She was barely conscious. That’s a good thing. According to the infectious disease doctor at the hospital in Denver (Swedish Medical Center) where she was airlifted, she could have been dead.
What does any of this have to do with writing or being a writer (which is what I usually cover on my blog)? Nothing. This actually matters.
A very talented spinal surgeon at Swedish removed an abscess (caused by the bacteria) from my mother’s neck, then two days later removed a similar abscess from her lower back. After three days, Mom was moved from the ICU to a sub-acute room, where she was to spend another week fighting the infection that was eroding her spine.
Mind you, my mother was an avid golfer, skier, horseback rider and hiker right up until being admitted to the hospital. Lying in bed unable to walk, or even sit up on her own to feed herself, was completely unacceptable to her. She wasn’t about to take lying down lying down. This is the same woman who, after having a double-knee replacement at age 72 in October of 2011, was walking (with help) the next day, and skiing – yes, SKIING – that January. The only thing that could stop her then were the metal detectors at TSA due to her new titanium body parts.
But spines are more complicated than knees.
During her time in the sub-acute room and, later, in acute rehab (intensive physical therapy) my mother continued to be pumped full of antibiotics and painkillers and muscle relaxants, and fought like hell to rebuild her muscle strength enough to get out of bed and walk using a walker. Seeing her in so much physical pain and under such duress during this period put a lot of things in perspective for me. Suddenly my struggles with the novel I was working on didn’t seem so agonizing. Nor did the toe cramps I often experience when swimming laps. Even listening to news about Donald Trump became almost bearable (though I do still require a small dosage of oxycodone for that).
In December, nearly three months after first being admitted, my mother was finally released. It was a happy day, but not an entirely celebratory one. My father and I knew there was a good chance she’d have to return to Denver a couple of months later for another surgery – this time to have metal rods and screws inserted to reinforce several sections of her spine. The surgeon told us about this out in the hallway, and we all decided to withhold this info from my mother. We just wanted her to focus on getting home and continuing to get stronger. She didn’t need to know about the probability of having to go under the knife once again for a highly invasive procedure. Though looking back, considering how strong she had revealed herself to be up until that point, the news hardly would have broken her. It was my father and I who could barely handle the thought of it. Men are weak.
Once back home in Taos, my mother – who was able to get around the house using her walker – endured weeks of additional and often painful physical therapy. But that was nothing compared to the pain of sitting out the entire ski season. And then just when she had built up enough strength and stamina to almost start enjoying life again (spending quality time with friends, going out to restaurants, even driving), the spinal surgeon confirmed that she did, indeed, require the major surgery to reinforce her spine with a bunch of metal.
While my father and I winced and groaned at the news, the woman who actually had to HAVE the surgery just shrugged her shoulders and said, “Hey, if that’s what’s needed, then that’s what’s needed.” It was at that moment I realized that months of being on pain medication had turned my mother into a Zen master.
So back to Denver she and my father went for what was supposed to be four or five weeks: surgery, one week of recovery, and three to four weeks of intensive physical therapy. Now, rather than go into vivid detail about what the surgery entailed, I invite you to look at the post-surgery X-ray image featured at the top of this post. As you can see, my mother basically had the Eiffel Tower built into her back.
Most women (or men, for that matter) in their late 70s wouldn’t be able to bounce back from such an invasive operation. Hell, most women or men in their late 30s wouldn’t be able to. I still don’t know how she did it, but my mother not only bounced back, she bounced out… of the hospital, TWO WEEKS earlier than predicted by the medical staff. It was unbelievable. Each day she shocked the nurses and doctors with her progress. (Still, I’m a bit skeptical. I’m not saying I’m going to request an investigation or press any charges, but I’m convinced the medical staff provided her with illicit performance enhancing drugs. Like the kind used by the Russian men’s weightlifting team, or the Chinese women’s swim team.)
My mother still has a ways to go before getting back into pre-infection condition, but she’s making huge strides – figuratively and literally – every day. She’s gone from a walker to a cane in no time, and soon won’t even need the cane. As long as she avoids any jarring motions – and large magnets – she’s going to be golden.
If ever you find yourself in or near Taos, New Mexico, consider popping by to visit my medical marvel of a mother. But don’t be surprised if she’s not at home. More than likely she’ll be out swinging away on the golf course, or over on the slopes maneuvering down a black diamond with the greatest of ease.
As if nothing ever happened.
To my titanium warrior of a mom, I have just one thing left to say on this 22nd day of June:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY.
NOTE: While my mother is the star of this story, I must mention the incredible supporting role my father has played. He lived out of a La Quinta motel near the hospital for more than three months in total. He got up at 5:30 every morning so that he could exercise, have breakfast and be in my mother’s room right when she’d wake up. And he stayed at the hospital for 14-15 hours everyday, waiting until she’d have dinner and fall asleep before heading back to the motel. (I tried to arrange for an entire apartment for him via Airbnb, but he refused because there weren’t any that were as close to my mother as his little room at La Quinta.)
Over the past nine months, he has nobly served as a nurse’s aide, a physical therapy assistant, an occupational therapy assistant, a cook, a chauffer, and a cheerleader. Not bad for a 79-year old retired data processing executive whose heart was breaking on a daily basis.
Special thanks also goes out to the amazing paramedics, nurses, doctors, physical/occupational therapists, and patient advocates who worked tirelessly to get my mother back on her feet and, pretty soon, back into ski boots.
And last but not least, a boatload of gratitude to all of my parents’ devoted friends. Your cards and phone calls and emails and text messages and flowers and gifts and meals and visits have had as much to do with my mother’s recovery as any medication, surgery or procedure. Maybe even more.
