I don’t like it. Even though I did write The Translated Man after having read the first three chapters of Chris Baty’s No Plot, No Problem while I was working in the bookstore.
The problem that I have is that I want to be the only one who can write novels. EVERYONE ELSE STOP DOING IT, YOU’RE MAKING IT LOOK EASY.
Well, I CAN’T, for the life of me, write a novel, despite really, really wanting to and knowing deep within my heart that I could be totally awesome at it. Except on the days when I think I’d totally suck. So there: you can at least feel good about being way, way more awesome than one of your commenters. Also, I so need to check out that Baty book!
I can write a novel. I know this, I’ve done it. Except where “writing a novel” is defined as “write a story complete in one volume that includes a final chapter.” That, I cannot do. Been stuck on chapter 27 of a 28-chapter book since, oh, about 2008 now.
So if you use me as your yardstick, you’re doing okay.
Get ready, Jefferson.
:
“Chapter 28:
And then Galactus ate the Earth.
The End.”
I EXPECT A CO-WRITING CREDIT THANK YOU.
Holland: Why limit yourself to co-writer? Play your cards right, any you could be co-defendant in the civil suit. You might meet Marvel’s mighty lawyers!
HO FUCK I GOT IT.
Chapter 28:
I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.
Annnnnd done.
Well, shit. It’s better than mine.
THIS IS WHY I DISAPPROVE OF NANOWRIMO.
For what its worth, my wife says your book’s kick-ass.
And Holland, regarding Galactus: I want to end a non-fiction book that way. A textbook on botany, say, or a biography of Henry Ward Beecher. That’d spice up that side of the bookstore.
Well, she hasn’t gotten to Mr. Stitch, yet, which basically completely abandons the structure of the police procedural/detective novel and, I think, kind of devolves into incomprehensibility. We’ll see what she thinks.
Otherwise, yes: from henceforth, all books shall end with “And then Galactus ate the earth.”
SO SPEAKS BRAAK.