So it's been 8 months since I posted...that's not so long, is it?
I've been doing a lot of things, very few of which make for interesting online reading, so there ya go. Fishing and biking and playing with my kids and getting x-rated with my wife. Good summer. Bad blog fodder.
However...my latest endeavor MAY just be a little interesting. In just under a month, my partners and I open this bad boy:
That's right. Our very own comedy club, right in the heart of Boston and just around the corner from the empty space where the Comedy Conneciton used to live.
P.S. Anyone know a decent web developer that'll work fast and cheap?
I'm posting, frankly, just to be writing something. I've got inertia of the fingers, if not of the brain, and the only way to shake it off is to start slapping words onto the screen. So here we are, me and this blog, staring each other down like cowboys in a Leone film (I get to be Lee Van Cleef; fuck you, blog). It's been a while since I've been here. I'd totally forgotten I'd picked a theme of skulls with cranberry eyes. I'll leave it for now.
Querying continues apace. I've had two requests for the full manuscript now (one agent, one publisher), and got two very nice, very positive, very energizing "no, thank yous" for my trouble. The publisher used words like "intensely readable" and "laugh out loud funny without trying too hard," and the agent said it was like a Miranda July movie produced by the Coen Brothers and directed by Tarantino. So as rejections go, I'm feeling pretty good. I took some time off over the holidays because I figured everybody was busy being a slackass drunkard like me. But I've gotten a membership in the Mystery Writers of America and plan to keep sending the book out, hopefully using their resources to work smarter.
The missus and I weathered a big time crisis and have come out better for it. It shook us up but also seems to have gotten our priorities back in whack. A conscious kindness to each other has morphed into re-kindled attraction and a fair amount of hot, groping sex. Which is good. We like each other better and love each other stronger (and bang each other goofy). A-plus on that.
I'm still ambivalent about comedy. Still doing two or three shows a week and making good dough, but the Eye of the Tiger has dimmed, and frankly, I don't miss it so much. I'm definitely thinking of my career in the past tense, even if the financial reality hasn't caught up to that yet. It's still fun, I'm still funny, and I can still hold my own, but I don't have that hunger anymore, and frankly, I'm beginning to see that hunger for the pathetic desperation it really is. I was never good at the "hey, look at me! look at me!" aspect of being in showbiz, but now I'm finding myself with active contempt for people who're good at it. I'll still sell you a CD if you want, though.
I now like basketball, and want a Rajon Rondo jersey stat.
The knuckleheads are maniacal, destructive little bundles of unconditional love, one of whom won't wear pants and the other of whom is getting ninja-like in his sneaking of snacks, and I thank the God-Universe for them every single day, even when I'm scrubbing jelly off the TV.
And the new American Gladiators? Oh, HELL YES.
Number one son (he's six) just changed our outgoing answering machine message to "Nobody is home right now. We're out destroying houses. Please leave a message after the poop or I will kill you in the face."
Hell, yes, I'm leaving it like that.
My heart goes out to my poor wife: less than 18 hours after being hauled offstage by Morrissey's bodyguard, she is currently at our first honest-to-god parent/teacher conference, trying to strike a balance between sticking up for our slightly weird kid and letting the teacher explain just what's been going on. I complain plenty about the schizoid nature of my daytime/nighttime existence, but this just puts me to shame.
Show us what makes you a die-hard fan.
Since I last posted about my book, I haven't gotten any more rejections. I have, however, had an agent request a partial and then a full, so how about that? I'm continuing to query, just to make sure I don't give into temptation and put all my eggs into this one basket that may or may not pan out.
I had my writing group, such as it is, hammer on my synopsis last night. Usually, it's not much of a group. It's two other guys, one of whom is writing a pretty good sci fi book, only he writes about 5 pages a month, and the other of whom has incredible insight and good comments but never actually writes a goddamn thing. But last night, they found exactly what was wrong with my synopsis, and, by extension, my query letter. I knew something wasn't right, but I couldn't quite zero in on it. They twigged it immediately, and I got up early this morning to fix it. Man, it's night and day.
Of course, now I wish I could somehow get the queries I've sent out back and replace them with the New and Improved version, but c'est la vie. Halfassed Writing Group comes through in spades!
P.S. Go Sox! Go Rox!
Let me apologize in advance and wish you the best of luck in getting through these difficult next few weeks of heartbreak.
LET'S GO, RED SOX!!!
So I've been mailing out query letters for my novel, and the rejections have started to roll in. Totally expected, of course. I've read the stories of Stephen King and his nail full of them and everything. "You're a real writer now," my friends say. And truly, I've only sent out like 6 queries and gotten 2 rejections, both from agents way out of my league.
Still - kinda sucks, I gotta say. Yes, yes, yes, I realize that I've got dozens (hundreds?) of more queries and rejections to go. Can't a guy indulge the occasional fantasy of being the asshole that gets lucky before he deserves it?
Good news is that it just makes me want to write more, so I've got that going for me. More letters, more stories, more coffee!
How the fuck did I make it to age 37 without ever hearing "Masters of War?"
Yours truly,
Tim
P.S. Back down the Dylan rabbithole. See you on the other side.
Things continue apace. My half-assed shows this weekend turned out to be incredibly fun. I sold plenty of CD's and killed all three sets. The opener was a good friend and great comic, and the feature was someone I didn't know and completely underwhelming, but all in all, a fine weekend of comedy jokes.
I continue to query agents (plural, thanks to Jodi's bad influence) who are far too important to deal with the likes of me. That's not false modesty - I'm just querying rock-star-level people at the moment. Nothing ventured and all that. I'm building a mail merge file of mere mortals and will start sending those letters out once I reload on stamps and envelopes.
Me and the Missus are doing well, I guess. We've had a sort of passive/aggressive detente going the last couple weeks, and I'm not sure exactly where it's coming from. I either feel like a victim or an asshole, depending on the hour of the day. But then everything will be hunky dory and giggling at the Simpsons, so I don't know what's up. Maybe it's just living in a house with two crazy kids.
I miss Colorado like anything. Mountains make me good inside.
