For Shem

There are a few things that go toward marking yourself as a "true writer". First, you need to have suffered (relatively speaking) heartache, disappointment, failure and pain. All of that occured to me back in third grade when Jill Baker broke up with me and dashed all my hopes of a perfect life.

Second, you need to acquire some kind of strange ailment that critiques and college English Lit. students can ponder and postulate into the "meaning" of your writing. I lost my appendix at 22, and now have a mild form of carpel tunnel syndrome. That's pretty much the Red Badge of Courage for writers everywhere.

Third, every true, struggling "writer" must have compiled lists of authors and agents that he/she can place rejection letters next to prior to wall-papering the house with them. Since I'm lazy by nature, I opted to not compile my own list, but rather found a list that someone else had compiled and rode those coat-tails to my current level of writing success. Go ahead, look up my latest opus, I'll wait here.

The list that I use is Jeff Herman's Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents. Mr. Herman comes out with a new list every year, which is a marketing strategy that has only been eclipsed by bottled water and soap on the scale of money-making schemes. After all, there are no fewer than ten-billion would be authors, playwrites, poets, and nome de plumes just itching to become the next Dan Brown or John Grisham.

Yours-truly is certainly among those.

I like Jeff Herman's Guide because it breaks out the publishers and agents seperately, and provides responses to surveys he sends out to each of them, so you can read exactly what they want to see, in what format, with how many pages, and what kind of SASE (self-adressed stamped envelope) so that you get your rejections in the swiftest possible manner. If I sound bitter at all, just refer to paragraph one of this article.

I'm nothing if not dedicated to the cause of being a "true writer".

The reason for this is that Shem or his wife, asked what I used to send out my feeble efforts into the realm of publishers and agents in order to give them the side-splitting laughter they deserve before they buckle down and read those truly gifted with the ability to write. So, there it is. Jeff Herman's Guide is what I use, and I'm sure I've aided Mr. Herman to take that fifth trip around the world as he's always wanted.

So, if anyone was torn on what to get me for Christmas, New Years, or Gerald Ford's funeral, please, feel free to provide me with the latest version of Mr. Herman's helpful little guide for a "true writer."