Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I'm kind of intrigued by this guy. Based on this particular blog post of his and nothing else, I'd say his skill with words is at the very least promising, and I found some of his absurd descriptions of the agent pretty entertaining, albeit in a sickly "oh no, he's not really... yes he is" sort of way. I'm curious if his material is cut from the same cloth. My hunch is that his novel is wicked boring and/or derivative (how else does a person get rejected 319 times?). He might do better to write a provocative fiction piece more like his blog posts.
He could run and have better odds than independents who have spent decades trying to get their foot in the door. Well, I did it again, I went and made myself sad.
Actually I had the same thought. He'd need to resist the urge to name names, though. But his writing style is very bloggy and might translate into something saleable. I don't care enough to hunt up his blog, but hey. If he's as smart as he think he is, this might actually occur to him. He'll never outdo David Thorne, though. Never.
I've seen this all over Twitter, G+, etc. If his goal was to get people talking about him, this has done the trick. I suppose we can argue about whether there is any such thing as bad publicity. If he actually had works for sale I suspect he'd see an uptick as a result of the coverage of this on social media.
He'll be fine. There's a similar scene with Francis Pugh's How to be a Public Author - 'character' goes to book signings, sits drunken across from big cheese writers - Ishiguru, Mantel et al, makes a dick of himself, writes it up - idiot savante[sp] style.. Reviews - 'Haw haw haw, splendid, The Spectator.' 'Funniest Man in London, The Times.' ...lauded by that literary crowd it mocked. I hated it [secretly and openly] questioned humanity really. As for your original guy, if he tuned contempt several notches, and became the greatest oaf set against metropolitan people, it might be funny. Boys love that stuff, even Ed Reardon...the radio character is similar...losers are funny.
I got a rejection today after a slog for a deadline and a two month wait. No detail, a form letter (email). This is new for me given I horde my efforts or just blog post rather than submit—I feel unready but thought I could nail something with this submission. Hurt, made my mind spin a while in the enigma of why. An nth of an nth of me said 'give up' but the rest of me chimed in with 'nah, carry on'. And reading of Ed's and Chained's endeavours, well I'm figuring it's par for this course. This post is the loudest I'll be about it. Quiet dignity whilst soldiering on.
Yeah, rejections are just part of writing. Well, no, they're part of publishing. It sucks, but... so does not getting published!
@SethLoki by being rejected you're ahead of about 99% of writers, because they never get as far as submitting anything. It's a good thing.
Thanks @youtwo . Thicker skin—ordered some. Plus, good point @Tenderiser, yes—something completed, saved and submitted. Progress.
Stage two, go read slop you sent, see personally how you removed every definite/indefinite article from a perfect original draft, mis-spelled your own name, posted entire novel in font of eighteen, triple-spaced, and wingdings. You author.
it's not very often something irk's me, and that article has, and is the reason why i've not posted as of yet to this thread since my initial post, unfortunately people like him make me rage, a lot... most of you know me as someone who tends to be pretty calm... but yeah, this had me riled up properly (and why i ended up walking away from this thread for some time)
Well, an interesting look at slanted writing - lol. ( and how not to do it ... unless snotty is the look you're going for ) But a bad reveal of a person's pettiness. Don't people ever cool down anymore? Why is everyone rushing to blog, vlog, twitter or rant? Good gravy. You can't take back that crap. I forsee self publishing in this guy's/girl's/mean robot's future.
Well he got himself noticed which is what he wanted I suppose. Where he is completely out of order is shaming someone publicly over their personal attributes, using a professional interaction. No one owes you a living in this world. Just because I may have spent three years banging keys on a computer and saving it into a word document doesn't mean someone is obliged to respect me for doing so. He seems to think that spending $50 for a pitch meeting was going to lead to a six figure book deal. I imagine you would go through life feeling rather bitter with that attitude. One of the things he complains about is criticism of his choice of genre. He appears to write a sort of romantic fiction. You can read excerpts of his books on his website: http://www.davidbenjaminwriter.com/a-sunday-kind-of-love/ http://www.davidbenjaminwriter.com/threes-a-crowd/ My first (and only thought really) was that he seems to be a decent writer, but his premises aren't nearly as interesting as he undoubtedly thinks they are. One is about three seedy Vegas businessmen killing their wives so they can spend more time with prostitutes (er, yeah) and the other is about some Fanny Price type character moping after her boss in Wisconsin.
As someone who lives in Wisconsin and hates football, I can honestly say that a book whose storyline is intertwined with the Packers is literally the last thing on Earth I would every want to read. "...as Trish’s emotional rollercoaster careens along its tortuous course, so does the Packers’ rocky 2009 season. In quarterback Aaron’s Rodger’s second year as a starter, he was still unproven in the eyes of most Packer fans. Complicating this unresolved drama is the fact that Brett Favre, Rodgers’ sainted predecessor as the Packer quarterback, came out of retirement at the last minute, and decided to keep playing in the NFL. In a twist that no fiction writer would dare introduce for fear of shattering the story’s credibility, Favre signed up with the Packers’ most hated rival, the Minnesota Vikings. Every Packer fan was torn." No to the no to the no no no. To be fair though, I wrote a romance novel that's about 70% food porn, so I'm not exactly innocent of working my hobbies into my stories either.
I don't think his crime is any worse than anything on Linkedin. That place is disgusting, irksome fakehood.
Funny thing is he's actually been published before so there's a degree of talent there even if the man comes across as a bit of a dick.
