Not much

[marlowe1]

Spent this weekend sleeping and watching teh Seinfeld DVD. Got some writing done. Found out a friend fell for one of those craigslist "Edit my book and I'll give you $10,000 when it gets published and makes me a million" scams - although can you call them scams if the writer REALLY thinks that he's going to get published and make a million? A mutual foolishness. Still waiting for two contracts for Teddy Bear Cannibal Massacre but I really have to mail out the signed contracts to the writers.

The guy that owns the apartment that I'm subletting (absentee roommate?) was supposed to pick up some stuff but he didnt. The super tried to shake me down for $20. There's no smoke detector and he told me that he'd have to charge me for it. And if I didn't pay right hten, he'd have to tell the management company and they would not appreciate a subletter with three cats. I'd probably lose the place if I didn't pay him right away. I just nodded and repeated that I'd tell the guy that is supposed to be living there. He just kept repeating himself as if I was too stupid to get his point. Another reason for getting out of this place by February (when I will be able to move again - gotta love student loans)

Comments

[hotcoffeems.livejournal.com]

The super tried to shake me down for $20. There's no smoke detector and he told me that he'd have to charge me for it. And if I didn't pay right hten, he'd have to tell the management company and they would not appreciate a subletter with three cats. I'd probably lose the place if I didn't pay him right away. I just nodded and repeated that I'd tell the guy that is supposed to be living there. He just kept repeating himself as if I was too stupid to get his point. That's bad news and possible future trouble.

Pretty lame premise, too, for him to try that on you. Please watch your back.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

I'm not planning on staying there past March (and hopefully February)

Although I just got a talking to at work - seems that the new supervisor is catching hell for the fact that Eric never did anything and left us here alone to play around on the internet. So this ends my break.

[avantpop.livejournal.com]

It's not so much a scam as a delusion. I met a gy once who'd printed hs memoir of being in an insane asylum with iUniverse or some such and went ito a spiel about all the good deed he'd planned to do with the certain millions that were coming to him when his memoir became a bestseller and a hit movie.

I see ads like this all the time, including the ones "bestselling author needs assistant/collaborator." I used to call them just to fuck with them, asking, "What was your bestseller?" only to find out they hadn;t even published a book yet. I guess they were speaking in the future tense.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

And POD has just pulled these jokers out of the woodwork too. Used to be that you wrote a crappy book, showed it to your friends and that was it. Maybe you bounded it at a copy center. I read one of those. The guy's 7th book and by the second page I pulled out the red pen and started making changes. Even though he only wanted me to read it. He was so proud of it too - all the research that he did for it, all the work he put into it.

Of course he's another one of those that thinks that publishing is just like a lottery (and that someone else ripped him off - he is apparently friends with Ishmael Reed or knows him and Ishmael Reed actaully showed it to a publisher. So he sees a book with a similar plot and instantly thinks that he's been robbed. Of course this guy has a PhD and a professor job to fall back on - and he's a Communist. So the delusions don't end with book writing.)

[avantpop.livejournal.com]

I just love how people who are unpublished and possibly unpublishable but have PH.D.s can get a cushy academic job but a real working writer with 10, 20, 30 books to his/her no name and no degree generally wouldn't even get an interview for such a job. (Unless of course you win the Pulitzer or something, and then then race to your door and offer you a "status" chair.)

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

So why don't you get your PhD? It's fun. Ok i'm only getting my MA which I find rather comical.

The teacher is an ok writing teacher but I have a problem with the fact that one of his list of credits (our second class was a poetry reading with him and two others - to his credit he was the best of the bunch even though most of it was just word puking) was a book through Creative Arts known for being a vanity press ripoff press (I was wondering why they wanted an entire manuscript when I sent in for info - or why I was getting email from writers for them trying to publicize themselves)

[avantpop.livejournal.com]

Is that the one in the Bay Area connected with ZYYZVA? Yeah I've heard some questionable things about 'em.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

I just remember getting their catalog and then seeing the warning about them 4 years later on http://www.sfwa.org - which made me happy I never submitted anything to them.

Not only are they a vanity press but they lie about being a vanity press and don't hit the writers up for money until they've been "accepted" for publication. So these poor bastards think they are getting legitimate small press publication (as shoddy as that might be at times - at least you figure that the publisher is trying to do right by the writer) but are really getting Vanity which is outright shit.

[avantpop.livejournal.com]

They usually couch it in terms as "co-op" publishing, or "investing" or whatever.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

Of course sometimes they are just clueless - like Pink Stucco Press which is a vanity press that pretends to be small press - except the writers have to sell their own books and the publisher gets real nasty when you bug him for publicizing. He's not a bad guy - just a little clueless and only doing it for a hobby.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

Actually he was a political science professor so he did have to work for that job. And apparently his civil rights class gets student responses like "you talk about race too much" because presumably it was a class on the history of the Martian Civil Rights movement.

But I havent' talked to him in years. It was that whole fundamentalist Christian thing that eventuallygot in the way.

[avantpop.livejournal.com]

Oh, Jesus H. Christ!

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

We got along fine when I was a pagan, but when I start converting to Judaism and giving money to http://www.jewsforjudaism.org and hearing shit like "fulfilled Jews" from this guy, that was the end of it.

[elbom.livejournal.com]

I'm not eligible for university housing because I live with my girlfriend. North Dakota state law prohibits cohabitation between unmarried heterosexual couples. No, it's not a joke. It's true: http://archive.datalounge.com/datalounge/news/record.html?record=20653
Which means I pay $550 for a 1-bedroom in a town where an average 2-bedroom is no more than $400. If you're married, that is.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

Lovely.

I wonder when they are going to get around to changing that.

Although I doubt that "heterosexual" is in the wording of the law. Somehow I don't think you can get away with going - "But officer, he's gay!"

[elbom.livejournal.com]

I guess you're right. The Jack Tripper excuse might not work in this case.

I moved here 5 months ago. Judging by what I've seen so far, they'll never change it.

[laserbitch.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, yeah, I've been bad about that, haven't I? Argh.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

Actually it gives me an excuse for the delay. I still haven't copied everyone's contracts and sent them back. But yeah you have. You have my new address right?

[laserbitch.livejournal.com]

Ummm, not sure if I have your new one. If you don't mind, you can send it on over to devanari at gmail dot com.

Heh. My procrastination aids yours. Sweet.