In twenty days, I leave urban Brooklyn for rural Vermont, where I will be placed in a snowed-in isolation chamber to work on Raronauer’ed, The Novel (working title) for the month of February. There’s some hope I will finish the book during this month. After that, the hope continues that I will immediately sell the publishing and film rights and then not have to worry about money or bugs for some time.
In reality, I probably won’t finish the book next month. Even when I do finish it, process of finding an agent will likely be ego-shattering. And after that, that agent needs to find a publisher. And after being published, the book needs to be reviewed, hopefully well.
Have you read the New York Times Book Review lately? There are so many authors who have made it through all these steps, sometimes several times, and I’ve never heard of them. If I’m lucky, I’ll become a published writer most people haven’t heard of, which means I need a job.
When I come back from Vermont in March, I’ll be approaching the one year anniversary of semi-unemployment. Whether or not my book is done, I need to get serious about finding a tenable employment.
I’m not sure what this will be yet. Suggestions are welcome in the comments. But if looks or disposition weren’t an issue, I’d like to be an L.L. Bean model. I love the outdoors and Labrador Retrievers. I’ve written about catalog models before, at the time dismissing them as people trying to live a dream. But if modeling weren’t your dream, posing for L.L. Bean would be an easy way to make money, plus in non-modeling terms, you’d be very attractive. I mean, between being mediocre looking and teaching The Great Gatsby to uninterested 11th graders and being a low-level model, which would you choose?