Other than the half dozen books currently bookmarked and dog eared on my nightstand, there are really only three other sources of writing that even bother with. Esquire is my bathroom reader, The Morning News is my online reader, and having the close captions on while watching CNN is my morning coffee reader. The Morning News usually gives me what I need to get through my day, which is usually an article about “not much”, but it is well written and usually goddamn funny, sometimes even educational.
One of the The Morning News contributers, John Warner, is also the author of one my nightstand volumes. Fondling Your Muse: Infallible Advice from a Published Author to the Writerly Aspirant. was a christmas present from my wife to reinforce her position that I should write more. I was under the impression that this was an inspiratonal book with a little pinch of sarcasm. No sooner had I read the dedication and I realized that that the pinch was going to be a punch, and that the inspiration I was looking for was really a parody on the publishing world in general. It turned out to be a real hoot, so I decided to drop John Warner an e-mail.
Hey John -
Just wanted to drop you a note, and let you know that I appreciate your work on TMN. Ironically, my wife would like to see me write more, and decided to buy an inspirational book from my amazon.com wish list. She had to choose from Fondle Your Muse and Grammatically Correct. She chose yours. Needless to say, I bought the grammar book two days later, but yours makes me laugh-my-ass-off to sleep every night.
Mahalo
-Garth
His Reply:
Very nice of you to take the time to write. I�d say that it made my day, but the day is still early and something bigger could happen yet. Still, once again, very nice.Good luck with the writing. As long as you do the opposite of what I say in FYM, you�ll be fine.
Best,
John
Pretty funny – I think I am going to use that one. Well at least on anyone that doesn’t read this, so with the exception of three or four people I should be all set.