Getting back on the (Novel) Train (With Comments about NorCal!)
Friends–I’ve spent much of the last week in the girlish splendor of NorCal, out at Stanford’s homecoming– a school I didn’t attend– appropriating much more than my standard allotment of…
Friends--I've spent much of the last week in the girlish splendor of NorCal, out at Stanford's homecoming-- a school I didn't attend-- appropriating much more than my standard allotment of Vitamin D and feeling insanely jealous of the people that managed to trick, steal, or academically impress their way onto this campus. Moving aside the fact that I would've never been able to get in, I am 86% sure I should've gone here.
Which reminds me of a conversation I had with my dad while visiting my friend Frank at UVA Law School.
Me: Dad, UVA is ridiculously gorgeous! The senior quad has all these singles and they've each got their own firewood and Thomas Jefferson built the whole school by himself with, like, three oxen, George Washington's cherry tree axe, and--
Dad: Yes, Kevin, it is a nice school. What's your point?
Me: My point is that I probably should've gone here.
Dad: Well... if it makes you feel any better, you probably couldn't have gotten into any programs there, undergrad or grad!
Me: That...that doesn't make me feel any better. Actually that makes me fe--
Dad: I love you too son.
(Hangs up)
The good news is, I don't think about these things at all. Pushing past my inferior academic achievements, I want to talk about my book. Do you remember my book? I called it my thesis, and complained about it incessantly? It was, like, 300 pages, 220 of which weren't that bad? No? Well, start paying attention, bc it's time to bring that sucker back out and finish up the last re-writes that my pseudo-agent-friend bugged me about twice before mentally writing me off as someone who'll never actually finish anything, which is ridiculous... Because I did finish! I defended it as my thesis! And got critiqued! And felt really overwhelmed with the work I had to do! And then I got a steady job, took on several mag stories, and pushed it to the back quadrant of my mind, the place where I keep the Red Sox starting lineup from RBI Baseball (Don Baylor!) and an alarmingly staggering amount of knowledge re: Marvel Comics from 1990-1993.
I am planning on making the proper re-writes starting next week. I am allotting two hours every morning from 8:30-10:30 to be my "finish your damn book" time. I figure I can use this time because I normally spend it riding through the Internetz on a quest to find old, hilarious That's So Raven episodes and music videos involving C&C Music Factory. I mean, I still plan on doing those things, but I'll just do them later. Anyway, consider yourself warned. Kevin is back on the novel train, pumped up to complain about it, and even more pumped up to speak about himself in third person! I will now spend the entire rest of this week thinking of clever things to title this new blog path, and utilizing the hilarious complexity involved in replacing "s's" with "z's". That, friendz, is just how Kevin rollz.
Jane Friedman is a full-time entrepreneur (since 2014) and has 20 years of experience in the publishing industry. She is the co-founder of The Hot Sheet, the essential publishing industry newsletter for authors, and is the former publisher of Writer’s Digest. In addition to being a columnist with Publishers Weekly and a professor with The Great Courses, Jane maintains an award-winning blog for writers at JaneFriedman.com. Jane’s newest book is The Business of Being a Writer (University of Chicago Press, 2018).