"I was born, I blinked ..."

You blink and summer, you sadly discover, has passed you by. Actually, it went by faster than a blink, which life in general seems to do, or so I'm discovering now that I'm a 51 year old guy. Time is now akin to sliding down that slippery slope. The descent isn't all that rapid, but you start thinking of things that you never thought about before (if you'll forgive the Yogi Berrasim, may God rest his soul).

For instance, you wake up one too many times at night to take a leak and what flashes through your brain is prostate cancer. There's more hair at the bottom of the shower drain these days. Gray hair. You're still exercising more than ever, but it sometimes leaves you more tired than energized, so you become a fan of afternoon naps (For the life of me, I don't know how folks with traditional jobs get through the day without a nap).

But there's a lot of good that comes with age too.

For the most part, I feel like I'm twenty-one. I eat what I want, drink what I want, go where I want, and, do what I want, within reason. I still get the high hard one up without help from chemicals, and, praise be to God, I don't think I've enjoyed a summer in recent memory where I haven't had even an ounce of women trouble.

Maybe I'm learning something in my dark middle age (it's not really all that dark. I just like the sound of that). Ten years ago this very weekend, my second wife, Laura, and I, split up. I moved out with fifty dollars in my checking account and a whole bunch of debt, and no publishing contracts to depend on. Now, ten years later, Laura and I are back together. I'm about to publish my twentieth novel in Jan. 16 (Orchard Grove, Polis Books), and I make a very good living at what I do. As for debt, I kicked it's big fat ass.

So how did I do it?

I worked hard at making some serious changes in my life that extended far beyond something as simple as quitting smoking or giving up gluten. I peered into the mirror, and I was honest with myself. Brutally honest. What I came up with is that your life is your own responsibility. No one is to blame for your plight but you. Not society, not race, not political affiliation, not your parents, not the police, not the welfare state...Not even God or the devil. You and you alone are the captain of your ship and you alone are responsible for its course.

So, yes, I have learned some things now that I'm older, the most important lesson of which is this: No matter how bad your situation is, you can change it. You can reverse anything, if you want to. Happiness isn't something you wear like a skin. It's a choice. In making the decision to be happy, you must make adjustments. Some of them difficult, like giving up a job you hate, leaving a harmful relationship, or packing up, selling your shit, and moving to a new state or country. But the changes are necessary if you are going to be happy (yes, in all the Eat, Pray, Love, sense of the word).

I'm reminded of an obituary that recently appeared in a US newspaper. It was written by the woman who was about to die, something for which I applauded her. In it, she wrote, "I was born, I blinked, and it was over." I've never forgotten those words. Nor should you. That is, you want to assume ultimate responsibility for the one life you live and its happiness.

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Best Publishing Advice Ever: SEX

How to publish your first novel...

Every now and then a veteran of the publishing wars will come out with some brilliant advice. So brilliant, its like an exposed million watt light bulb no-brainer that burns the retinas when you look directly into it. Joyce Carrol Oates is one of those writers. Her new Op-Ed in The Onion, "If You Wish To Be A Writer, Have Sex With Someone Who Works In Publishing," states the obvious. Sleep your way to the top.

Oates proves her worth not only as a writer who's been publishing professionally since before I was born, but also as a woman who knows how to treat her editor, especially when she drops off a manuscript to him and then proceeds to gift him with a long, slow blowjob. 

I can relate to Ms. Oates. Most of my success has also come from sleeping my way to the top. When I was starting out in writing school back in the mid 90's, I slept with all my professors (minus the guys of course, although I'm sure a couple of them would have loved it). I played it smart and made sure I signed on only with women writing teachers for my course work. If they were married with kids, all the better. That would pretty much guarantee that they'd be lonely and feeling under appreciated by their husbands. Most of the time, they wouldn't even bother to read my work. They were more interested in what I was packing underneath my Levis 501 button-fly jeans. We'd have sex for hours in my dorm room and then, at the end of the semester, they'd give me an A. Easy peasy.

When it came time to publish in the big leagues, I signed with sexy female agents who worked in New York City and who would have sex with me in cabs, trains, buses, restaurant bathrooms, hotel rooms, offices, on bar stools, you name it. I once even had sex on the Circle Line with a prospective agent, but in the end it didn't work out. But soon I was hooking up with major editors at the major houses. The woman who eventually bought my first big novel, The Innocent, (As Catch Can) had sex with me on the rooftop of the Bertlesmann Building on a glass table. Several weeks later I signed a contract worth a quarter of a million dollars. It was the best sex I've ever had. 

But then, I decided to go legit. I wanted to publish based on the merits of my writing and not the girth and length of my dick. I stopped having sex with my professional publishing associates. My market dried up. I couldn't get a contract if I put a gun to someone's head. In the end I could see that it was either put out or shut up. So I went back to fucking my way to top. In no time at all, I was enjoying not just a new contract, but new contract(s). I was selling hundreds of thousands of books and having so much sex I had to increase my vitamin intake. 

I'm glad Ms. Oates came out and revealed the sure path of success in the writing business. It's time someone had the guts to stand up and admit the nasty truth. If you want to make it in this industry, make certain to fuck your way to success. Because when it comes to signing big book contracts, it's likely your going to get fucked real hard, one way or the other.

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