All Words & Pictures

I suppose it had to happen sometime. Actually, when it did it took a while for the realization to sink in. leaving an office building yesterday I dawdled a while at the reception desk, being a shameless flirt when one of the girls asked me the question: How do you go about getting a book published?

“You’ve written a book?” I asked. “I want to, but then what would I do with it?” she replied. Okay. So, what kind of answer did she want to hear? I could have blown her off and been on my way. But she did have a nice smile. I’m a sucker for a nice smile.

So I explained she shouldn’t bother with the whole book straight away but instead concentrate on a sample chapter coupled with an outline. As for getting it published, well that depended on the subject matter, which would dictate which agent she should sent it to. Straight to a publisher and it would undoubtedly finish up in the slush pile.

Which led to the next query, asked with some trepidation: What was the subject matter? Without any idea of ‘The Pitch’ civilians are prone to rattling out the whole story – beginning, end, and every darned thing in between. Instead she was atypically brief: Her autobiography! Her autobiography? Well, that’s, ah... Really?

She explained she had had a really interesting life outside of her life as a receptionist. Really? Well, I thought, so have I, and I’ve got more than a decade’s worth of experiences on her. But I don’t expect other people to be that interested because they’ve got their own interesting lives. Unless, perhaps, it was pages from my succession of crash-and-burn relationships, like the instance I went on holiday with an ex-girlfriend and the current soon-to-be-ex girlfriend. That was a real doozie. Or the one that was just so wrong I actually wanted to get dressed and get the hell out in the middle of us having sex, even if it was ungentlemanly to go before she had come.

Subject matter aside, she asked how much money she would probably get. As an advance? I gave her a ballpark figure that didn’t impress her one bit. What did she expect, the kind of advances Stephen King and Grisham and now Dan Brown get? They may not write great literature but the books are page-turners and, more importantly, they sell. I suggested that as a young unknown with no track record she might like to try a bit or fiction first. Or something. I wished her good luck. She smiled.

Who needs to randomly put words on paper anyway? Aren’t we all supposed to be making movies? I had a conversation today about The Blair Witch Project. It didn’t last long. Neither of us liked the film. I’d bought it, sight-unseen, when it was released on video in the US. My excuse was I was pretty drunk at the time.

The holiday with the ex/soon to be ex had started in New Orleans. They’d driven from LA, I’d flown from the UK. They arrived first and the hotel desk had given me the key to the ex-girlfriend’s room. By the second day I was lunching on three Hurricane’s at Pat O’Brien’s to help me get throw the day. And this was before it all went down hill. I’d bought the film at the Virgin store a block or two from Jackson Square.

Today we were trying to remember at what point we were supposed to all be filmmakers. I don’t mean just us but everyone. Wasn’t it when digital cameras came down in price and home PC editing software became readily available? So not only does everyone have a book inside them but a film as well. Of course, just because a person can turn on a camera and remove the lens cap, it doesn’t mean they have the first clue about film grammar or storytelling, as some of the blander results prove.

If everyone could do it right, wouldn’t amateur sex tapes be better? Okay, the participants have more urgent matters at hand but they don’t even manage to put the camera in the right place. Take the recent Keeley Hazell tape. The framing is absolutely dreadful. It’s mainly bare bobbing man-ass action. What’s all that about?