Blurbs for Five Books I Have Considered Writing Instead of My Novel

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The Little Plot That Couldn’t 

Based on the classic fairy tale that captured hearts everywhere, The Little Plot That Couldn’t features a large beluga whale trying to get up a mountain using toothpicks as walking sticks. Unsurprisingly it gets stuck. Various sea creatures are asked to help and refuse, except for a tiny crayfish that agrees. Also unsurprisingly the crayfish fails. Both the beluga and the crayfish get stuck and die horrible deaths.

The Little Plot That Couldn’t is the sensitively told allegory of the painful spiritual journey writers undergo as they try to come up with plots that actually, you know, work.

While the original taught children the value of optimism and hard work, The Little Plot That Couldn’t tells it like it is: writing is harder than getting a whale up a mountain and so much more graphic. A guaranteed instant classic, or if not that, a horrible warning.

Are You My Author?

A novelist, hoping that her book will write itself, leaves it on her desk, in order to go find some food. Even though the refrigerator is only ten steps away from her desk, she is gone for a very long time because being nourished is important y’all. The novel becomes sentient and wants to find its author. It walks around the streets asking a law student, an engineer, and a gardener if they are his author. They are not and they are also horrified. The gardener takes pity on the homeless novel and plants it. The novel grows into a tree and lives a long and productive life of providing shade and beauty. The writer does not notice because she is still standing in front of the refrigerator eating. Being nourished is important y’all.

And Then There Were No Words

“Ten”

Ten writers are lured to the exotic island of Manhattan by the promise of wealth, fame, and a writer’s community like no other.

“Nine…”

Ensconced in air-conditionless closets shared by friendly neighborhood rats and cockroaches, nibbling $1 pizza slices, and paying rents that cost more than a major surgery, the writers begin experience a few doubts about the promise of an artist’s life…

“Eight…”

How long will take all of them to jump ship and start scouring LinkedIn for jobs in accounting and health insurance?

Crime and Punishment

The story of a young woman who formulates a plan to write the next great global novel. Before the writing, she believes that with the money she earns she can liberate herself from poverty and go on to perform great deeds. However, once she’s written the novel, her moral justifications disintegrate and she struggles with guilt and horror and confronts the real-world consequences of what she has done. A searing psychological thriller that probes into the eternal dilemma all writers face (why the hell am I doing this?), without any promise of redemption. Spoilers: the writer keeps writing and it’s bad.

The Art of War

A treatise on going to battle with the blank page. Divided into thirteen parts it covers everything from weapons to strategy. Weapons: the pen is mightier than the sword, and the keyboard is mightier than the pen until you spill on it.  Strategy: when cancelling on friends to write, always explain it’s due to an urgent meeting, leave out the part where the meeting is with a piece of paper. The Art of War describes the wars we wage when we fight the blankness of the page. It is a book about sometimes winning, but mostly losing, and the grace in trying anyway.

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