This is the last post by our guest columnist Tom Wick.  We wish him the best in establishing himself as an author and thank him for his contributions to this blog.

So it’s almost labor day or depending on how quickly Benito’s admin is posting things perhaps even past then…so this will probably be my last regular post. Thank you to all the automated phishing programs that left comments.  So I wanted to do two things: leave you with some kind of departing word of wisdom and talk about the scam blogger who recently revealed her real identity while simultaneously trying to hock a self-published book.

The first part easy. Success is like a wave, once it reaches it’s foamy peak, it’s too late to ride it if you’re still on the beach. What I mean is once you’ve read Hairy Potter or Twilight it’s too late to write about sorcerers and werewolves EVEN IF you have a very original take, because your good work is going to get lost in the noise of the copycats. If you’re successful most likely it will be by doing something nobody has thought of or by writing something that becomes timely on the verge of it’s completion. This is more than just being lucky. Ever wonder how the championship hats for the winning team get made in time for the post game interview? Of course the hats are made for both teams ahead of time. If you want to guarantee success you need to take this approach…except for you there are more than two possible answers there are infinite and it’s a book not a hat.

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These keep getting better and better folks!

“The Help” mentioned by that narcissistic asshole that is Mike Triforce illustrates the point I made in my last entry (see rich writer). My favorite is how her story is essentially born with silver spoon in mouth, grew up to be rich house wife, had servants all my life, wrote the book they never had the time to write nor contacts to get published…and in the interview all she and the author talk about is how tired SHE is… Its enough to make you want to puke. Sadly this phenomenon is not uncommon. The Kite Runner was written by a doctor who was already rich. But I warned you. Stop whining. Take your licks. Focus. Deep breath. Now ask yourself, do you want to write fiction or non-fiction?

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Here’s the latest from Mr. Thomas Wick

Summer is drawing to a close and I feel obligated to in part the occasional island of useful information in a sea of bitching and moaning that can only come from a bleached boned starving artist.  That island is…classify and avoid other writers.  Published authors will tell you that writing, like anything else, requires you to be on the “scene” mingling with other practitioners of your craft.  I find this to be self-serving bullshit and not just because of the countless examples from Thoreau to that doctor who wrote the Kite Runner to Twain all new and took advantage of solitude but because well, where can you meet other writers? I know! I’ll take a course…no doubt offered by one of these writers to pad their incomes on the dreams of romantic fools hoping to write the world’s next best seller.
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Here’s the latest from Mr. Tom Wick!

The subject of today’s post was going to be writing your first query letter, something that I am actually good at as I have gotten more than my fair of agents to take that first step and at least request to see my work.  However before I go there I wanted to say how truly depressing it is to write a post called “Tales of an Unpublished Author”…it’s like if there was a position on a sports team called “phlegm target.” As someone constantly suffering from underemployment and looking for work their is enough rejection in my life from employers and women.  This adds a whole new dimension to that.

While we’re on the subject let me say this one thing about alcohol.  Yes, it does help you write.  HOWEVER, you will be rendered even more incapable of assessing the quality of said writing, leading to a cycle where you drink, sober up, read what you wrote, are embarassed and then drink until it sounds good again…so good that you add to it until you eventually sober up, and well you get the idea.

Alright.  Finally.  A Query.

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Here is again Mr. Tom Wick, Esquire!

Hello again. Before I begin some of the more substantial posts I wanted to give a little more background on my journey as a writer.  The first memory I have of wanting to be a writer was when I was 15.  I am 31 now.  I dabbled in creative writing but of course school came first.  Same story in college, and of course school was even MORE important then because I has borrowed the GDP of a small country in order to go.

During my second year of law school I had an epiphany: I wasn’t learning anything. No, not like in college where I wasn’t learning anything USEFUL I wasn’t learning anything AT ALL. So, during lectures I would work on my first novel.

I was such a smug little bastard.  I thought I was in on some huge secret.  I would half listen while I half wrote and crowd around my monitor lest someone see my masterpiece before I was ready.  What I SHOULD HAVE done was do the reading on my own, not attended class, and instead spent my time in the library when I could have devoted my FULL attention to writing.  That’s also a format I am going to try and stick to, tell you guys what I did, and what it now looks like I should have done even though I have yet to reap any kind of success.

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Well it’s June 14.  It’ll be the 4th of July before we know it.  Time for that promised Summer series SO without further ado I present Mr. Thomas Wick!

So Benito said I needed an image/signature so I went with the most cliche one I could find.  Perhaps the problem with my writing, see I am an unpublished author, have been since 2007.  My goal with this series is to let aspiring authors know what it’s like out here, not from the vantage point you normall hear from, the small minority of successful writers, but from guys like me.

I probably have alot in common with a lot of you.  I am up to my eyeballs in student debt, I have a stack of academic credentials I’ve never used, and I am constantly unemployed or underemployed.  Between that and being a failed writer I get DOUBLE the rejections.  My self-esteem is at an all-time high.  Please read for my initial writing experiences and a few tips…not that I am really in the position to give any.  This first entry is going to be a sort of overview/summary of what I’ve done and where I am.

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