Sometimes the world begins/To set you up on your feet again...
Public-service announcement: Kalan Porter.
OK, OK, I know...look, I did try a Google News search beforehand this time, but no dice. Save for a handful of references to this year's CI auditions. I note they seem to have borrowed the 'Looky the cumulative avalanche of talent we've uncovered!' card from AI...unfortunately a year or so after everybody noticed that the AI talent being referenced were, almost without exception, the people who had fallen by the wayside (or been shoved there) during the process, not the carefully-nurtured products of same.
Which would still not be a huge problem, per se, except that CI's version of 'C'mon out, take a chance, and you too could be the next Daughtry!' is, y'know, Billy Klippert. I won't even get into the dichotomy between being Jennifer Hudson and being Jacob Hoggard. So who the hell do they have left to seriously audition for this thing? Greg Neufeld, hoping third time's the charm? The mind reels.
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Anyway, seriously, there is a point to my base attention-gathering tactics here. Really. Not, I will confess, unmixed with a certain particular satisfaction in terms of my...stormy...Idol-writing career. (See, kids, this is one of the practical advantages of staying awake in English class - you have at your command infinite polite euphemisms for "Nyahh-nyah-nyahhhh-NYAHHHHHH!".)
It's a rather peculiar sensation, isn't it, having good news to tell? I mean, really good news. Not just 'there was leftover birthday cake in the office today,' or even 'whoa, hunky dude from the Pilates class finally asked me out!'.
This is the kind that validates something so deep inside, it gives you little shuddery shocks of sweetness every time you realise it afresh. So that who you tell, and how, becomes important in and of itself. Do you run screaming through the streets, setting all that excitement off in one glorious but short-lived firework? Or do you hoard it carefully, spending it only among those close ones of whom you can be sure of maximum return on your investment?
...Or, reluctant to give it up in either case, do you heighten the sensation by blathering on for awhile about the entirely obvious?
OK, deep breath: No, I'm not pregnant. Not even close.
I am, however, a writer.
Remember back when I launched this writing project? Strict adherence to the McManus Method? Six months, intense concentration on matters literary, and at the end a promise to find out whether I could actually sustain a viable literary self-image or not.
Well, it's not been quite six months. And I haven't exactly followed the rules to the letter. (I did, however, usually have good reasons for same.) I must confess that the net - or Net - result has been, while wildly satisfying on several levels, not exactly JK Rowling-level in terms of validation in the form of cheering masses hanging on my every word.
On the other hand, Shoemom still thinks I'm brilliant. Likewise, when I recently sprung my Bob & Ray opus on them, do both Shoesises. Ditto various friends - well, not so much with the brilliance there; more along the lines of 'you managed to make humouring you worth our while', which achievement I do not discount believe you me.
All of which is to explain why, a few weeks ago, I got entirely carried away and fired off a prospectus to PopMatters.com, one of the most highly-regarded e-zines of its kind. Would they be willing to consider finding a place for a a nondescript blogger's obsession with a fairly obscure comedy team, and oh by the way, could they please ignore that little thingy I did in the opening pitch that I always hate when I do that, it was supposed to be 'descendants' not 'ancestors'.
Well...they did.
Accept the article, I mean.
[pauses to shudder a little, reminiscently]
...Albeit, they accepted what I promised would be a much sleeker, more focussed version. So that's where I've been the last ten days or so - reducing the whole from thirteen Word pages to nine[ish], and sending the resulting first draft abroad from (literally) trembling fingers.
[shudders some more]
Those who've followed my career up to now - and this would seem the perfect time to issue a heartfelt, not to say completely Sally-Field-esque melodramatic thank you - can appreciate what the effort of maintaining calm professionalism under editorial guidance has cost me even thus far. I'm happy to report I'm holding up pretty well; I only resent the draft to my lovely calm patient editor twice in the first week, and both times I had legitimate reasons besides not having heard back from him yet. I swear.
So there you have it, folks. I'm not quite so giddy as not to realise that there's a whole lot of work ahead; only revelling in the calmly absolute conviction that, you know, I'm a writer. The most cherished chunk of my self-image, the most fundamental want and need of my being: proven, verified, stamped and sealed.
Thank you, Patrick McManus, you were right. Also, again, thanks everyone who took time to pat and soothe me along the way - I dunno if I can say it's worth it, but at least now I don't feel quite so guilty about accepting.
More details as they become available, of course. Meanwhile, you'll have to excuse me; I've some quality shuddering to catch up on...