My publicists e-mailed me the press release and query letter they're sending out to prospective reviewers. The press release is quite funny, and the query is a model of brevity.

My previous publicist told me I had to write a "pitch" of two sentences, which he would send out to...someone. I tried three times before I fired him. All he'd do was say, "No, try again. Be fresh! Be new! Be original! You told me to never lie to you."

I told him no such thing. At least, I don't think I did. It's possible that I called him in an Ambien fugue state at three in the morning and said, "Never lie to me, man. I love you!"

Anyway, he didn't respond to my message gracefully terminating our relationship. Maybe he didn't receive it. Maybe he didn't understand it. Or maybe he thinks I'm completely insane and must be avoided at all costs. In retrospect, since he said nothing about getting reviews, I don't know what he was thinking with his two-sentence pitch idea. Has anyone ever actually successfully pitched a book to a reviewer, publication, or radio station in two sentences? And they had to be really short sentences.

Now that I have publicists who don't mind actually doing the job I hired them to do and the pressure is off, I can take some time to see how I might've pitched Ghosts in two really short sentences.

"Los Angeles is full of zombies. San Francisco is a ghost town."

"Failure is always an option. Death can be a blast."

"Why bother? Because if not you, who?"

"Niagra Falls! Slowly I turned..."

"Yes! We have no bananas!"

"Surrender? Nuts!"

"Who? Me?

"I...I..."

"?."

Sometime back in 2012, I told a bunch of people on Talkbass.com that I didn't want to write a book about my experiences as a failed music journalist. Writing my first book on the music industry was horrendous, purely for the reason that I had to rely on others. I also hated doing appearances. This time around, relying on others has been an absolute catastrophe, but the ship might be righting itself at last. And since I'm housebound, I can't do appearances.

Yay!

Most importantly, I've rediscovered the joy of writing. Scott Thunes told me that he finally found his voice with a '65 Fender Precision bass. Well, I've finally found my voice as a writer, and I take great pleasure in practicing my art. I had a physical today; the past few months have taken a massive toll on my health, but my doctor and I are optimistic. And it's made me funnier. Tim's cover work for Chasing the Last Whale is phenomenal, and I'm sure his work for Hallucinabulia will be excellent too. And my proofreader Tom Pickel saved my brain-fogged bacon.

I won't lie to you: This has been hell on earth. I've been assaulted, preyed upon, lied to, taken advantage of, ripped off, ignored, treated with contempt, and threatened. Much of that happened while I was seeing my father through his ghastly death and doing what I can to save my mother's life as she too battles Brother Cancer. But I've discovered that my gift is perseverance. That's apparently inborn. My two hard-won gifts are happiness and clarity.

Okay, my three hard-won gifts are happiness, clarity, and writing. Though technically those three are skills, because I worked my buh-buh-buh. My buh-buh. My tail off to achieve them. Skills, gifts, whatever. Skillifts. Giftills.

The novel and the diary are just about finished, and the Extravagumbo Website is in the programming phase.

Hold on. From here be dragons.

And fun!

P.S. Three of the people who totally screwed me are now out of business. Is this guy avenging me? Wouldn't that be outrageously fabulous?