So What Did I Learn From the Call?

I just served as the foreman on a felony trial. The man was accused of child molestation. I think it may be one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I’ll write about it next week.

But now, more about that strange caller who phoned me up asking for writing advice.

So, as I posted previously, I got a strange call from an even stranger man wanting me to pitch my UNPUBLISHED novel to him, simply because he hoped to be a writer one day himself. And just for those who don’t know, this is completely out of line. There are so many reasons for not doing this, but let me pose a question for you. What happens if I get BIG FAMOUS WRITER’s home number and I call, ya know, just to shoot the breeze? Or some CRAZED FANGIRL gets her favorite writer’s home number and calls at midnight because she didn’t like ending to her last novel. Of better yet, to give her ideas for a new one.

The biggest problem with this, however, is that this “writer” had not done his own work. He hadn’t studied the markets, took his time honing his craft or learning how thing are done. No, instead he wanted to pick up the phone and get all of this information from someone who had. He figured that since I had been “published” that I would have secrets for him, and that I could get him in with very little effort on his part. After all, I had done the hard part for him.

But, I digress.

The man went on to explain to me that he’d read my chapbook collection, Chocolate Park, and he thought it’d make a great movie, and he wondered what I was doing wrong. He actually said, “what have you done to make it a movie?” He even offered to contact Spike Lee for me to see if he’d take it on. Of course this may have matter if he had actually KNOWN Spike Lee AT ALL. No, he just thought that calling the guy up (well, kinda like he’d done me) and just telling him would be enough to get Chocolate Park going. I wish.

So, what did I do?

I listen to him. I talked with him, and tried my best to explain to him that this wasn’t the way things work. Of course he had a hundred examples of why it did. He even told me that I should have self-published by now, because, you know, that’s the path to sure success.

I gave him my website address and told him to EMAIL if he had any questions. He said he would if he ever got around to writing his Great American Novel.

In the end, the guy was very nice, but completely uninformed.

Which of course leads to the argument of how most people think they can write a book and that it won’t take any knowledge other than what they already know. Why do they always think this?

So, what did I learn from this?

I learned not to put my phone number on my damn business cards.

So, I Got A Call The Other Day...and who do you think it was?

A few weeks ago I received a phone call about noon. The caller ID read it as unlisted. Now, let me tell you, my phone doesn’t normally ring in the day time, unless it’s my mother, who has an this weird obsession to vent about my siblings, or my husband, who swears he just wants to make sure I’m alright. I also talk to Maurice a couple of times a week, but by noon he always home, napping. I kid you not.

All of their names show up on caller ID.

I work from home, writing and editing. I’ve worked with wonderful writers, such as Associate Professor Gwen Bolton, Deatri King-Bey and Essence contributor Pamela McBride. But most of these authors have day jobs, and I knew none of them would be calling me either.

But I answered, against my better judgment.

“Chesya?” the guy asked me. Most people don’t know how to say my name correctly, and this guy was no different. But he butchered it so badly that I felt sorry for him. This usually means some kind of solicitor, which I avoid like the plague, but for some reason, I knew this guy was different.

“This is Chesya,” I said.

Then out of the blue: “Can you tell me ‘bout you writing?”

I was floored. This was the LAST thing I expected to hear. I wish I could tell you that I thought this guy was someone important—like a movie person—and he just wanted me to pitch my book to him. But if you’ve been reading my blog at all, then you know quite well that I don’t have that kind of luck. Besides, this guy didn’t come off that way. It was probably his broken English.

“My writing? Who are you?”

“Oh…huh?” he honestly sounded surprised that I’d be asking him this. It wasn’t like, oh, I don’t know, calling someone up unexpectedly and asking them strange questions. “Oh, I’m gonna write, myself. My brother got your business card and book and gave ‘em to me. He know I wanna write.” He went on to tell me that he planned to write the Great American Novel one day, and he KNEW that it would be BIG. You see, he hadn’t started writing this work of genius yet, he had never even written a single thing in his life, but he KNEW it would be a great writer.

Then he said, “I hope it’s OK to call.”

Well, hell no, it’s most certainly not OK to call someone this way. Just in case you didn’t know. But at that moment, I had a choice: I could lay into him for having the gall to call my home when my email address is on the card and he could have used that instead, or I could calmly tell him about my writing, as he’d asked.

Well, what do you think I did? What would you have done?