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So, as I posted previously, I got a strange call from an even stranger man wanting me to pitch my UNPUBLISHED novel to him, simply because he hoped to be a writer one day himself.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.