I know someone who has a VERY odd horror-ish book that I've been acting as book coach with. She'd probably like to talk to someone about how to get it sold, and I have no idea where to send her. any interest in that sort of consulting/coaching?

Doc, I would jump at the chance if you started this up again :) - my manuscript isn't finished yet, but when it is, it'll probably be around a 60k novella, more or less in the horror genre with a skew towards psychological horror (with a vampirey undercurrent, but I am trying to avoid using the word 'vampire' because certain people have soured the genre for me in the last few years ;P).

Anyway, just raising my hand and saying 'yes, definitely keen!' if you decide to do it again. It would be a good incentive to hurry up and properly finish draft 1, too!

As a fellow writer all I can say is that when the wolves are at the door you have to take the jobs even if they are boring/sucky. It's the price we pay for the times we get paid a lot for the stuff we like to write and the freedom to not have to be in an office.

Last fall when I lost a major freelance client (he got caught moving money offseas) I spent a month or so freelancing for a site where I had to pose online as "Mistress Xxx" convincing guys I was a woman and telling them their dicks were too small and they should just jerk off into the toilet because they had to right to get their seed near a woman.

It was really, really boring (and let me tell you how gross/boring it can be to have to look at a ton of random guys' beer bellies and dicks as part of the job), but kept the lights on and the rent paid.

Writers got to do what writers got to do.

Edited at 2012-03-19 11:32 am (UTC)

I know it sounds fun in theory (and sort of is fun for the first day or so) but, man it gets boring really, really quickly. The dudes want you to say the same things over and over and over again. And they are all convinced you aren't really looking at their dick pics, so you have to make sure you actually check them out so you can write something distinctive yet dismissive about them - but god forbid you use sentences with big words, because while some sub guys are really bright, others have the mental capacity of people who comment on Daily Mail articles.

Then you get the guys who are conflicted about what they are paying for and so when you tell them they have a tiny dick (because that is what they are fucking paying you for) they suddenly get weird and ranting about how they hate the world and want to kill themselves - and there is no way to tell if this is part of their fantasy or if you have really just triggered a shame spiral in them.

Dude, I think this is a brilliant idea! You have so many talents that you can expand upon and earn an income from. I also remember your creative journals and dolls that you put up on ebay too.

I was privileged to have you doctor a novel of mine that had been languishing since being returned from an agent who never got it published for me. While it still languishes unpublished, that has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me. I really enjoyed the interactions I had with you and know that you helped me improve the work in general and my many punctuation challenges in specific. I particularly appreciated your overall impressions of the work, as well as your compassion in how you critiqued it to this essentially timid author.

Any genre limits or preferences?

What about a few short stories? I have a little handful, maybe enough to make up half of a collection, & I'm new to this whole thing, but I'd like some help with them.