Author: kenwheaton

Rewrite? Nevermore!

Posted on by kenwheaton in First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival, Writing

Rewrite. It’s an ugly, ugly word. Anyone who’s been in grad school or part of the journalism industrial complex knows the power of that word to strike fear into the heart. Rewrite. Then rewrite again. And again. A guy who went to grad school with me … hold on, Googling … this guy, Joe Camhi, wrote a horror poem, in the style of The Raven, in which a grad student’s dissertation adviser sent the student back for rewrite “ever more!”

So you’ll understand my elation when I got the following email from my editor at Kensington Books.

All of the revisions are great, and everything works and looks smooth to me. If not, the copyeditor will catch it. So I’m putting through for the acceptance payment, and the next step will be copyedits in a couple months.

Woohoo. I’m done with The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival. Well, except for battling with the copy editors (I was once a copy editor, though you wouldn’t know it by my typos). And picking the cover. And the author’s photo. And trying to drum up sales. And worrying that no one will review it. Then worrying that the people who review it are going to hate it. Then worrying no one will buy it.

But other than that, I’m done with the writing bit! And I’m getting paid again.

Though that little bit of money isn’t going to make up for the 10% cut in salary we took at the day job yesterday. Ah, well. such is life.

Now, back to the next book. I’m halfway done with that first draft. Sweet.

Remember My Idea to Buy Detroit?

Posted on by kenwheaton in Real Estate

Last month, I proposed snatching up 60 or 70 houses in Detroit with the money we’re planning to spend on a two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. Guess what? A bunch of artists are buying up the town.

Buying that first house had a snowball effect. Almost immediately, Mitch and Gina bought two adjacent lots for even less and, with the help of friends and local youngsters, dug in a garden. Then they bought the house next door for $500, reselling it to a pair of local artists for a $50 profit. When they heard about the $100 place down the street, they called their friends Jon and Sarah.

Admittedly, the $100 home needed some work, a hole patched, some windows replaced. But Mitch plans to connect their home to his mini-green grid and a neighborhood is slowly coming together.

In the Bowels of Brooklyn

Posted on by kenwheaton in Brooklyn, Subway

The lair of the CHUD
The lair of the CHUD
Braving giant rats, albino alligators and hungry CHUDs, I headed into underground Brooklyn today with a group of friends. Three years now, every other Sunday, I’ve watched people climbing a rickety ladder down into a manhole in the middle of the Court Street/Atlantic Avenue intersection for tours of the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel.
Continue reading “In the Bowels of Brooklyn” →

Adventures in Book Blurbage

Posted on by kenwheaton in Books, First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival, Writing

I’m at the stage in the publishing cycle at which we (the editor and myself) go casting about for cover (and inside cover) blurbs, those quotes you see on books by famous authors and other such folks designed to trick you into reading the book.

This can present challenges for the first-time novelist as, well, he’s a first-time novelist and no one’s read his work before. I’ve had a few people in mind from the get-go and two of them have agreed already, so I’m psyched about that.

You’ll have to pick up the book when it comes out to see who’s actually blurbed it, but so far my blurbers include a former NYC drag queen and a newpaper columnist from the Midwest. (Sweet!)

Here’s where it gets goofy. As I’ve said before, the title of the book is The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival. For the uninitiated, there is a Grand Prairie in Louisiana and, once upon a time, there was a Rabbit Festival in Grand Prairie. But this book is not about that. This book is just a bunch of lies and such. Still, when I announced the title on Facebook a while back, I got a note from a Facebook friend announcing that she was the Queen of the Rabbit Festival and worriedly asking just what this book was about. I assured her that it doesn’t have anything to do with her reign as Rabbit Festival Queen and the book does not touch on pageantry (though talk about missed opportunities!).

Earlier this week, though, when casting about for more blurbage, the editor had a stroke of genius. “You should get the real Rabbit Festival Queen to read the manuscript and blurb it.”

BRILLIANT!

I was a little worried she’d be nervous, but happily she’s agreed, adding:

Me nervous? Come on.. I traveled around Louisiana with a banner across my chest that said, Le Festival du la Lapin and I also walked along side a float in a parade that I was suppose to grand marshal … but my co-marshal happen to be David Duke! Nerves of steel baby!

Yeah. That David Duke. Better yet, this particular Rabbit Festival Queen has an Asian background. So how did the former Klansman respond to co-marshalling with a non-whitey?

David said something to me like “I find Asians interesting.”

Awesome.

Ten Rumors About Rihanna

Posted on by kenwheaton in Uncategorized

So rumors are swirling that Rihanna is going to totally sing a duet with beat-down artist Chris Brown. She’s a forgive-and-forget kind of girl it seems. Do I know if that rumor is true? Hell no. And I’m not looking at any pop culture sites to find out, either. Here are 10 more Rihanna rumors I’ve heard … and by heard, I mean “totally made up”:

1. She’s tapped Bernie Madoff to be her financial adviser.
2. She’s asked Michael Vick to watch her dogs when she’s out of town.
3. She’s going to let Tim Geithner do her taxes.
4. She’s letting Barack Obama vet her staff.
5. She’s asked George Bush to handle her PR.
6. She’s letting Rahm Emanuel oversee her line of condolence cards.
7. She’s turned to Tom Cruise for spiritual advice.
8. She’ll be getting all her relationship advice from Gene Simmons.
9. She’s ask Bruce Vilanch to be her stylist.
10. And, looking ahead to when she and Chris start popping out babies, she’s tapped Michael Jackson as godfather and babysitter.

I Watched the Watchmen

Posted on by kenwheaton in Movies

That’s right, I watched the Watchmen … so that you don’t have to. I read the book only three weeks ago and, coming at it as a 35-year-old who never was really into comic books, I’m going to call a spade a spade. It was an interesting pastiche of adolescent philosophy, misanthropy and half-hearted America-bashing done as only a bitter, shaggy Brit could. I enjoyed the book for what it was. And the movie?

I don’t know what to say. It’s an interesting spectacle for those who read the book. For those who didn’t read it? I can’t imagine them caring enough to get it. Listen, the flashbacks and plotting aren’t nearly as intricate as comic book geeks make it out to be. Lost is about sixteen trillion times more complicated. The movie–like the book–plods alone slowly, complete with the hackneyed writing and teenage deep-thinking you’d expect from the stoners you went to college with.

Oh, and graphic violence. Plenty of that. Indeed, while I don’t mind blowing 11 bucks to sit through three hours of pop culture dross, I found myself getting pissed off during the extremely graphic and gory fight (and torture and rape) scenes not because of the movie itself, but because of the mothers of the year who’d dragged their babies and kids into this movie. I saw one woman walk in with six kids under 12. I’m sure they’ll be having nightmares tonight about arms getting sawed off, people exploding, dogs chewing on a little girl’s leg, giant blue penises and whatever it is Silk Specter and Night Owl were doing when they took their clothes off and wrestled. Even better? When the lights went up, I noticed a stroller in one of the aisles. I’m sure three hours of mega-decibel explosions, screaming and cursing do wonders for an infants hearing and development.

Anyway, if you liked the book, you’ll probably like the movie. If you didn’t read the book, you’d probably be better off seeing Paul Blart: Mall Cop.

ISM Will Solve All Your Problems

Posted on by kenwheaton in politics, Rants

It’s like an anti-stimulus cartoon … created in 1948. Tell me that ISM snake-oil salesman doesn’t remind you of a certain set of politicians currently promising that the magnum-powered idiocy of Capitol Hill can solve our problems for us.

By the way, if you’re curious as to how all of this will play out in the future, just look at California in the present. Broke and getting broker by the minute. (Via Instapundit)