Quarantine day 48

Have you heard the one about the author who thought he was cursed?

Yes, there was a time when I thought that could possibly be what my problem was.

Back in the day--Steve and I were in our first apartment--I had yet to publish anything. But Luthor, Blue Moon, and Inanimate Objects were already written.  I think I was working on Squish-Squash. 

I had been sending out query letters to publishers for the books I had already completed. The wonderful experience of sending out hundreds of query letters for months on end, all to return with the same answer: Thank you for your submission. Unfortunately your work does not fit what we are looking for. We wish you the best of luck. (Fuck off.)

That last part was usually omitted from the actual letters, but I saw them there each time, anyway.

But then someone contacted me with a different answer. He was a publisher. His company, Blue Cap Publishing, was new, but had a few titles already. He was interested in Blue Moon, and asked that I contact him.
During a phone conversation, we discussed Blue Moon and my other work. I told him about Inanimate Objects, and he was intrigued. He asked me to send him a copy of that one.

I did. He loved it.

He wanted to publish Blue Moon and Inanimate Objects in one book, and call it Chaos. We signed contracts in front of notaries and had meetings, the works. He was really going to get it done.

Then I got a phone call.

He told me that he had been diagnosed with cancer of the jaw. We still worked for a few months, as long as he could, but ultimately, he had to close down Blue Cap Publishing.
I never heard from him again.

Jump ahead to the time when I had given up on writing because I couldn't get any fucking books published, and I was trying my hand at screenwriting.

I had turned my book Squish-Squash into a screenplay and shopped it around. The actual site where Blue Moon had been spotted, did the same for Squish-Squash.
I was contacted by a someone who owned a production company and wanted to produce Squish-Squash.
Again, we worked together for months. He was a really nice guy, and had made several suggestions to the storyline of Squish-Squash that I would later go back and rewrite in the book.

Then I got an email.
From his wife.

She was sad to have to inform all of her husband's clients that he had suffered a cardiac arrest, and had died.
All current projects would have to be released.

Great!
Not only could I not get anything published, the few people who were trying to help me were dying!

I thought I was forever professionally doomed. Or at least those were who took an interest in me. But thankfully they were the only two deaths connected to my writing career.

Don't forget my Amazon page. Click HERE.
Thanks!

Stay safe. Stay inside. 💓