Our media taunts us all the time. They love stories about people who are ten or twelve or twenty and who just started a company and made a million dollars while donating shoes to an impoverished county without shoes. They love someone who looks like they are nine who started a website and became a billionaire. They love someone who is twelve who starred in a movie and sold a million downloads of a song or who just happened to be fifteen when they came up with the cure for cancer in their spare time while donating time to homeless people in rough neighborhoods of Chicago or New York.
Publishing is even worse. They love the story of the girl who self published a novel and got a million downloads. Or the girl who sold a first novel at twenty five to an agent who was thirty to an editor who was ten. For a million dollars. That one really makes writers feel like crap. Writers especially feel that kind of taunting because most writers make nothing. Zero. Nada. Or like me they worked years and years and chased down publishers like timber wolves and finally shot them or got them to publish their book. The discovered moment came after years of toil. And that is still the exception.
I suppose working people get very tired of hearing of the guy who quit his job and then took five hundred dollars and started a web based company and sold it for five hundred million. Or the billionaires You get really tired of the billionaires. Even the name is obnoxious. Billionaire. Not merely rich. Billionaire. Like something from another planet. And maybe they are. I certainly don't know any billionaires. I know of them and I know what they look like and I did see The Social Network. That billionaire looked like a boy. I don't even know many millionaires. A few. But they only have a few million. Not very impressive.
In fact I know mostly people who don't have squat. I know people who look liked drugged coal miners from stress. They have been stressed for years now with unemployment, foreclosure, taxes, college tuition. It seems like everyone I know is barely making it. They are happy to have enough money to have a night out. A drink after work. And these people have college degrees. Lots of them. They are hardly the working class, but maybe they are.
So I guess the taunting will go on. It is designed to make us feel worse. It is designed to make us want what those people have. Sure. Who doesn't want a million dollars. Or a billion. Who doesn't want to be famous. But most people are just middle class. You sure don't read about them in the paper. Except when they lose their ass. Then it makes a good story.
http://www.billhazelgrove.com/
Rocket Man will blast off April 26th
Publishing is even worse. They love the story of the girl who self published a novel and got a million downloads. Or the girl who sold a first novel at twenty five to an agent who was thirty to an editor who was ten. For a million dollars. That one really makes writers feel like crap. Writers especially feel that kind of taunting because most writers make nothing. Zero. Nada. Or like me they worked years and years and chased down publishers like timber wolves and finally shot them or got them to publish their book. The discovered moment came after years of toil. And that is still the exception.
I suppose working people get very tired of hearing of the guy who quit his job and then took five hundred dollars and started a web based company and sold it for five hundred million. Or the billionaires You get really tired of the billionaires. Even the name is obnoxious. Billionaire. Not merely rich. Billionaire. Like something from another planet. And maybe they are. I certainly don't know any billionaires. I know of them and I know what they look like and I did see The Social Network. That billionaire looked like a boy. I don't even know many millionaires. A few. But they only have a few million. Not very impressive.
In fact I know mostly people who don't have squat. I know people who look liked drugged coal miners from stress. They have been stressed for years now with unemployment, foreclosure, taxes, college tuition. It seems like everyone I know is barely making it. They are happy to have enough money to have a night out. A drink after work. And these people have college degrees. Lots of them. They are hardly the working class, but maybe they are.
So I guess the taunting will go on. It is designed to make us feel worse. It is designed to make us want what those people have. Sure. Who doesn't want a million dollars. Or a billion. Who doesn't want to be famous. But most people are just middle class. You sure don't read about them in the paper. Except when they lose their ass. Then it makes a good story.
http://www.billhazelgrove.com/
Rocket Man will blast off April 26th
