The Silver Lining

Sorry if my last post was a little depressing. I guess disappointment got the best of me. I am not usually a downbeat person. In a way, maybe it is good that things turned out as they did. There are lots of old adages that apply in a situation like this. One of my favorites is: "Every dark cloud has a silver lining." It surely applies in this case. I found, today, that a large number of legitimate publishers would relegate my book to the rejection list because it is too short. Only 52000 words. Having learned this, I am going back to the story and "fleshing it out" to make it more salable. I have eschewed inserting unnecessary verbiage, but it appears I was wrong in assuming that descriptions of decor and things of that sort are undesirable. Trudging forward and continuing to write will be more challenging and I will wax prosaic as best I may. My wife said I should put in some steamy bedroom scenes, but I want to have something that stands out without stooping to the prurient. My book is about Jewish people, and, as a non-Jew, believe they deserve to be portrayed respectfully. It's just the golden rule being applied as it should be.

Will the dream die with me?

Disillusionment has set in. What I believed was a real publisher was actually just a "come on" for one of those self publishing outfits. Whom can you trust? There are so many bogus entities floating around out there in cyberspace. It is difficult to separate the scams and the shams from the legitimate. I guess the old saw about things too good to be true is right. For now, it is back to square one. I believe in my book, "Double Trouble on Corned Beef Row," and I thought the "publisher" did, too. They played me like a Stradivarius. Now, my greatest fear is that I will die before it ever gets into print. It's a story about identical Jewish twins separated at birth and living dramatically different lives. It is the kind of story Barry Levinson would like because it involves a Baltimore landmark, Lombard Street's Corned Beef Row, a deli owner, and spies fighting over a secret weapon stolen from the Israelis. The way things look now, he will never know it exists.
At 71, diabetic, overweight, and arthritic, I am running out of time. It took me two years to finally get my book into what I believed to be really enjoyable reading. Were those years I could have put to better use? I loved/hated the process. Envisioning the story, I loved. All of the editing, and re-rewriting was a chore. Unfortunately, only the reading public will determine if it was a worthwhile endeavor. If that ever happens. Sometimes, life really sucks.