May 4, 2005
For anyone who doesn't get the subject header, you probably never watched the old TV show starring David Carradine called Kung Fu. That either suggests that you have taste or you're either too young or too old to have watched it, since it was on in the 1970s. Anyway, when Quai Chang Cain was but a young lad in the Shaolin monastery, he was nicknamed Grasshopper by his blind teacher, who gave him the name because there was a grasshopper by his foot, but even though Cain could see, he wasn't aware of the grasshopper. He was, alas, also impatient, so his master was always telling him, "Patience, grasshopper. Patience." Which is what my wife and I have been saying to our kids for 11 years, and they think we're nuts.

As I intimated in yesterday's post, I was feeling pretty negative about fiction writing. That's because of last week's highs, which involved the offer of a 2-book contract by a publisher, the request to read another manuscript, and my agent's overall enthusiasm for another manuscript I sent her, the follow-up to Dirty Deeds. Then silence. So I was losing my patience and generally getting cranky about the pace of these things. I'm probably not bi-polar except where these things are concerned, and I bet most writers get a little crazy waiting around for things to happen.

I mentioned this to my own karate instructor last night, Sensei Dana, and she gave me a sort of knowing look and said, "Is that because you don't have control over it?" Well, shit. Not only can she kick my ass, but she's probably got my neuroses pinned down pretty well, too. Yeah, I think that's a good part of it.

Anyway, today I got a big e-mail from Irene regarding the contracts with Mystery Ink, and various deadlines and quibbles over the clauses. I chatted with her, then went to lunch, and then there was another lengthy e-mail regarding what appears to be the final nitpicking over the contract. Can you sing Hallelujah, brother?

So it looks good to go. The pub date will probably be further away than I really want, but time goes by pretty quick, and there's the possibility of them moving the date up, anyway. We'll see. And there are the other two manuscripts being looked at right now, so overall, life is good. I also wrapped the Medicare article today and dug in on a podiatry article, though I need to drum up some more work. But the possibility of the getting tho advance on those contracts relatively soon gives me some financial breathing room. See? No matter how hard I try to be artsy, I end up looking at it as a business, which it is.

Best,
Mark Terry