I suspect most people on OS are currently promoting, finishing, planning or dreaming about writing a book.  And why not?  The book shelves have such a paucity of intelligent reads and the print media is flush with cash.

I’m working on my own version of the Great American Novel.  It’s just lacking a couple of elements.  Like a plot.  And characters.  And sufficient free time to write it.  And the ambition to actually make use of that free time.  Should be ready any day now.

In the past couple of weeks, a couple of my writer friends have asked me to look at their works-in-progress, and I was honored that they would consider my eye discerning enough to give an intelligent assessment.  I warned them, however, that they were asking a lot of someone who’d never been published himself. 

“You’ve never been published, Cranky?” one of them said. “But you’re ten times the writer I am.”

“Not true,” I replied. “Eight times, maybe.”

I did – seriously – try to be published once.  Last year, The Washington Post held a contest for a new part-time pundit, and I entered.  Unfortunately I bit the hand that fed me by writing in my author bio, “I picture most pundits reading the morning headlines and thinking, ‘How can I blame {insert politician’s name here}.’”  Then my submission, titled “In Defense of Fat People,” compared diet zealots to the people who try to turn gay people straight, and concluded with the line, “Now excuse me, I hear a danish calling my name.”  I’m shocked – shocked! - that I wasn’t one of the finalists.

Anyhoo, I have a great history of giving useful advice to budding writers. I must look more intelligent than I really am. Here are a few examples.

Back in the mid-1990s, I was traveling in London.  I went into a coffee shop with my daughter and a young woman with a baby carriage came up to me with a manuscript. 

“You’re a parent,” she said.  “What do you think of this?

I read a few pages and tossed it back to her. 

“Wizards?” I yelled.  “Who wants to read about a place with a horrible name like Hogwarts?  Kids don’t want stories with complex plots, they want irreverent stories, full of characters with silly names like Captain Poopydrawers and Seussian rhymes like “weasel” and “dweezil.”  When you rewrite it, add something about vampires. That always sells.”

A few years ago, I was at my Brown family reunion, when my cousin shoved some pages in my hands and asked what I thought.  I read a few pages and sighed. 

“Seriously, Dan,” I explained, “a marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene?  In this political and religious atmosphere?  You will be condemned as blasphemous.  Now if DaVinci was hiding some code about vampires, you might be on to something.” 

Around the same time, my friend Jimmy came up to me with a problem.

“I’ve been writing my memoir,” he explained, “but it seems a tad – what’s the word? – tame.  I’m afraid it won’t sell.” 

“Jimmy, my friend,” I declared. “Problem solved.  Just make crap up.  Who’ll know the difference?  You think someone’s going to bother to check documents to disprove it?  Don’t make me laugh.  And Jimmy is only a name for a newspaper columnist. Now, “James” Frey sounds like a serious writer. As long as you’re making stuff up, could you make up an encounter with a vampire?”

You see, I’ve been interested in books all my life. Every summer, my family would spend time in Vermont, where I’d bond with my bibliophile aunt and cousin. One day when I was 14 – this would have been 1965, please don't do the math – I was browsing in a local bookstore near the New Hampshire border, looking at the fiction section.  A distinguished looking gentleman came up to me, introduced himself as Jerry, and began discussing his favorite writers.

“By the way,” he asked.  “Have you ever read anything by this guy Salinger?” 

“Oh, yeah,” I sneered.  “I read Catcher in the Rye in school this year.  That book sucked ass.” 

Jerry just looked at me with horror, turned on his heel and stormed out of the store, muttering something to the cashier as he left. 

“What did Jerry say to you?” I asked the cashier.

“He said he’d never been so insulted in his whole life,” he replied. “He said he was never going to deal with bookstores for the rest of his life.”

“Gee, that’s too bad,” I said.  “I wanted to ask him if he knew any good stories about vampires.”