August 30, 2005
Before you e-mail to tell me I misspelled Drek, consider this one: RETRY WARM DREK.

Both of those are anagrams for my full name, MARK DREW TERRY, and I got them off a website dubbed Andy's Anagrams, which is a timewasting bit of amusement, for sure.

I've been reading Paul Levine's "Solomon vs. Lord" to review, and I interviewed Paul yesterday (www.paul-levine.com) and anagrams play an amusing role in the book. (which is warm, wonderful, witty, hilarious... and Paul's a very enjoyable interview).

Now, I could take a bounce off "TRY WARMER DREK" because it makes me think it should be a sarcastic response from a book editor or agent. "I read 'Sophomore Slump' with my heart in my throat--largely because I couldn't stop puking during the entire experience. My advice to Mr. Terry after: 'Why don't you become a diesel mechanic or something,' is "TRY WARMER DRECK!"]

Hmmm. Insecure today?

Not really, just the same old bi-polar novelist with a touch of paranoid schizophrenia mixed with delusions of grandeur--you know, the standard personality recipe for a novelist. Of course, throw in an obsessive-compulsive disorder and you've probably got a successful novelist.

It was a lovely interview, and one of the problems with reading Paul's book is that I immediately want to stop writing what I'm writing and try writing something like his books. (To thine own self be true, young Hamlet!) But I did have a sort of plunging, "Oh fuck this novel-writing gig," feel, largely because we ended the interview discussing the difficulties of the publishing biz and how the mass market, er, market is in a painful slump, and Paul, who after writing 7 or 8 seemingly successful novels ditched it all to move to Hollyweird to write for TV, and after the wheels came off that after 7 or 8 years he returned to novel writing only to find it to be a much more difficult place. But he still managed a 4-book contract with Bantam, so I guess he's doing okay. But he agrees that nobody knows why books sell--why some books get promoted and don't sell and some books don't get promoted and do sell...

And at least I woke up this morning thinking that, Hell, it's something to have some books on the shelf that you wrote and were published whether you made your living at it or not. And who knows, as long as I can continue dropping coins in the machine, I'm still in the game, which is something.

And besides, I can always rewarm some dreck.

Best,
Mark Terry