cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is What Success Looks Like Holy shit. The plan is working. Its really working. H@rper Collins is suddenly very interested and is sending someone to my workshop on Saturday. It was already sold out so I had to pull some strings to get her on the list. Meanwhile, there are several celebrity chefs coming, including a winner of the James Beard award, which is a very big deal prize given to authors of food related books. 4 publishers are now in the mix and my agent is doing a brilliant job of managing that end of it. We work together beautifully. The guest list is going to be just as much a boost for me as the actual workshop. When these editors see a bunch of people they recognize from 'Iron Chef' and the pages of Saveur in the room for my workshop then they are going to take me very, very seriously. They are going to see a rapidly rising star who is surrounded by people who are already going to ensure my success through one avenue or another and they will want to get on board. As I have mentioned before, the whole reason why I scheduled this thing in NYC for this particular date was to create editor bait right when my book proposal was being shopped, in order to create a quick feeding frenzy and a situation in which I am being bid on. IT WORKED!!!!!!! IT FUCKING WORKED!!!!! No money in my pocket yet, so I'm not ready to declare victory today. But I am so close to success. And I am really good at this. This whole plan, this series of events, this careful media strategy. I'm really pulling it all off. I think that the lynchpin has been a combination of desperation and tenacity. I have had no other choice but to succeed. If this doesn't work out then I would probably be fucked. Each and every day for the last 6 months or so I have woken up and immediately asked myself what I can do right now on that day in order to win and to advance the plan. I did this because I was (and am) sick with worry about how to feed my children avoid losing my house. Most writers would give their eye teeth to be in my situation right now. I went from nothing to having 4 major publishers jockeying to sign me in only about 6 months. The crazy thing is that 90% of the work had nothing to do with actually writing the books. The writing is easy. I can write a fucking book in my sleep. The really powerful thing that took the most work and plotting was selling myself and my ideas. Creating a personal brand and a general aura of someone who is constantly making fascinating things happen. Most people would have given up by now. Most people would have become either too exhausted to keep it up or they would have been somehow disillusioned by how little the actual content seems to matter as opposed to the packaging and selling of it. There was a time when I would have walked away before getting to this point but I didn't because I literally felt that I had no choice. I am not seeking fame and fortune because I want to be famous or because I am greedy. I am achieving fame and fortune because there are no jobs out there and because this is a matter of my family's survival. I can't think of any other way for us to survive. I have bottomed out so many times I can't even keep track. But desperation saved me every time. A week ago I had more or less given up all hope, but I kept up the work because I was desperate. That is about to pay of handsomely. 9:22 a.m. - 2010-03-10 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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